Women And Sport

Over the last 50 years, the struggles to achieve equity in sport have become central to the feminist mission. This book contains an inspiring collection of stories from the women on the front lines: athletes, coaches, educators, and activists for women's sport, who have done so much to foster change. Many of the women profiled here reflect on their tough beginnings in sport: being isolated and unconnected, competing in makeshift settings, training alone, and inadequate equipment. But they also reflect on the joy of movement, teamwork, and competition. These women grew to be remarkable role models and helped to dismantle sexism in sport. To read these stories is to swell with pride over their victories, to empathize with their battles with discrimination, and to become re-energized to confront collectively the many hurdles left to clear.

In Out of Bounds, feminist Helen Lenskyj presents an insightful examination of the links between women's participation in sports and the control of their reproductive capacity and sexuality. She identifies the female frailty myth, the illusion of male athletic superiority and the concept of compulsory heterosexuality as powerful determinants of "masculinity" and "femininity" in the realm of sport. Looking at developments from the 1880's to the 1980's, Lenskyj discusses medical views of women's health and physical potential and examines the social attitudes and practices that keep girls and women from participating in the full range of sports and physical activities. Topics include contact sports, self-defence, fitness, bodybuilding and women-only sport. Photographs, memorabilia and eye-opening information covering 100 years reveals the missing links between women, sport and sexuality.

Study of the past, present, and future of women in sport.

This thoroughly revised collection examines a wide range of gender related issues, all of which contribute to a larger body of knowledge about how gender operates as a key factor in the way sport is played, organized, and funded in Canada.

Acclaimed since its original publication, Coming on Strong has become a much-cited touchstone in scholarship on women and sports. In this new edition, Susan K. Cahn updates her detailed history of women's sport and the struggles over gender, sexuality, race, class, and policy that have often defined it. A new chapter explores the impact of Title IX and how the opportunities and interest in sports it helped create reshaped women's lives even as the legislation itself came under sustained attack.

Although girls and women account for approximately 40 percent of all athletes in the United States, they receive only 4 percent of the total sport media coverage. SportsCenter, ESPN's flagship program, dedicates less than 2 percent of its airtime to women. Local news networks devote less than 5 percent of their programming to women's sports. Excluding Sports Illustrated's annual "Swimsuit Issue," women appear on just 4.9 percent of the magazine's covers. Media is a powerful indication of the culture surrounding sport in the United States. Why are women underrepresented in sports media? Sports Illustrated journalist Andy Benoit infamously remarked that women's sports "are not worth watching." Although he later apologized, Benoit's comment points to more general lack of awareness. Consider, for example, the confusion surrounding Title IX, the U.S. Law that prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program that receives federal financial assistance. Is Title IX to blame when administrators drop men's athletic programs? Is it lack of interest or lack of opportunity that causes girls and women to participate in sport at lower rates than boys and men? In Women's Sports: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Jaime Schultz tackles these questions, along with many others, to upend the misunderstandings that plague women's sports. Using historical, contemporary, scholarly, and popular sources, Schultz traces the progress and pitfalls of women's involvement in sport. In the signature question-and-answer format of the What Everyone Needs to Know® series, this short and accessible book clarifies misconceptions that dog women's athletics and offers much needed context and history to illuminate the struggles and inequalities sportswomen continue to face. By exploring issues such as gender, sexuality, sex segregation, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, media coverage, and the sport-health connection, Schultz shows why women's sports are not just worth watching, but worth playing, supporting, and fighting for.

This is the most comprehensive collection of articles available on women, sport, and culture. The book features 24 selections from various feminist positions that examine the relation between sport and gender.The articles in >Women, Sport, and Culture> serve as a marker of where feminist sport studies has been as a field and a guidepost for what may be the most promising theoretical directions in the future.Part Iintroduces and provides an overview of feminist theories that have examined gender, women, and sport. The articles in the section discuss the complexity of the relations among sport, gender, ideology, bodies, and technology.Part IIaddresses the gendered organizational order of sport and explores the practices through which women in institutionalized sport are managed. The articles inPart IIIrespond to Kenneth Sheard and Eric Dunning`s idea that sport is a male preserve-a site for the production and reproduction of gendered power relations. The section explores how certain practices associated with sport actively degrade women and how women have alternately appropriated and opposed what they perceive to be oppressive and unjust practices.Part IVexamines the role of the media in circulating and legitimizing dominant meanings of sport, women, gendered bodies, and sexuality.Part Vlooks at heterosexism and homophobia in sport.

The subject is rife with social and cultural implications which Guttmann explores as he traces the development of women's sports from antiquity to the present, including the evolution and the revolution in the 20th century and contemporary controversies.