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Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women's Sport
This perceptive, lively study explores U.S. women's sport through historical "points of change": particular products or trends that dramatically influenced both women's participation in sport and cultural responses to women athletes.
Beginning with the seemingly innocent ponytail, the subject of the Introduction, scholar Jaime Schultz challenges the reader to look at the historical and sociological significance of now-common items such as sports bras and tampons and ideas such as sex testing and competitive cheerleading. Tennis wear, tampons, and sports bras all facilitated women’s participation in physical culture, while physical educators, the aesthetic fitness movement, and Title IX encouraged women to challenge (or confront) policy, financial, and cultural obstacles.
While some of these points of change increased women's physical freedom and sporting participation, they also posed challenges. Tampons encouraged menstrual shame, sex testing (a tool never used with male athletes) perpetuated narrowly-defined cultural norms of femininity, and the late-twentieth-century aesthetic fitness movement fed into an unrealistic beauty ideal.
Ultimately, Schultz finds that U.S. women's sport has progressed significantly but ambivalently. Although participation in sports is no longer uncommon for girls and women, Schultz argues that these "points of change" have contributed to a complex matrix of gender differentiation that marks the female athletic body as different than--as less than--the male body, despite the advantages it may confer.
Beginning with the seemingly innocent ponytail, the subject of the Introduction, scholar Jaime Schultz challenges the reader to look at the historical and sociological significance of now-common items such as sports bras and tampons and ideas such as sex testing and competitive cheerleading. Tennis wear, tampons, and sports bras all facilitated women’s participation in physical culture, while physical educators, the aesthetic fitness movement, and Title IX encouraged women to challenge (or confront) policy, financial, and cultural obstacles.
While some of these points of change increased women's physical freedom and sporting participation, they also posed challenges. Tampons encouraged menstrual shame, sex testing (a tool never used with male athletes) perpetuated narrowly-defined cultural norms of femininity, and the late-twentieth-century aesthetic fitness movement fed into an unrealistic beauty ideal.
Ultimately, Schultz finds that U.S. women's sport has progressed significantly but ambivalently. Although participation in sports is no longer uncommon for girls and women, Schultz argues that these "points of change" have contributed to a complex matrix of gender differentiation that marks the female athletic body as different than--as less than--the male body, despite the advantages it may confer.
- GenresSportsNonfictionFeminism
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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March 23, 2015
One of the most frustrating turns of phrase in history writing is the ‘event X changed the course of history’, as if history had some pre-ordained pathway. This kind of approach, with its ‘big bang’ transformation of destiny couldn’t be further away from the model of historical development Jaime Schultz deploys in this excellent history of the ordinary in US women’s sport. The approach is built around and inspired by the feminist historian Gerda Lerner’s question: “What are the points of change in women’s historical experience by which we might periodize the history of women?” and is explores ways in which much that we now take for granted as the banal, sports’ mundane, become so: the premise here is that some stage the now-ordinary was new. It is a subversive and exciting way to think about how we do history, and especially how we do history for those with less, little or no social power and therefore ability to shape the narrative of construct the periodization (one of history’s basic organising tools).
Before I go any further and in the interests of transparency I have to acknowledge that Jaime is a dear friend, I merit an acknowledgement “for amity” and we’ve spent many a long hour solving the problems of the world, at various places around the world. Having said that, I note that not only is this a superb piece of sports history, it should be picked up in gender history circles and be picked up and widely used by social historians more generally.
Why the praise? There is a dominant story we tell ourselves about sports history that is the product of both popular and academic sport history writing. At the heart of that story is a masculine enclave – modern sport – that has grown and developed in a logical and consistent manner associated with the growth of mass participation, the emerge of sports civic and commercial institutions, with the impact of various media forms (since the late 18th century) and taking account of national and cultural variations. Many of the key moments and the time periods that we use to shape this history are drawn from other phenomena and more importantly are very much shaped by the experiences of men in this enclave where historically women have been excluded or, and this is more the case now, viewed with suspicion. Let’s not fall into the trap of thinking women are not currently excluded – some of sports’ most élite institutions have major problems with women in their ranks: the Marylebone Cricket Club only agreed to admit women members in 1998, 212 years after it was formed, while women were admitted to Augusta National Golf Club only in 2012; Saudi Arabia was one of three countries to include women in their Olympic teams for the first time in 2012, and in their case only one of the two was Saudi based, the other was a US college student. What is more, women’s sport participation still falls well below men’s and shows an inverse class relation with far more middle class than working class women involved and women from minority ethnic groups under-represented.
