Women, Sport, and Exercise in the 19th Century

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.

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.”

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.”

Class, religion, fashion, and medicine Fashion

Frederick Barnjum – Montreal What shall we say of girls who, by the conventional rules of society, are debarred from taking more than the semblance of exercise. They have not the same opportunity for romping as boys. Poor little missie must walk home in the most genteel manner possible, perhaps indulging in a softened laugh with some companion – her arms carefully hugged to her sides, motion of the lower extremities only being permitted, added to which her poor little body is in all probability forced in by one of those instruments of death called corsets, binding up the naughty muscles that are begging and praying to be let loose and have an opportunity of strengthening themselves, and the young lady is considered to be in a highly satisfactory condition if she is pale and weak; but no matter, it is the natural thing for girls to be weak…I do not hesitate to say that any young lady placed under the care of an intelligent, well- educated teacher, cannot fail to attain a degree of health which otherwise she never would have dreamed of.

Indian Clubs

The Bicycle

Anti-masturbation rhetoric

Pierre de Coubertin 1912 “We feel that the Olympic Games must be reserved for men…We must continue to try to achieve the following definition: the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism with internationalism as its base, loyalty as a means, art for its setting, and female applause as reward” “We feel that the Olympic Games must be reserved for men…We must continue to try to achieve the following definition: the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism with internationalism as its base, loyalty as a means, art for its setting, and female applause as reward”

The Matchless Six: Bell, Smith, Cook, Rosenfeld, Thompson, Catherwood

Canadian women-- “Matchless Six”: 2 Gold, 1 Silver, and 1 Bronze

The Canadian women’s team leaving for Amsterdam

L-R: Bell, Cook, Smith, Rosenfeld

Toronto World 1924

Bobbie Rosenfeld

1966

1950—Canada’s Female Athlete of the Half-Century

Bobbie Rosenfeld Feminine Sports Reel Globe & Mail ( ) Alexandrine Gibb in Toronto Daily Star, “No Man’s Land of Sports” ( ) Phyllis Griffiths in Toronto Telegram, “The Girl and the Game” ( )

Montreal Daily Star

1.6 meters not beaten by a Cdn til 1954 Ethel Catherwood “Saskatoon Lily”

Maxwell Stiles - Los Angeles Examiner (1932) “The Canadian girls are undoubtedly the prettiest and most wholesome looking group of girls who have arrived for the competition. They constitute a denial of the general idea that a woman athlete must be built like a baby grand piano and have a face like a hatchet. Their ages range from 16 to 21, and they are here to show the world that Canada has some splendid young women who are good- looking and who know how to conduct themselves.”

Avery Brundage (IOC President ) “I think women’s events should be confined to those appropriate for women - swimming, tennis, figure skating, and fencing, but certainly not shot-putting”

Edmonton Commercial Graduates Basketball Team

Coach, manager, promoter Percy Page Feeder system – juniors, boys Regional, national, international A traveling women’s team

1915

1932

1940

Shooting Stars National Film Board of Canada (1993)