Women, Sport, and Exercise in the 19th Century

Male/female: men/women Gender

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.

Gender polarity Social values Medicine Religion Education sexuality -Social reform: the middle class -Industrial revolution -Disease -The bicycle -universities

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.”

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

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 women’s bodies

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.”

Womanhood and reproduction Bearing children for nation Exercise interferes with reproduction Boys vs. girls Spectatorship – class

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

Class, religion, fashion,and medicine

The Bicycle The split skirt – Bloomers Public exercise Public relationships Exercise - critics

Resistance and Change Education - Egerton Ryerson Boys and girls

Frederick Barnjum – Montreal Universities Men’s clubs 1890s: golf, tennis, swimming, basketball

Summary Gender polarity Social values Medicine Religion Education sexuality