The case is built around seven aspects of women’s sport, some of which may seem a little surprising given the linear, celebratory narrative we often have of the growth of sport and especially women’s involvement. These aspects are: the tennis dress (or rather suitable clothing for tennis), the development and acceptability of the tampon, debates over the appropriate forms of or balance between competition or mass participation in women’s sport, sex testing, discourses of a beauty ideal emerging as a backlash against increases in women’s sports participation, the emergence and development of the sports bra and competitive cheerleading (or Acrobatics and Tumbling as it is also known). In each case and in different ways, elements of these aspects of sport are ordinary, banal, mundane, but were not always so. The story of tennis clothing not unknown, but is here explored through attention to national, race, class and body issues. The relation between the development of the tampon as an alternative to pads and cloth resulted in debate across sporting, scientific and medical circles from the mid-1930s, and the gradual adoption of the tampon as a way to manage menarche – the scandalous, or at least the contest waged by forces of science and morality, was made banal by the choices and preferences of women athletes. One of the things that may surprise many readers is the relative lack of attention to Title IX, often presented in discussions of US women’s sport as THE moment when it all changed; it is not that Title IX is disregarded, it is just that it is presented as a much more complex question and as part of a more diverse set of changes.
The crucial thing about these seven areas of analysis is that they do not indicate a linear or even always progressive set of changes between a ‘retrograde’ past and ‘post-feminist’ present; if anything, they show times of change that benefit women followed by changes that are a set-back. Take the ‘sports revolution’ of the 1970s when there was a rapid increase in US women’s sports participation alongside a series of planned and structured changes to enhance competitive sport for girls and women: a time that many would say saw progressive change and improvement. This was then followed by the discourse of the body-beautiful associated with the fitness craze of the 1980s, the growth of aerobics as a practice gendered female and a reassertion of the woman athlete as eroticised figure. Similarly, the emergence of more opportunity for competitive sport for women also saw the previously women-run sport and exercise networks incorporated into national male-dominated leagues and organisations such as the NCAA, which may be connected to a rapid decrease in the number of women in sports administrative leadership and coaching roles. This, then, is a history of women’s sport marked by progress and regression, success and failure.
There is a welcome attention to issues of class, race and ethnicity throughout that further critiques the myth of linear progress. For instance, a combination of the incorporation of women’s college sports into the NCAA, a good thing for competitive sport, combined with desegregation of higher education, a good thing all round, meant the disappearance from high profile sporting success of the formerly dominant Tennessee State University ‘Tigerbelles’ from college track and field, which is not necessarily a good thing for African-American women’s élite sport. Throughout, and often fairly unobtrusively, there is a clear case made that a new image of US women’s sport favours the white, middle class, while women’s sport is clearly secondary to men’s.
Not long after it was published the book reviewed by the New York Times (a rarity for an academic sports book – well, for a sports book) quite harshly, mainly because it is an academic title. It is well written, much better than most academic books, and accessible (and I spotted only two typos so well produced also) but it is an academic text so readers not used to this genre should take their time – but it will be worth it. In addition, the illustrations are very good and well used.
This is a fantastic book. It is an example of those histories of women in sport that get beyond the élite performers, that disrupt the masculinst mode that we write in because it is the taken for granted, that get into the ordinary factors that shape women’s sporting experiences are just what we need to open up more space for revisionist analyses and so that history is no longer shaped only by those with power or the loudest voices: this is exactly what this does and the model it provides. What sets it apart from those titles is two-fold. First, it explores the banal and the mundane, the things that are so taken for granted that we often do not notice them but that were once new and radical (these are what Sarah Fields refers to in the blurb as ‘the commonplace’). The point of the argument is that through a focus on these things we can explore sports history in ways that unsettle our takens-for-granted but that also illuminate sport history. Second, in adopting this approach, focussed on ‘points of change’ the case suggests different ways to periodise sports history, different ways of framing and making sense of sports history that takes account of the ways that women athletes experienced sport and exercise. These are valuable and important moments of revision and reconsideration, and show the use of sharp insight into and critique of our conventions.
Would that we had more scholarly work of this kind: very highly recommended. And make sure you read the final endnote.
