Womens Sports of the 1960s - Essay Example

Women’s Sports of the 1960s Prior to the 1960’s, U.S. women lived in a society that discouraged girls’ participation in sporting activities and work outside the home. Although they were beginning to appear more and more in sports from a much earlier time, as recently as one generation ago, many women, such as Wendy Strain who lived in a small suburb to a large city, experienced significant discouragement when attempting to participate in physical activity. While there were many forms in which this discouragement came, it all seemed to have a single, or perhaps, dual source. Stereotypical ideas of True Womanhood constrained girls like Wendy into a tightly defined entity in which physical activity was considered too robust a pursuit for a delicate female and negative connotations of the New Woman who was then threatening this Victorian concept further functioned to reduce her available options. To understand how this could be so, Wendy Strain’s life experiences as a child growing up in 1960s suburban Detroit will be related to these social and cultural concepts. Wendy Strain is a 50 year old woman who spent her childhood in a suburb of Detroit in a middle class household with aspirations for greatness. Clinging to the ideals of the gentry of a century earlier, her parents strongly adhered to the concepts of the True Woman. “The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society, could be divided into four cardinal virtues – piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. Put them all together and they spelled mother, daughter, sister, wife – woman. Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achievement or wealth, all was ashes. With them, she was promised happiness and power” (Welter, 1966: 152). According to Poovey (1988), it was by “linking morality to a figure (rhetorically) immune to the self-interest and competition integral to economic success, [the cult] preserved virtue without inhibiting productivity” thus creating a perfect world in which men were free to pursue every material pursuit they wished while women were constrained to remain at home and protect the moral and ethical values of the family unit. A woman could not participate in competitive sport under this ideology not only because it was against the nature of the True Woman to participate in any activity that could not be conducted inside the home, but also because it would have introduced this element of competition that was restricted to the male world. Strain indicates that this ideology was widely held within her community as a young girl. “I was encouraged not to participate in the boys’ games that my brothers and cousins were playing and was actually yelled at the few times I stood in for a missing player, such as playing right field in an impromptu baseball game. In PE class at school, the girls were always given the faulty equipment and encouraged to participate in games like jumping rope, walking or boring calisthenics rather than basketball, climbing ropes or even volleyball” (Strain, 2007). Through Strain’s account, it can be seen that these ideals of the feminine were widespread throughout the middle class northern community, an area designated by Hewitt (2002) as being particularly strong adherents to the ideas of the female as the weaker, purer, calmer sex. Girls who were more interested in participating in physical activity, who just could not seem to confine themselves to the relatively sedate activities that were considered acceptable, were often ostracized and vilified. According to Strain (2007), these girls were the ones who often got into trouble with their teachers and were excluded from the bonds of friendship among the other girls. “There was one girl in particular who I really liked. She was wild and free, didn’t hesitate to pick up a ball and whiz it at a boy who’d just called her a name and was good at just about every sport they played. But the teachers would send her to the office for the slightest offense and my parents wouldn’t allow me to associate with her outside of school even though she lived just two doors down” (Strain, 2007). This girl, and many like her, represented a threatening new idea that was emerging in the 60s even in those areas most affected by the True Womanhood cult, that of the New Woman. “The arrival of a widely heralded ‘athletic girl’ at the turn of the twentieth century brought into sharp relief the incongruities of manly sports and Victorian womanhood. The athletic girl’s enthusiasm for walking, riding, motoring, cycling and playing competitive games crossed over an invisible but nonetheless firm line separating gender stereotypes. By insisting on the right to enjoy sport, the athletic girl also joined the wider demands of the ‘new woman’ of the day who was seeking access to politics and the traditionally male professions” (Rader, 2004: 218). The New Woman was characterized by those individuals, stronger in other areas of the country, who felt the need to throw off the constraints of these Victorian ideals and allow women to strive toward their own development, in whatever format that took. Roberts (2002) explained “some worked diligently to disseminate and enforce these ideals among their sisters. Others used their piety and purity to gain access to public influence and authority. A few directly challenged the cult, for which they were excommunicated from polite society and relegated to the ‘lower orders’ occupied by ‘fallen women,’ female laborers, immigrants and slaves.” These are the attitudes Strain indicates were prevalent among her elders as she was struggling with her own inclinations to hit a baseball or to