1st Edition
Sport and the Emancipation of European Women The Struggle for Self-fulfilment
Sport and the Emancipation of European Women: the Struggle for Self-fulfilment explores the contributions of European women to the emancipation of women worldwide. It expands understanding of the need for their attitudes and actions and celebrates their achievements in freeing the female body from unwarranted political, cultural and social restraint in the courageous pursuit of the Enlightenment 's ' secular value system: ‘the unity of mankind and basic personal freedoms and {a} world of tolerance, knowledge, education and opportunity' (from Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World, 2004).
The Collection records the pulling down of European barriers via sport to women’s realisation of ability and release of talent and their conquest of crushing inhibitions, inexcusable irrationality, intolerable prejudice and denial of opportunity : no barriers came down without confrontation.
The struggle to overthrow prejudice set for the first time in the context of recent European history and the recent evolution of European sport, is described in this pioneering Collection. It is the first publication to focus specifically on European women and their struggle for emancipation via sport.
This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.
Foreword 1. Prologue: Atalanta as Symbol of European Sportswomen 2. Emancipation Through Sports: Doctors and the Rise of the Female Body in Finland c.1900–1920 3. Projection of Male Fantasies: The Creation of ‘Scientific’ Female Gymnastics 4. The ‘Floating Baroness’ and the ‘Queen of the Skis’ 5. The Development of the Female Scouting Movement: Evidence of Female Emancipation in Italy 6. From Women’s Exclusion to Gender Institution: A Brief History of the Sexual Categorisation Process within Sport 7. Women in Weapon Land: The Rise of International Women’s Fencing 8. The Sports Woman as a Cultural Challenge: Swedish Popular Press Coverage of the Olympic Games during the 1950s and 1960s 9. Breaking Down the Sex Barrier: The Emancipation of Female Modern Pentathlon in West Germany (1967–1981) 10. Women’s Sport in Portugal from 1974 (the ‘Carnation Revolution’) to 2000 11. Sport as a Cultural Model: Italian Women’s Soccer over the Past Ten Years 12. Epilogue: Heritage, Progression, Regression and Advance!
Biography
Gigliola Gori, doctoral degree in Göttingen, Germany, is professor at the "Carlo Bo" University of Urbino, Italy. Her recent publications focus on the history of P. E. and Sport in connection with politics, medicine, literature, education, dance and gender, in the 19th and 20th centuries. Author of numerous articles and several books, she is co-founder and fellow of CESH, and Honorary Member and Vice-president of ISHPES.
J.A. Mangan, Emeritus Professor, University of Strathclyde, FRHS, FRAI, D. Litt.l is Founding Editor of the International Journal of the History of Sport and the series Sport in the Global Society, author of the globally acclaimed Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School, The Games Ethic and imperialism and 'Manufacturing' Masculinity: Making Imperial Manliness, Morality and Militarism and author or editor of some forty studies of politics, culture, and sport.
