Societal Pressures of Athletic Women

When Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano set out to write Playing with the Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports (see below) in 2008, their goal was to challenge a male-dominated sports culture after years of very few women doing so. Even with Title IX in 1972 and Billie Jean King’s monumental win over Bobby Riggs in 1973, women still feared playing sports and performing well because of what society would think of them: “Actual performances of female athletes has been handicapped by cultural messages dissuading women from competing. Bold women have historically challenged barriers. They are the few, however” (McDonagh and Pappano, 36). Amidst a hailstorm of negative messages surrounding women in sports, women during the 1970s set out to change the image of what it meant for females to be athletes.

Women who excelled at sports were perceived as freakish.

Women who excelled at sports were perceived as anomalous.

Women who excelled at sports were perceived as eccentric.

The 1987 edited volume From Fair Sex to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization of Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras, edited by J.A. Mangan and Roberta Park features a number of articles on the history of women in sports, illustrating that athletic excellence was in fact possible for women only at the risk of being considered a freak. The ability for women to be accepted as athletic stars was dependent on “the emergence of a strong ideology which could counter the prevalent one,” according to Kathleen McCrone (85). Championship talent for women was considered a social challenge because women would have to violate the widely held notions of female “anatomy and destiny” (Mrozek, 289). Women were supposed to have smaller, weaker bodies.

Male athletes were often treated as freakish, anomalous, and eccentric as well (Mrozek, 287). However, their acceptance of these stigmas accelerated at a much faster rate than that of women (as exemplified in the quote to the right). These male athletes were glorified for their success, while a woman was considered a “tomboy” or a “lesbian.” As Janice Kaplan writes in Women and Sports, it seemed clear that girls had babies to show they were women while men had footballs to prove they were men.

How did women go about changing this stigma? They put their nose down and steered straight into the stereotypical onslaught of what it meant to be a female athlete. 

To get involved in sport, women began to accept their female identity while remaining a top athlete. To blur these lines, Renee Richards (a professional tennis player during the 70s) unintentionally intimated that women in sports are not only girls, but also full of masculine impulses. She says, “We’re proud to be women and don’t want anyone questioning our sex” (Kaplan, 95). Women learned that the best way to survive and excel in sports culture was to flaunt their sexuality, realizing that their male counterparts could never take this away from them.

Women began to realize how playing sports would change their lives, following the message that sports can bring joy to their lives. Getting involved in sports, for women, soon became more than a symbolic assertion of female vigor and possibility. Sports became motivation for women to achieve anything in life. Once a woman did the impossible in sports, why not do it in everything else in life? Women started to love themselves and get in touch with their feminine energy.

With this newfound respect and realization of the powerful impact of sports, women began to get involved and get to the top of sports. By 1978, three of the top five women listed as “Most Admired” in Seventeen magazine were athletes – a major change from the late sixties when actresses dominated the female scene (Kaplan, 49). Mothers during this time, who grew up in a different era where sports were not meant for women, began to realize the massive impact of sports as well. One mother quoted this about her daughter playing tennis: “She’s not the best one out there and she’ll never win a fortune, but tennis is going to make her a real person. She’s learning to take the hard knocks as well as the breaks. What more can I want from sports for my girl?” (Kaplan, 173). The photo above from Kaplan’s book illustrates this idea as well (Kaplan, 200).

During the 1970s, a new society for women began to form for women in sports, one where playing sports with the men could change one’s life.

 

 

 

Sources:

Kaplan, Janice. Women and Sports. Viking Press, 1979.

McCrone, Kathleen. “Play up! Play up! And Play the Game! Sport at the Late Victorian Girls’ Public Schools.” From ‘Fair Sex’ to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization of Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras, edited by J. A. Mangan and Roberta J. Park, Routledge, 1987, pp. 97-129.

McDonagh, Eileen, and Laura Pappano. Playing with the Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal in Sports. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Mrozek, Donald. “The Amazon and the American ‘Lady’: Sexual Fears of Women as Athletes.” From ‘Fair Sex’ to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization of Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras, edited by J. A. Mangan and Roberta J. Park, Routledge, 1987, pp. 282-298.