Before I go any further and in the interests of transparency I have to acknowledge that Jaime is a dear friend, I merit an acknowledgement “for amity” and we’ve spent many a long hour solving the problems of the world, at various places around the world. Having said that, I note that not only is this a superb piece of sports history, it should be picked up in gender history circles and be picked up and widely used by social historians more generally.
Why the praise? There is a dominant story we tell ourselves about sports history that is the product of both popular and academic sport history writing. At the heart of that story is a masculine enclave – modern sport – that has grown and developed in a logical and consistent manner associated with the growth of mass participation, the emerge of sports civic and commercial institutions, with the impact of various media forms (since the late 18th century) and taking account of national and cultural variations. Many of the key moments and the time periods that we use to shape this history are drawn from other phenomena and more importantly are very much shaped by the experiences of men in this enclave where historically women have been excluded or, and this is more the case now, viewed with suspicion. Let’s not fall into the trap of thinking women are not currently excluded – some of sports’ most élite institutions have major problems with women in their ranks: the Marylebone Cricket Club only agreed to admit women members in 1998, 212 years after it was formed, while women were admitted to Augusta National Golf Club only in 2012; Saudi Arabia was one of three countries to include women in their Olympic teams for the first time in 2012, and in their case only one of the two was Saudi based, the other was a US college student. What is more, women’s sport participation still falls well below men’s and shows an inverse class relation with far more middle class than working class women involved and women from minority ethnic groups under-represented.
The case is built around seven aspects of women’s sport, some of which may seem a little surprising given the linear, celebratory narrative we often have of the growth of sport and especially women’s involvement. These aspects are: the tennis dress (or rather suitable clothing for tennis), the development and acceptability of the tampon, debates over the appropriate forms of or balance between competition or mass participation in women’s sport, sex testing, discourses of a beauty ideal emerging as a backlash against increases in women’s sports participation, the emergence and development of the sports bra and competitive cheerleading (or Acrobatics and Tumbling as it is also known). In each case and in different ways, elements of these aspects of sport are ordinary, banal, mundane, but were not always so. The story of tennis clothing not unknown, but is here explored through attention to national, race, class and body issues. The relation between the development of the tampon as an alternative to pads and cloth resulted in debate across sporting, scientific and medical circles from the mid-1930s, and the gradual adoption of the tampon as a way to manage menarche – the scandalous, or at least the contest waged by forces of science and morality, was made banal by the choices and preferences of women athletes. One of the things that may surprise many readers is the relative lack of attention to Title IX, often presented in discussions of US women’s sport as THE moment when it all changed; it is not that Title IX is disregarded, it is just that it is presented as a much more complex question and as part of a more diverse set of changes.
The crucial thing about these seven areas of analysis is that they do not indicate a linear or even always progressive set of changes between a ‘retrograde’ past and ‘post-feminist’ present; if anything, they show times of change that benefit women followed by changes that are a set-back. Take the ‘sports revolution’ of the 1970s when there was a rapid increase in US women’s sports participation alongside a series of planned and structured changes to enhance competitive sport for girls and women: a time that many would say saw progressive change and improvement. This was then followed by the discourse of the body-beautiful associated with the fitness craze of the 1980s, the growth of aerobics as a practice gendered female and a reassertion of the woman athlete as eroticised figure. Similarly, the emergence of more opportunity for competitive sport for women also saw the previously women-run sport and exercise networks incorporated into national male-dominated leagues and organisations such as the NCAA, which may be connected to a rapid decrease in the number of women in sports administrative leadership and coaching roles. This, then, is a history of women’s sport marked by progress and regression, success and failure.
There is a welcome attention to issues of class, race and ethnicity throughout that further critiques the myth of linear progress. For instance, a combination of the incorporation of women’s college sports into the NCAA, a good thing for competitive sport, combined with desegregation of higher education, a good thing all round, meant the disappearance from high profile sporting success of the formerly dominant Tennessee State University ‘Tigerbelles’ from college track and field, which is not necessarily a good thing for African-American women’s élite sport. Throughout, and often fairly unobtrusively, there is a clear case made that a new image of US women’s sport favours the white, middle class, while women’s sport is clearly secondary to men’s.
Not long after it was published the book reviewed by the New York Times (a rarity for an academic sports book – well, for a sports book) quite harshly, mainly because it is an academic title. It is well written, much better than most academic books, and accessible (and I spotted only two typos so well produced also) but it is an academic text so readers not used to this genre should take their time – but it will be worth it. In addition, the illustrations are very good and well used.
