A LETTER WAS READ AT THE RANDWICK COUNCIL MEETING IN 1933 PROTESTING THE DISPLAY OF YOUNG WOMEN WHO MARCHED ON THE BEACH AT THE LADY GAME CUP COMPETITION.
I wondered why a Broken Hill newspaper carried this story about Sydney’s beach girls. Following Mina Wylie (the Claremont champion swimmer and winner of the Silver Medal at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games) Doris McIver went on to be the leader of the Randwick Women’s Beach team which competed with several Sydney beach teams for the Lady Game Cup from 1932. Dressed demurely in a one-piece costume, Doris proudly carried the flag for the Randwick Beaches Team and was criticised for the evil of showing too much skin, alongside hundreds of women from other teams and up to 40,000 onlookers when the competition was held on various Sydney beaches. The acrimonious debate went on throughout the 1930s. It signaled the rise of modernity and practical feminism: the power of women to compete in sports previously confined to men and the right of women to enhance their fitness, health and beauty. Beach culture and women’s swimwear became hot topics as the black heavy woollen swim attire gave way to stylish, colourful and practical costumes. The letter read out at Randwick Council, comparing women on show with animals at the Royal Easter Show was illuminating. (see the Barrier Miner, Broken Hill, 8 Feb. 1933, p 1.)
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Vic Branson
