Female Sports And The Objectification of Women

We watched with excitement the US Women winning the World Cup on Sunday, but then I was slightly confused with the imagery as the medals were being brought in:

So we just saw some of the best athletes in the world competing, who also happen to be women, and we cap it off by having skinny, predominantly white, women come out in black, tight, slinky, cocktail dresses with stiletto heals. Who exactly thought this would be a good idea?  Can we say disconnect?

On the good side, since they were walking on artificial turf there was therefore no possibility that their heals were going to sink into the ground and at least the Mountie carrying the trophy was a woman.

I have two daughters and I want them to have the same opportunities to compete and to excel as anyone else.  But when we see this, and we hear about the huge disparity between money for the men's and women's World Cup, we realize just how far we have yet to go.