Women and Physical Activity: A Historical Journey


	"Our mothers are amazed. We're winning racquetball tournaments, running marathons, swimming miles before work, and climbing mountains with our bikes. We're exercising in larger numbers than any previous generation of women. Finally our time has come to share in the joys and exhilaration of excelling, achieving, and transforming our self-image through sport."
	--The Bodywise Woman by Judy Mahle Lutter & Lynn Jaffee

Join us on an enlightening and interactive look at the strides women have made throughout history to gain equality in physical activity and competitive sports as discussed in The Bodywise Woman. Test your knowledge as we take you through an abbreviated historical journey that illustrates the perspectives and social norms of the times. It will shock and amaze you. But above all, we hope to inspire you to appreciate of how far women have come and to have faith in how far they can go.
	1. In the nineteenth century a middle- or upper-class woman's "true womanhood" was defined as passive, frail, delicate and soft; the keeper of a calm and peaceful household.
	2. In the 1900's a woman could enjoy a leisurely swim at the beach without having to hide her body beneath layers of clothing.
	3. When the suffrage movement gained momentum, middle-class women sought entrance into colleges and fought for the right to enter the all-male bastions such as Cornell and Harvard.
	4. As women gained entrance into colleges, participating in sports was encouraged and physical educators urged women to become more competitive.
	5. The invention of the bicycle around the year 1870 proved to be a contributing force in helping change societal norms. Riding bicycles became an acceptable form of physical activity for women.
	6. World War I brought about the necessity for women to work in factories and support the war effort. Physical exercise was highly discouraged so women would have more energy to devote to their laborious jobs.
	7. Colleges began creating women's sports teams for intercollegiate competition as women's sports gained in popularity after the first world war and into the 1920's.
	8. During the 1960's women were given the right to compete in all team sporting events in the Olympics.
	9. In 1972 a landmark decision impacted collegiate athletic programs which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs that received federal funds.
	10. Over the past two decades, research in the medical community indicates that physical activity is beneficial to both men and women.
	Answers
	1. In the nineteenth century women in the middle- and upper-class were put on a moral pedestal. The "true woman" was pure, delicate, frail and passive. Her main purpose in life revolved around home and hearth, providing a refuge for her husband whereby he could come home and forget the worries and struggles of the world outside. A woman could only belong to this leisure class by attaching herself to a man. Therefore, it was critical that Victorian women were attractive at all times. This societal belief came at a high price. Using corsets to give the illusion of tiny, delicate waists, women could reduce their waist size from 2-8 inches. This form of binding created an average of 21 pounds of pressure on the internal organs, restricting blood flow and displacing internal organs. It was not uncommon for women to miscarry babies because of tightly laced corsets. In extreme cases, a woman's uterus could actually collapse and be forced through her vagina. On to next question
	2. Because Victorians believed the body was indecent, society came up with a way for women to swim at a public beach without exposing herself. "A woman would enter a wooden box on the beach and change into a full-length dress that was somewhat more comfortable, but certainly not more revealing, than her usual wardrobe. The wooden box would then be rolled into the water, where, beyond the eyes of the public, she could emerge and dunk herself." On to next question
	3. Middle-class women began to seek ways to improve themselves as the absurdity and contradictions of the "woman's place" in society was restricting their freedom as well as their physical activity. As women entered institutions of higher learning, society considered it as a great experiment. Many believed that the rigors and stress of college would prove too much for the frail female gender. "As Dr. Edward H. Clarke said in his widely read tract called Sex in Education, or a Fair Chance for the Girls, the female system is not able to do two things well at once. He subscribed to a popular belief that the body was like a miniature economy and that various parts of the body were competing for a limited pool of resources. When a woman studied, he explained, blood would be diverted to her brain, robbing essential organs of a precious life force. The organ that was in direct competition with the brain, of course, was the uterus. Clarke's book, which was so popular it had to be reprinted 17 times, warned that higher education would cause a woman's uterus to atrophy." On to next question
	4. Physical educators believed that their primary purpose was to "safeguard the feminine, moral nature of their students and keep them from falling prey to the treacheries of competition." The physical educators felt that competition bred aggressiveness and encouraged individual excellence, which was not in line with the innocent role of women in society. It was feared that once a woman was deemed an athletic star, she would be helpless against commercial exploitation such as being offered scholarships or people paying to see her perform. As one physical educator of the time noted, "The development of aggressive characteristics added nothing to charm and usefulness, and were not in harmony with the best traditions of the sex." It was argued that women should worry about looking pretty rather than winning. On to next question
	5. With the large number of women riding bicycles, fashion standards began to relax. Bloomers, which were considered outrageous 50 years before, became acceptable attire on a bike as well as in other public places. By the year 1896 an estimated four million riders were using bikes for transportation and exercise. Of course, there were still the skeptics. Some insisted that bicycle riding "would induce sexual sensations, driving virtuous women to prostitution." And still others argued that bike seats "would be harmful to women's reproductive organs." The difference this time was that women didn't listen. Instead, they donned their bloomers, rode their bikes, and continued to have healthy babies. On to next question
	6. Quite the opposite. As women entered the work force to support the war effort, the medical community encouraged exercise as an antidote to the long hours and poor working conditions in most factories. Employers began introducing recreation and sports teams in an effort to encourage physical activity among their workers, women included. On to next question
	7. As female sporting activities were gaining popularity in the world at large, female physical educators were still trying to keep women from competitive activity. "In 1923, the Woman's Division of the National Amateur Athletic Federation passed a platform that shrunk what few opportunities there were for women to compete against their counterparts at other colleges. Citing men coaches, unchaperoned travel arrangements, questionable uniforms, and the inappropriate use of women in sport advertising as the reasons for curtailing intercollegiate competition." Instead of competitive sports, schools adopted "play days." A concept that would bring women from multiple colleges together for a day of recreational and sporting activities. Activities included relays, net ball, hockey, swimming, and basketball with each team being composed of women from different schools. This tactic was supposed to allow the girls to get to know one another without breeding a competitive spirit. Frequent breaks for juice and cookies were taken to prevent the players from overexerting themselves. According to the University of California Women's Athletic Association, the play days allowed women to "carry away a feeling of group loyalty and unmarred fellowship," which was more important than excelling as an individual. On to next question
	8. "Women were still being excluded from may sports in the Olympics such as pole vaulting, weight lifting, high hurdles, and all team sports except volleyball. In her 1965 book Connotations of Movement in Sport and Dance, Eleanor Metheny theorized that women were being excluded because society didn't want women competing in sports with the potential for body contact and the need to physically subdue an opponent. Once again, men were busy protecting women's reproductive organs and femininity!" On to next question
	9. Title IX meant that schools could "no longer deny women the right to facilities, budgets, coaches, and uniforms. However, it did not say that institutions had to match men's and women's programs dollar for dollar, nor was it intended to benefit just women. Under Title IX, men could also lobby to form teams that hadn't often existed in a school, such as men's field hockey or volleyball." On to next question
	10. Over the past 20 years, the medical community has confirmed that physical activity is a critical component of fitness and health for both sexes. "More research has been done on exercise in the past decade than in all previous decades combined, and much of it has shown that women are capable of exercise and benefit from it in the same ways that men do."