This is a fantastic book. It is an example of those histories of women in sport that get beyond the élite performers, that disrupt the masculinst mode that we write in because it is the taken for granted, that get into the ordinary factors that shape women’s sporting experiences are just what we need to open up more space for revisionist analyses and so that history is no longer shaped only by those with power or the loudest voices: this is exactly what this does and the model it provides. What sets it apart from those titles is two-fold. First, it explores the banal and the mundane, the things that are so taken for granted that we often do not notice them but that were once new and radical (these are what Sarah Fields refers to in the blurb as ‘the commonplace’). The point of the argument is that through a focus on these things we can explore sports history in ways that unsettle our takens-for-granted but that also illuminate sport history. Second, in adopting this approach, focussed on ‘points of change’ the case suggests different ways to periodise sports history, different ways of framing and making sense of sports history that takes account of the ways that women athletes experienced sport and exercise. These are valuable and important moments of revision and reconsideration, and show the use of sharp insight into and critique of our conventions.
Would that we had more scholarly work of this kind: very highly recommended. And make sure you read the final endnote.
December 10, 2016
In Qualifying Times, Dr. Jaime Schultz traces the history of women’s sports in the United States from the late 19th century to the present. Schultz, an assistant professor of kinesiology and women’s studies at Penn State University, breaks down the path of women’s sports, which has been far overshadowed by men’s sports. Women have been whole sale barred, or when they have excelled at sports, they have had either special rules for women-segregated games, or entirely different sports which are supposed to serve as an equivalent to men’s sports. Almost nowhere have sports not been segregated by gender either by rule or by practice, mirroring occupational gender segregation. Schultz seeks to expose the hidden history of involvement in sports by women and the development of girls and women in institutionalized sports play.
She accomplishes this through seven thematic chapters that explore points of change within women’s sports which are: 1) early women’s tennis fashion 2) the acceptance of the commercial tampon 1936-1952 3) growth of pushing educators to include girls participation in the right kind of competitions 4) the pushback of international athletic associations policing of what exactly constituted a woman through sex testing 5) the revolution of women’s sports in the 1970s followed by the 1980s backlash which focused on appearance and bodies 6) the widespread acceptance of the commercial sports bra by the 1990s 7) legitimization of cheerleading as a competitive sport though with resistance from women’s sports advocates and members of the cheer community. The introduction opens the book with a cultural look at the politics of the ponytail, which symbolizes the heterosexual feminine athlete who is athletic yet still a woman, which are signifiers of women’s sports that excludes lesbians and black women on the surface. Lesbians are common in women’s sports, as opposed to open gay men in men’s sports, which is nearly nonexistent. On the other hand, hair that is not straight and stringy, like afros, does not easily fit into ponytails. How did we get to the point where the ponytail, as symbolized on logos to media discourse on women athletes, become a symbol of femaleness in American athletics? While not typical for historians to open with a theoretical sociological discussion on present day cultural norms, since Schultz comes from a multidisciplinary background such as women’s studies, she can frame the book in discussions of history using methods outside of traditional history methodology. As much of the book tends to focus on how society had a hard time accepting women’s bodies in playing sports and lagged behind in designing sports equipment for women athletes, it makes sense opening on the ponytail as a symbol of women’s athletic play.
After the introduction, in the first chapter Schultz breaks down the history of US women’s sport starting in the 19th century, by looking at women’s tennis fashions. Since tennis was one of the few sports where it was acceptable for women to play even with men, even if it was highly segregated by class and race. Tennis was a forebearer for general women’s athletics, as it was an early adopter of the “bloomer” dress that allowed for greater movement than corsets. Stockings still enabled shorter dresses and lighter shoes, even as there was pushback to make the dresses more feminine. Tennis fashion spread to other sports women played like softball, basketball, swimming, and more.
The second chapter looks at one of the greater technological inovations in women’s health, which is the invention of the commercial tampon. Susan Brownmiller, a feminist author and journalist, remarked that “It’s not easy to play the jock with a bloody cloth between one’s legs.” Schultz remarks that the tampon enabled women to more closely control their menstrual cycle, and women athletes helped legitimize the tampon as a freedom of movement at all times, even when menstruating. While the tampon was invented in 1936, it took until 1952 for medical establishment to certify it as safe and acceptable for the public. Athletes had a big part in that acceptance, since they were early adopters of its use, combatting the “menstrual disability”. It was among the first times in modern history that women’s menstruation was openly acknowledged as tampons gained advertising space in mainstream magazines.