stand calmly off the field and bat her eyelashes at a favorite player. “We were taught that if we wanted a good husband, we had to behave, and a good husband was the best prize. For me, and I’m sure for many of my friends, though, the urge to break loose and run full tilt into first base was nearly overwhelming. Every once in a while, you just wanted to cut loose and feel what that freedom must be like” (Strain, 2007). Constantly told girls couldn’t hit, catch or run, Strain says any girl who tried was instantly labeled a lesbian and was thus cut out from the rest of the student population by both boys and girls. “Stepping out of line meant giving up any chance at a happy future. It was too big a risk to take and any behavior that could be considered stepping out of line was enough to label you as a bad girl. In spite of that, there were some of us who pushed at the boundaries as far as we could” (Strain, 2007). Although pious and domesticated ladies and young girls were hostages, Hewitt (2002) suggests “they were not passively awaiting their liberator, but were instead cultivating the seeds of destruction that the cult of true womanhood itself had sown.” Both Welter and Hewitt point out that the ideals held dear by the cult were further challenged by outside influences such as westward migration, industrialization, urbanization, evangelicalism, war and the abolition of slavery. Both within and without the cult, women were beginning to rebel against its constraining aspects from early on, whether they realized what they were doing or not. Roberts (2002) illustrates how journalism and the theater worked as a valve through which women were able to explore their more ‘subversive’ thoughts as well as to reach other similar minded women. “Both journalism and theater … gave women access to worlds where they were not subject to the limits imposed on the self by True Womanhood” (Roberts, 2002: 153). For those women who felt the cult was correct in that the True Woman held a special bond with the Supreme Being that enabled her to adhere more closely to the tenets of the traditional belief system, it was a natural extension to feel that it was these individuals who should be heard within the greater community as a force to protect the very home in which she was given dominion. For others, accepting the yoke of the True Woman was a hindrance to their expressing what they felt were equally valid thoughts and ideas, wishing to be able to pursue their limits to the same degree as men without the unnatural restrictions imposed on them by those men. Either way, a contentious relationship was building up between the concept of the True Woman in the home and the New Women in the public sphere in much the same way that girls in Strain’s PE classes were beginning to fight against the faulty equipment and constraining activities in which they were allowed to participate. “We started insisting on using the boys’ basketballs that would actually stay inflated, we ran as fast as we could instead of holding back so the boys could go first. By the time I was in middle school, most of my teachers had resigned themselves to the fact that us girls were no longer content to remain cheering on the sidelines and wanted to be active participants, even though we weren’t lesbians” (Strain, 2007). Because of these early attitudes and experiences, few females of Strain’s generation and community had aspirations of sport as a career path. The women who did pursue their athletic goals were therefore not as advanced as their male counterparts and remained unprepared to take advantage of the new media. Girls’ and women’s sports didn’t receive their first boost until 1972 when Title IX became law. As is proved by the increase in women’s sports participation in athletics since 1972, given the opportunity to play, women and girls are just as interested in athletics as men. In 1971, only one in 27 girls participated in high school sports. By 1998, that figure had increased to one in 2.5 (“Sports Boom”, 2003). Throughout the 1990’s, the number of women competing on NCAA teams increased by 38 percent. By contrast, during the same decade, the number of male NCAA competitors increased by only 9 percent (“Response”, 2002). These sports have continuously grown as the result of more and more women raising their daughters to be involved in sports and encouraging them to actively pursue their physical interests as keenly as they are now encouraged to pursue other interests. “My daughter is point guard on the high school basketball team and a leading member of her school’s cross country team,” Strain said proudly. “She is every inch a girl, but she is her own person, not constrained by outside ideals of what a ‘woman’ should be and I think it makes her all the more attractive.” References Hewitt, Nancy. (2002). “Taking the True Woman Hostage.” Journal of Women’s History. Vol. 14, N. 1, pp. 156-62. Poovey, Mary. (1988). Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rader, Benjamin G. (2004). American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports. Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. “Response to National Wrestling Coaches Association Title IX Suit Against the Educational Department.” January 17, 2002. Women’s Sports Foundation. Available July 18, 2007 from Roberts, Mary Louise. (Spring 2002). “True Woman Revisited.” Journal of Women’s History. Vol. 14, N. 1, pp. 150-55. Strain, Wendy. Face to face interview. (July 18, 2007). “The Women’s Sports Boom.” (2003). National Pro Fast Pitch. Available July 18, 2007 from Welter, Barbara. (1966). “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly. Vol. 18, N. 2, pp. 151-74. Read More