Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women's Sport (Sport and Society) - Softcover

Schultz, Jaime

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9780252079740: Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women's Sport (Sport and Society)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0252079744 ISBN 13: 9780252079740
Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2014

Synopsis

This perceptive, lively study explores U.S. women's sport through historical "points of change": particular products or trends that dramatically influenced both women's participation in sport and cultural responses to women athletes.
 
Beginning with the seemingly innocent ponytail, the subject of the Introduction, scholar Jaime Schultz challenges the reader to look at the historical and sociological significance of now-common items such as sports bras and tampons and ideas such as sex testing and competitive cheerleading. Tennis wear, tampons, and sports bras all facilitated women’s participation in physical culture, while physical educators, the aesthetic fitness movement, and Title IX encouraged women to challenge (or confront) policy, financial, and cultural obstacles.
 
While some of these points of change increased women's physical freedom and sporting participation, they also posed challenges. Tampons encouraged menstrual shame, sex testing (a tool never used with male athletes) perpetuated narrowly-defined cultural norms of femininity, and the late-twentieth-century aesthetic fitness movement fed into an unrealistic beauty ideal.
 
Ultimately, Schultz finds that U.S. women's sport has progressed significantly but ambivalently. Although participation in sports is no longer uncommon for girls and women, Schultz argues that these "points of change" have contributed to a complex matrix of gender differentiation that marks the female athletic body as different than--as less than--the male body, despite the advantages it may confer.

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About the Author

Jaime Schultz is an assistant professor of kinesiology and women's studies at Penn State University.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
University of Illinois Press
Publication date
2014
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0252079744
ISBN 13 
9780252079740
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
304
Rating
  • 4.02 out of 5 stars
    47 ratings by Goodreads

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780252038167: Qualifying Times: Points of Change in U.S. Women's Sport (Sport and Society)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0252038169 ISBN 13:  9780252038167
Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2014
Hardcover