What makes a woman? Cultural expectations would lead one to believe it is her grace, motherly abilities, compassion, beauty, poise, and sexualized body. However, there are many groups that would argue this idea. For example, what words come to mind when thinking about women’s hockey? Perhaps strong, rough, masculine, homosexual, or intimidating, boring, slow or unenticing come to mind. Where do these ideas come from? How, or why, did this attitude towards female athletes come about? The past one-hundred years of women in sport have spurred on criticism from a biological, social and cultural approach leaving an open-ended future with potential for improvements and advancements. At the turn of the twentieth century, women were largely discouraged
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6). The common phrase “separate spheres…[became] …a metaphor for complex power relations in social and economic contexts” (Vertinsky, 1994, p. 6). Separate spheres were soon instilled in sport making any female presence in sport and organization so desired that it was almost considered a threat to male dominion over women. Whereas in past years, men maintained a lasting repression over women using the biological argument of women’s inferiority due to reproductive and sexual characteristics (Vertinsky, 1994, p. 3), they now approached the subject of women in society – and in particular sport – from a social viewpoint. During this time, it was not uncommon for society and different forms of media to reinforce gender appropriate activities. In an evaluation of Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey by Carly Adams, she states that “it has always been easier for women to gain access to those events that are considered to be socially acceptable for women, suitable for the female body, and less threatening to the current definitions of femininity” (2003, p. 147). In this sense, although the biological arguments against women in sport had largely dissipated, the mid-nineteenth century Canadian and North American was so defined by gender and “influenced by socially-constructed conception of the human body” (Park, 1991, p. 35) that it now easily translated into “attitudes regarding exercise, physical education, and sport” (Park, 1991, p. 35). So what did society expect of females? Unsurprisingly, traditional gender roles were quite reinforced at the time. One author stated that “sports seemed to waste force and deter women from motherly duties, strain the female body, and develop traits that did not identify with the ideal of ‘true womanhood’” (Weaving, 2003, p. 160).
6). The common phrase “separate spheres…[became] …a metaphor for complex power relations in social and economic contexts” (Vertinsky, 1994, p. 6). Separate spheres were soon instilled in sport making any female presence in sport and organization so desired that it was almost considered a threat to male dominion over women. Whereas in past years, men maintained a lasting repression over women using the biological argument of women’s inferiority due to reproductive and sexual characteristics (Vertinsky, 1994, p. 3), they now approached the subject of women in society – and in particular sport – from a social viewpoint. During this time, it was not uncommon for society and different forms of media to reinforce gender appropriate activities. In an evaluation of Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey by Carly Adams, she states that “it has always been easier for women to gain access to those events that are considered to be socially acceptable for women, suitable for the female body, and less threatening to the current definitions of femininity” (2003, p. 147). In this sense, although the biological arguments against women in sport had largely dissipated, the mid-nineteenth century Canadian and North American was so defined by gender and “influenced by socially-constructed conception of the human body” (Park, 1991, p. 35) that it now easily translated into “attitudes regarding exercise, physical education, and sport” (Park, 1991, p. 35). So what did society expect of females? Unsurprisingly, traditional gender roles were quite reinforced at the time. One author stated that “sports seemed to waste force and deter women from motherly duties, strain the female body, and develop traits that did not identify with the ideal of ‘true womanhood’” (Weaving, 2003, p. 160).