Exercise in the Female Life-Cycle in Britain, 1930-1970 (Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics) - Hardcover

Macrae, Eilidh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1137583185 ISBN 13: 9781137583185

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Synopsis

This book examines how adolescence, menstruation and pregnancy were experienced or ‘managed’ by active women in Britain between 1930 and 1970, and how their athletic life-styles interacted with their working lives, marriage and motherhood. It explores the gendered barriers which have influenced women’s sporting experiences. Women’s lives have always been shaped by the socially and physically constructed life-cycle, and this is all the more apparent when we look at female exercise.  Even self-proclaimed ‘sporty’ women have had to negotiate obstacles at various stages of their lives to try and maintain their athletic identity. So how did women overcome these obstacles to gain access to exercise in a time when the sportswoman was not an image society was wholly comfortable with? Oral history testimony and extensive archival research show how the physically and socially constructed female life-cycle shaped women’s experiences of exercise and sport throughout these decades.

About this title

About the Author

Eilidh Macrae is Lecturer in Sport Development at the University of the West of Scotland, UK.  She is a social researcher with interests in community sport, and has published work on nineteenth- and twentieth-century sport and gender history.

From the Back Cover

This book examines how adolescence, menstruation and pregnancy were experienced or ‘managed’ by active women in Britain between 1930 and 1970, and how their athletic life-styles interacted with their working lives, marriage and motherhood. It explores the gendered barriers which have influenced women’s sporting experiences. Women’s lives have always been shaped by the socially and physically constructed life-cycle, and this is all the more apparent when we look at female exercise.  Even self-proclaimed ‘sporty’ women have had to negotiate obstacles at various stages of their lives to try and maintain their athletic identity. So how did women overcome these obstacles to gain access to exercise in a time when the sportswoman was not an image society was wholly comfortable with? Oral history testimony and extensive archival research show how the physically and socially constructed female life-cycle shaped women’s experiences of exercise and sport throughout these decades.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1137583185
• ISBN 13: 9781137583185
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 265