In chapter three, Schultz looks to the competition clinics of the 1960s, enabled by the widespread use of tampons which shifted attitudes about women’s sports, to encourage mass play by girls. This was intern helped by both the Division for Girls and Women’s Sports which ran women’s sports in colleges, and the US Olympic Committee, who realized that in the context of the Cold War that US women’s athletics lagged seriously behind Communist countries. These clinics brought about a consensus on the need to integrate athletics for girls, which in turn brought athletics to millions of girls in the education system. It set up nicely the following explosion of women’s athletics in the 1970s. However, in chapter 4, Schultz looks at international athletic federations, especially the Olympics, moves to quell anxiety about “manliness” of women athletes and competition through sex testing and policing who is a woman and who is not. This helped define femininity as a necessary component for any acceptance of women’s athletics. Women athletes could not be too big or have too many muscles.
In chapter five, Schultz then moves across the rise of women’s sports in the 1970s, in which Title IX enabled equal funding of women’s sports even with many exceptions, and the mass partipication and growth of women’s collegiate and professional leagues, with unabashed women athletes like Billy Jean King. This rise met a backlash in Reagan’s America, as what Naomi Wolf terms “the beauty myth” criticized women athlete’s bodies and appearance, as well as piecemeal battles for protection of women’s athletics. Women would have to toe the line of being heterosexual and feminine if they wanted acceptance in larger sports world. At the same time, there was a shift towards personal individual exercise by women, as symbolized by the aerobics boom of home videos and individual fitness.
Chapter 6 furthers that history, which had seen women’s sports begin to stagnate in the backlash of the 1980s again grow with the widespread acceptance of the sports bra, which minimized breast movement in exercising. It also signified more of an acceptance of women as menstruating breasted people as opposed to previous efforts to hide both. This furthers Schultz’s themes about the slow and clumsy acceptance of women’s bodies in athletics, as prior to the sports bra, women would improvise by binding their breasts with towels, wearing swim wear, or other tightening. The sports bra itself signaled workout fashion as a way for women to show health and unpologietically show female body types. The sports bra also helped women’s sports play up sexiness in order to sell the sports, with skimpy outfit requirements in sports like tennis, volleyball, and other sports.
Finally, chapter seven looks at the push for acceptance of cheerleading as more than an auxiliary of men’s sports, but as an athletic competition on its own. The epigible argues that the gains in women’s sports has been uneven, as 3/4th of white girls play sports, while only 1/3rd of black girls play. While men’s and women’s collegiate sports have similar rates of partipation, men’s sports receive far more coverage. Finally, when Michelle Smith, a softball great, became a commentator on MLB’s Sunday Night Baseball, some of the public reaction was incredibly sexist.
Overall, the books themeantic exploration of the battle for the right of women to participate in what has traditionally been masculine men’s institutions. The challenge of women’s athletics have altered the way we see women over the 20th century to the present. As a history, Schultz’s work is very valuable and I appreciate her focus on cultural trends in regards to gender. She states in the introduction that her focus is on women’s history, or putting women at the center of the history, which makes sense, since there are plenty of gender history of masculinity in the sports. Still, I would have liked to see more on the history of segregating sports by gender/sex and the overall effects that has had on women athletes and attitudes about women in sports. Will women ever play in “regular” men’s leagues and how would that shift the perception of women’s athletics as inferior games? Playing With The Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal In Sports by Eileen MacDonald and Laura Pappano, and more specific history of segregation of softball and baseball in Jennifer Ring’s Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball are good follow-up reads to this book’s more body focused argument.
She accomplishes this through seven thematic chapters that explore points of change within women’s sports which are: 1) early women’s tennis fashion 2) the acceptance of the commercial tampon 1936-1952 3) growth of pushing educators to include girls participation in the right kind of competitions 4) the pushback of international athletic associations policing of what exactly constituted a woman through sex testing 5) the revolution of women’s sports in the 1970s followed by the 1980s backlash which focused on appearance and bodies 6) the widespread acceptance of the commercial sports bra by the 1990s 7) legitimization of cheerleading as a competitive sport though with resistance from women’s sports advocates and members of the cheer community. The introduction opens the book with a cultural look at the politics of the ponytail, which symbolizes the heterosexual feminine athlete who is athletic yet still a woman, which are signifiers of women’s sports that excludes lesbians and black women on the surface. Lesbians are common in women’s sports, as opposed to open gay men in men’s sports, which is nearly nonexistent. On the other hand, hair that is not straight and stringy, like afros, does not easily fit into ponytails. How did we get to the point where the ponytail, as symbolized on logos to media discourse on women athletes, become a symbol of femaleness in American athletics? While not typical for historians to open with a theoretical sociological discussion on present day cultural norms, since Schultz comes from a multidisciplinary background such as women’s studies, she can frame the book in discussions of history using methods outside of traditional history methodology. As much of the book tends to focus on how society had a hard time accepting women’s bodies in playing sports and lagged behind in designing sports equipment for women athletes, it makes sense opening on the ponytail as a symbol of women’s athletic play.
