Women, Sport, and Exercise in the 19th Century

1
Women, Sport, and Exercise in the 19th Century
2

• Male/female men/women
• Gender

3

• MASCULINITY the images, ideas, and symbols
  traditionally defined as belonging to the male
  sex.
• FEMININITY the images, ideas, and symbols
  traditionally defined as belonging to the female
  sex.

4

• Gender polarity
• Social values
• Medicine
• Religion
• Education
• sexuality

-Social reform the middle class -Industrial
revolution -Disease -The bicycle -universities
5
Factors

• Social Values
• Kingston Gazette April 28, 1812
• an exercise which allowably beneficial to the
  health when practiced in the proper place, loses
  that merit when a delicate girl mounts a lofty
  and dangerous swing just after leaving a warm tea
  room, and at that hour of all others when the
  chilly dew is most prejudicial to even a strong
  constitution.

6
Compounding issues

• New France, cottage industries, small factories,
  farms
• vs. the urban middle class

7
Middle class values

• The family
• Public man
• Creating and sustaining polarities
• Disease, health, and the new doctor
• The help of science and medicine (perceived
  physiological differences)
• Menstruation disability hysteria the
  internal and eternal wound
• Vital energy
• Controlling womens bodies

8
British Medical Journal 1867

• As a body who practise among women, we have
  constituted ourselves, as it were the guardians
  of their interests, and in many cases the
  custodians of their honour. We are, in fact, the
  stronger and they the weaker. They are obliged to
  believe all that we tell them and we, therefore,
  may be said to have them at our mercy.

9
Womanhood and reproduction

• Bearing children for nation
• Exercise interferes with reproduction
• Boys vs. girls
• Spectatorship class

10
Fashion

• Body and sexuality
• Women as moral arbiters
• Men must be controlled
• Fashion and exercise/ sport
• Bathing, bodies

11
Class, religion, fashion,and medicine
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
The Bicycle

• The split skirt Bloomers
• Public exercise
• Public relationships
• Exercise - critics

18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)
24
Resistance and Change

• Education - Egerton Ryerson
• Boys and girls

25
(No Transcript)
26
(No Transcript)
27
(No Transcript)
28

• Frederick Barnjum Montreal
• Universities
• Mens clubs
• 1890s golf, tennis, swimming, basketball

29
(No Transcript)
30
Summary

• Gender polarity
• Social values
• Medicine
• Religion
• Education
• sexuality