Woman in sport research

The first wave (1830’s – early 1900’s): Women’s fight for equal contract and property rights

Often taken for granted, women in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, realized that they must first gain political power (including the right to vote) to bring about change was how to fuel the fire. Their political agenda expanded to issues concerning sexual, reproductive and economic matters. The seed was planted that women have the potential to contribute just as much if not more than men.

The second wave (1960’s-1980’s): Broadening the debate

Coming off the heels of World War II, the second wave of feminism focused on the workplace, sexuality, family and reproductive rights. During a time when the United States was already trying to restructure itself, it was perceived that women had met their equality goals with the exception of the failure of the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (which has still yet to be passed).

Misconceptions…

This time is often dismissed as offensive, outdated and obsessed with middle class white women’s problems. Conversely, many women during the second wave were initially part of the Black Civil Rights Movement, Anti Vietnam Movement, Chicano Rights Movement, Asian-American Civil Rights Movement, Gay and Lesbian Movement and many other groups fighting for equality. Many of the women supporters of the aforementioned groups felt their voices were not being heard and felt that in order to gain respect in co-ed organizations they first needed to address gender equality concerns.

Women cared so much about these civil issues that they wanted to strengthen their voices by first fighting for gender equality to ensure they would be heard.

The third wave (1990’s – present): The “micropolitics” of gender equality

Today and unlike the former movements, the term ‘feminist’ is received less critically by the female population due to the varying feminist outlooks. There are the ego-cultural feminists, the radicals, the liberal/reforms, the electoral, academic, ecofeminists… the list goes on.

The main issues we face today were prefaced by the work done by the previous waves of women. We are still working to vanquish the disparities in male and female pay and the reproductive rights of women. We are working to end violence against women in our nation as well as others.

The term postfeminism (alternatively rendered as post-feminism) is used to describe reactions against contradictions and absences in feminism, especially second-wave feminism and third-wave feminism.

Even in the early years of the modern Olympics, women were not well represented (consequently a rival Women's Olympics was held). Women participated for the first time at the 1900 Paris Games with the inclusion of women's events in lawn tennis and golf. Women's athletics and gymnastics debuted at the 1928 Olympics.

One of the women who made it far in the sport known as Golf was Glenna Collett. She won many golf championships in the twenties, 1922, 1925, 1928, 1929, and even into the thirties she won championships. She was a member of the Golf Hall of Fame. She was also a member of the United States Curtis Cup team, she had been the captain. She was presented as a female leader, however was not hugely famous and like most woman in sport at the time there is little information about her.
The first women to achieve full Olympic staus were Female Swimmers of the 1920's. Ethelda Bleibtrey held the world record in the 100-yard backstroke when the female swimming was added to the Olympics. The only three events able to compete were the 100 meter and 300 meter freestyles and the 4 by 100 meter freestyle relay. Ethelda took part in all three events. She also won gold medals in all events. She was presented as a very talented female athlete who worked hard.
Alice Coachman Davis (November 9, 1922 – July 14, 2014) was an American athlete. She specialized in high jump and was the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
Womans sports achievements
1928- Woman finally compete in olympic track and field events.
1931- Virne Mitchell, pitcher, becomes the first woman in professional baseball. 
1943-The All American Girls' Baseball League was formed to fill ballparks emptied by baseball players going to war.

1952-Women and men compete together in Olympic equestrian events.

1969-Diane Crump rides onto Hialeah Racetrack and becomes the first woman to ride in a United States parimutuel race. The next year she would become the first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby.
1971-Women finally get the official nod to play five-player, full-court basketball.
1983-Tamara McKinney becomes the first American female skier to win the Alpine World Cup overall championship
1991-The United States soccer team wins the first Women's World Cup.
2007-The Wimbledon tennis tournament announces that it will pay women and men equal prize money for the first time.
2015-Jen Welter becomes the NFL's first female coach, hired by the Arizona Cardinals.





WOMAN IN SPORT

All feminist theory start from the perspective that gender identity is significant. 
Society is based on patriarchy, which facilitates male dominance. This domination is based on ideological and coercive forms of social control.
The aim is to highlight social injustice against woman, and to try to challenge and change this.

First Wave Feminism

Pre 1960s (19th Century): Liberal

Context

Women were confined to the domestic sphere, denied the right to their own property, to study or to participate in public life.

Key Issue

•The first wave feminism was concerned with establishing of equal rights for women in particular political and legal rights

•Right to vote – suffragette, right to work  (formal legal equalities), property right; mostly the win

•The right of all adult women in Britain to vote was won in 1928

Liberal Feminism 

   Liberal feminism argues that equality can be brought about through legal reform.

They advocate attempting to change the existing system ‘from within’ – lobbying and protesting to bring about change.

Liberal feminism tends to see the problem in terms of male prejudice against women, embodied in the law or expressed in the exclusion of women from particular areas of life.

The results of these activities include the 1970 Equal Pay Act and 1969 Divorce Reform Act 

Second Wave Feminism

1960s – 1970s: Marxist (Socialist)/Radical

Context

•It is a response to the experiences of women after WW2.

•Women had gained legal equality however still faced de facto discrimination.  

Key Issues

•Focused on the struggle for equal pay, equal rights at work and equal representation in political bodies as well as liberation from male oppression.

•Issues such as abortion, rape, domestic violence and child care were concerns of second wave feminists.

•Moves away from 1st wave in women should not aspire to masculine ideals

•Discussion on popular culture expressing concerns about the ways in which women/girls are represented.

Third Wave Feminism

1980s – Present Day: Postmodern/Black/Third World/Queer Theory

Context

Third wave feminist seek to give a voice to a whole range of marginal and previously ‘silenced’ groups in society.

Key Issues

●Third-wave feminism challenges the second wave's "essentialist" definitions of femininity. Instead they argue there are a variety of femininities.

●Sees 2nd wave overemphasizing the experiences of upper middle-class white women.

●Challenging gender boundaries

●A celebration of sexuality with broader definitions of what sex means and its relationship to power.

Post-Feminism

•Post-feminism encourages consumerism and celebrates the idea of a powerful woman who no longer needs to be part of a movement to establish her rights and equality to men.

Post-feminists argue that women should be able to express themselves however they want and in a variety of different ways.

Post-feminism is about having fun with consumerism and popular culture and raising an awareness of the fact that all forms of femininity are a social construct.    

Theories of representation - Stuart Hall 

´The idea that representation is the production of meaning through language, with language defined in its broadest sense as a system of signs

´The idea that the relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes

´The idea that stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits

´The idea that stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power, as subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as different or ‘other’ (e.g. through ethnocentrism).

Feminist theory - Liesbet van Zoonen

´The idea that gender is constructed through discourse, and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context

´The idea that the display of women’s bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture

´The idea that in mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body.

Feminist theory - bell hooks

´The idea that feminism is a struggle to end sexist/patriarchal oppression and the ideology of domination

´The idea that feminism is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle choice

´The idea that race and class as well as sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited, discriminated against or oppressed.

Theories of gender performativity - Judith Butler

´The idea that identity is performatively constructed by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results (it is manufactured through a set of acts)

´The idea that there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender

´The idea that performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and a ritual.

Theories of identity - David Gauntlett

´The idea that the media provide us with ‘tools’ or resources that we use to construct our identities

´The idea that whilst in the past the media tended to convey singular, straightforward messages about ideal types of male and female identities, the media today offer us a more diverse range of stars, icons and characters from whom we may pick and mix different ideas.