After the introduction, in the first chapter Schultz breaks down the history of US women’s sport starting in the 19th century, by looking at women’s tennis fashions. Since tennis was one of the few sports where it was acceptable for women to play even with men, even if it was highly segregated by class and race. Tennis was a forebearer for general women’s athletics, as it was an early adopter of the “bloomer” dress that allowed for greater movement than corsets. Stockings still enabled shorter dresses and lighter shoes, even as there was pushback to make the dresses more feminine. Tennis fashion spread to other sports women played like softball, basketball, swimming, and more.
The second chapter looks at one of the greater technological inovations in women’s health, which is the invention of the commercial tampon. Susan Brownmiller, a feminist author and journalist, remarked that “It’s not easy to play the jock with a bloody cloth between one’s legs.” Schultz remarks that the tampon enabled women to more closely control their menstrual cycle, and women athletes helped legitimize the tampon as a freedom of movement at all times, even when menstruating. While the tampon was invented in 1936, it took until 1952 for medical establishment to certify it as safe and acceptable for the public. Athletes had a big part in that acceptance, since they were early adopters of its use, combatting the “menstrual disability”. It was among the first times in modern history that women’s menstruation was openly acknowledged as tampons gained advertising space in mainstream magazines.
In chapter three, Schultz looks to the competition clinics of the 1960s, enabled by the widespread use of tampons which shifted attitudes about women’s sports, to encourage mass play by girls. This was intern helped by both the Division for Girls and Women’s Sports which ran women’s sports in colleges, and the US Olympic Committee, who realized that in the context of the Cold War that US women’s athletics lagged seriously behind Communist countries. These clinics brought about a consensus on the need to integrate athletics for girls, which in turn brought athletics to millions of girls in the education system. It set up nicely the following explosion of women’s athletics in the 1970s. However, in chapter 4, Schultz looks at international athletic federations, especially the Olympics, moves to quell anxiety about “manliness” of women athletes and competition through sex testing and policing who is a woman and who is not. This helped define femininity as a necessary component for any acceptance of women’s athletics. Women athletes could not be too big or have too many muscles.
In chapter five, Schultz then moves across the rise of women’s sports in the 1970s, in which Title IX enabled equal funding of women’s sports even with many exceptions, and the mass partipication and growth of women’s collegiate and professional leagues, with unabashed women athletes like Billy Jean King. This rise met a backlash in Reagan’s America, as what Naomi Wolf terms “the beauty myth” criticized women athlete’s bodies and appearance, as well as piecemeal battles for protection of women’s athletics. Women would have to toe the line of being heterosexual and feminine if they wanted acceptance in larger sports world. At the same time, there was a shift towards personal individual exercise by women, as symbolized by the aerobics boom of home videos and individual fitness.
Chapter 6 furthers that history, which had seen women’s sports begin to stagnate in the backlash of the 1980s again grow with the widespread acceptance of the sports bra, which minimized breast movement in exercising. It also signified more of an acceptance of women as menstruating breasted people as opposed to previous efforts to hide both. This furthers Schultz’s themes about the slow and clumsy acceptance of women’s bodies in athletics, as prior to the sports bra, women would improvise by binding their breasts with towels, wearing swim wear, or other tightening. The sports bra itself signaled workout fashion as a way for women to show health and unpologietically show female body types. The sports bra also helped women’s sports play up sexiness in order to sell the sports, with skimpy outfit requirements in sports like tennis, volleyball, and other sports.
Finally, chapter seven looks at the push for acceptance of cheerleading as more than an auxiliary of men’s sports, but as an athletic competition on its own. The epigible argues that the gains in women’s sports has been uneven, as 3/4th of white girls play sports, while only 1/3rd of black girls play. While men’s and women’s collegiate sports have similar rates of partipation, men’s sports receive far more coverage. Finally, when Michelle Smith, a softball great, became a commentator on MLB’s Sunday Night Baseball, some of the public reaction was incredibly sexist.
Overall, the books themeantic exploration of the battle for the right of women to participate in what has traditionally been masculine men’s institutions. The challenge of women’s athletics have altered the way we see women over the 20th century to the present. As a history, Schultz’s work is very valuable and I appreciate her focus on cultural trends in regards to gender. She states in the introduction that her focus is on women’s history, or putting women at the center of the history, which makes sense, since there are plenty of gender history of masculinity in the sports. Still, I would have liked to see more on the history of segregating sports by gender/sex and the overall effects that has had on women athletes and attitudes about women in sports. Will women ever play in “regular” men’s leagues and how would that shift the perception of women’s athletics as inferior games? Playing With The Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal In Sports by Eileen MacDonald and Laura Pappano, and more specific history of segregation of softball and baseball in Jennifer Ring’s Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball are good follow-up reads to this book’s more body focused argument.
February 5, 2023
The book is at its best when anchored to a physical topic like clothing, bows, tampons, sports bras, etc as it can otherwise become somewhat meandering. Very well researched but unfortunately also falls prey to the overuse of dry academic writing - somewhat blunts the effect of the some of the points by wrapping it in unnecessary byzantine word mazes. (at times had to psych myself up to continue to soldier through) Would be intrigued to see what Dr. Schultz has seen change in the intervening decade between now and publication.
May 8, 2019
meh read for class. preferred messenger
January 27, 2021
Might also be required reading.
Want to read
February 15, 2023Read relevant chapters of this for comps and thesis
July 7, 2014
(4.0) Good stuff, not really "points" of change though, more threads through time...which I think is better
I was actually at Rose Bowl for the Women's World Cup Finals in which the US won in PKs, after which Chastain tore off her shirt in celebration. Didn't think a thing of it, was excited the US won. Was sad to see so much made of the sports bra afterwards. Fitting I guess that Schultz chose this image for the cover (or did she?) because it was such a missed opportunity to give the US women the attention they deserved (for athletic performance, that is).
Not sure I see the title as apt, but that's fine, because I think it's cooler that she took certain things, concepts, items and traced them through the history of US women's sport (e.g. the sports bra, the tampon, the 'athletic is beauty' theme).
She does start to reach for 'academic' writing by constructing some awkward sentences with questionable word choice (see my first status update). But for some reason those seemed to be concentrated in the chapters about sports bras (only two). Go figure.
She had some cool sub-themes of treatment of African American women and gay women (and heteronorm influence on women's sports, images sports want to portray (ponytails, bows, 'feminine' looks in volleyball and golf) throughout. These are likely subjects of books on their own, but were relevant additions here.
I thought the tampon chapter wasn't so much about sport. Initially allowed freer participation and marketing used sporting women but sports decided to deemphasize because menstruation was taboo. Then it was a history of the tampon, sport kind of got left behind. She does point out that even to this day, athletic organizations try to steer away from the tampon for sponsorships. Billy Jean and the splinter women's tennis tour weren't afraid though.
Some raw notes/tidbits of interest:
* US women's tennis was 5-set matches before 1902! Then reduced to best of 3 sets. Wha?
* Into 60s de-emphasizing seriousness of competition, avoid mistakes of male sports...very paternalistic. NCAA and others strove to keep competition down, prize money down because didn't want women to have to go through what men did (but it was too late for male athletes, I guess).
* Woah. Pierre de coubertin, father of modern Olympics, opposed women participating. They were I capable of handling rigors of sport
* Sex testing: so many exceptions to any rules (XX vs XY vs XXY vs X-), androgen levels, androgen insensitivity. An indignity is that some of these can be "corrected", implying freakdom for outliers.
* page 125: disagree with immediate interpretation of the second TIME magazine cover. Sounds like it's that beauty moving toward the athletic look, rather than athletes only being prized for looks. That said, feels like we've since regressed on both counts (tennis--skirts still essentially required?, beach volleyball, sticks for models are we past the heroin addict look yet?). Interesting: she claims that this trend actually hurt competitive women's sport?
* page 156: 90s (?) international volleyball federation set restrictions on women's volleyball attire. Shirts "must follow the body line". Max inseam 5cm and cut at least 30 degree angle from top of leg. Basically minimum sex appeal requirements. Had no idea it came from the sport's organizing body (vs sponsors).
* Sports bra originally by women for women to help exercise. Quickly co-oped and marketing shifted to the aesthetic appeal: bra about shape and look and image, not making It easier perform/compete/exercise
I was actually at Rose Bowl for the Women's World Cup Finals in which the US won in PKs, after which Chastain tore off her shirt in celebration. Didn't think a thing of it, was excited the US won. Was sad to see so much made of the sports bra afterwards. Fitting I guess that Schultz chose this image for the cover (or did she?) because it was such a missed opportunity to give the US women the attention they deserved (for athletic performance, that is).
Not sure I see the title as apt, but that's fine, because I think it's cooler that she took certain things, concepts, items and traced them through the history of US women's sport (e.g. the sports bra, the tampon, the 'athletic is beauty' theme).
She does start to reach for 'academic' writing by constructing some awkward sentences with questionable word choice (see my first status update). But for some reason those seemed to be concentrated in the chapters about sports bras (only two). Go figure.
She had some cool sub-themes of treatment of African American women and gay women (and heteronorm influence on women's sports, images sports want to portray (ponytails, bows, 'feminine' looks in volleyball and golf) throughout. These are likely subjects of books on their own, but were relevant additions here.
I thought the tampon chapter wasn't so much about sport. Initially allowed freer participation and marketing used sporting women but sports decided to deemphasize because menstruation was taboo. Then it was a history of the tampon, sport kind of got left behind. She does point out that even to this day, athletic organizations try to steer away from the tampon for sponsorships. Billy Jean and the splinter women's tennis tour weren't afraid though.
Some raw notes/tidbits of interest:
* US women's tennis was 5-set matches before 1902! Then reduced to best of 3 sets. Wha?
* Into 60s de-emphasizing seriousness of competition, avoid mistakes of male sports...very paternalistic. NCAA and others strove to keep competition down, prize money down because didn't want women to have to go through what men did (but it was too late for male athletes, I guess).
* Woah. Pierre de coubertin, father of modern Olympics, opposed women participating. They were I capable of handling rigors of sport
* Sex testing: so many exceptions to any rules (XX vs XY vs XXY vs X-), androgen levels, androgen insensitivity. An indignity is that some of these can be "corrected", implying freakdom for outliers.
* page 125: disagree with immediate interpretation of the second TIME magazine cover. Sounds like it's that beauty moving toward the athletic look, rather than athletes only being prized for looks. That said, feels like we've since regressed on both counts (tennis--skirts still essentially required?, beach volleyball, sticks for models are we past the heroin addict look yet?). Interesting: she claims that this trend actually hurt competitive women's sport?
* page 156: 90s (?) international volleyball federation set restrictions on women's volleyball attire. Shirts "must follow the body line". Max inseam 5cm and cut at least 30 degree angle from top of leg. Basically minimum sex appeal requirements. Had no idea it came from the sport's organizing body (vs sponsors).
* Sports bra originally by women for women to help exercise. Quickly co-oped and marketing shifted to the aesthetic appeal: bra about shape and look and image, not making It easier perform/compete/exercise
February 14, 2017
Despite the interesting subject matter, incredibly dry and not very engaging. As far as history texts go, would not recommend.
July 22, 2014
Full review to be posted on www.sportsbookguy.blogspot.com January 2. This was a good acadamia book on women's sports in the context of feminism, gender equality and sexuality. The topics used to address the broader question of where women stand in the world of sports include ponytails, tampons, sports bras and gender testing. A wide range of topics that make this a very interesting read.
I thank NetGalley for providing an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review
I thank NetGalley for providing an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review
July 30, 2014
I have read many books about women's sports history yet I still enjoyed this because the story was told though a unique perspective: how equipment and policies were points of change in women's sports. Loved the chapter on tampons and sports bras-especially because they included photos of old ads.
The writing got a bit too academic at times, but I think women's sports fans would enjoy this history of some of our struggles and triumphs.
The writing got a bit too academic at times, but I think women's sports fans would enjoy this history of some of our struggles and triumphs.
January 21, 2019
This changed the way I looked at women's sports - and the general conversation around the "achievement gap" between men's and women's divisions - forever. It should absolutely be included in any discussion around how we treat gender and sports.
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October 31, 2014796.082 S3874 2014
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