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“Afraid Neither of a Little Fatigue Nor of a Little Exertion”: Victorian Sportswomen, Women’s Rights, and the Normalization of Physical Activity

Winner, Upper Level Humanities
Author: Julien Sheppard

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While women’s rights remained a politically charged topic, women’s initial involvement in sports was a delicate attack on the domestic image of wives and daughters. The “angel in the house” was interested in more than simply the private sphere;^[1] she wanted to exercise. And so, she should, as many of the era would argue, not only for her benefit, but for the benefit of her future children. By the mid Edwardian era, images of women practicing sports became commonplace, but not without heavy initial resistance. The gradual acceptance of women in sports opened the door for the further development of women’s rights in all aspects of their lives. For middle-class late Victorian women, leisure time not only became an acceptable concept, but “an integral part of the[ir] identity.”^[2] Women, both married and single, took part in sports such as cycling, tennis, golf and croquet. In this paper, I will examine the history of the development of women’s sports in Britain which led to physical activity eventually being recognized as a suitable outlet for women. I will also discuss how periodicals, specifically popular British publication Punch, and Bernarr MacFadden’s Beauty and Health, contributed to the normalization of women’s sports. By promoting body autonomy, clothing reform and increased mobility and freedom, physical exercise subtly contributed to the women’s rights movement.

            During the nineteenth century, British patriarchal values became reinforced with the popular image of the Victorian family. While not every woman was adhering to the ideal image of womanhood, the popular rhetoric of the day actively shamed women who stepped outside of the box or were forced out of necessity to do so. Working-class wages were not high enough to support single-income families, requiring women to find employment in order to keep their families afloat.^[3] Growing steadily in number since the industrial revolution, the British middle-class became responsible for “shaping ethical norms and cultural standards in nineteenth century Britain,”^[4] claiming moral superiority. Women were to be self-sacrificing, supportive figures who catered to their large, respectable families. Responsible for child-rearing and the home, women dominated the private sphere, while men provided financially for the family in the public sphere.^[5] Head of household management, women were to ensure the home was a “symbol of stability and tranquility,”^[6] while following strict rules governing social status. These stereotypes left little room for a woman’s sense of self, her life devoted to her husband and children. Coverture ensured the loss of a woman’s individualism upon marriage, as she became one with her husband in the eyes of the law.^[7] In 1870, the Married Women’s Property Act, arguably the most substantial step in abolishing coverture and emancipating women in the nineteenth century, allowed married women to own property separate from their husbands.^[8] In the case of a divorce, women were able to hold onto any properties they had solely purchased. Women also had the right to “earnings in any trade or occupation carried on separately from her husband,”^[9] giving women the right to their own disposable income.

For the first time in British history, married middle-class women could have a sense of security and more importantly, a sense of self, a concept many women were unfamiliar with. Sports also contributed to this new sense of self, as women felt their “individual goals and desires awakened by participation in sport”.^[10] Women with goals independent of their domestic duties were precisely what middle-class Victorian society feared the most. In the fight against women’s sports, late Victorian medical practitioners used pseudoscientific theories to uphold the patriarchal norm, citing menstruation as the cause of women’s natural aversion to physical activity. Maternity being women’s “obligation to society,”^[11] many medical professionals argued against women’s participation in exercise, worried the nation’s birth rate was at risk. Activity that undermined a woman’s position as the maternal figure was a threat to the very core of conservative Victorian values and Britain as a whole. As such, the acceptability of physical exercise took time and became entwined with the image of the New Woman, a radical new take on a woman’s potential. While the New Woman was an exciting concept, the beginning of the evolution of women’s sports focused on preserving the traditional image of the Victorian woman.

In the 1870’s, middle-class families shifted their attitudes towards women’s education, deciding it was necessary for young women to be formally educated in order to understand societal expectations. Having already connected the idea of mental health and fortitude to physical health with boys, many schoolgirls were exposed to physical education.^[12] Schoolchildren exercising in groups would become a precursor to organized sports, as many team sports for women began in boarding schools and universities. The increase in educated women directly influenced the growing interest in many different women’s sports. Women’s hockey was popularized in universities, eventually moving to public schools. By 1899, over 52 clubs across Britain were affiliated with the Women’s Hockey Association, first established at Newnham College, Cambridge.^[13] With the potential to be overly physical, female hockey players took care to protect their image, following rules and conducting themselves in a “respectable demeanor on and off the hockey pitch”.^[14] After watching from afar through their husbands, golf became popular among privileged women after 1885. Women’s golfing clubs, albeit begrudgingly, began being permitted occasional access to male facilities. Linked to respectability, golf was associated with having an excess of time and money, increasing its acceptability among middle-class women. With the founding of the “Ladies Golf Union in 1890,”^[15] the number of female golfers began to increase rapidly. Lacrosse, cricket, basketball, and many others followed suit in their slow, but steady development into the realm of permitted sports for women, gaining popularity around the turn of the century. The development of sports education for women made a significant impact on participants. Having been exposed to sports during their youth, women in the late nineteenth century were not ready to settle down into selfless domesticity. Thus, the push for active leisure time, so characteristic of the middle-class, began.

In the summer of 1895, a new obsession took hold of Britain as the main form of physical activity for middle-class women. Women began regularly cycling to parks, in order to practice and show off their newfound skills.^[16] Despite being widely embraced, medical professionals were still discrediting cycling, again using pseudoscience about potential physical abnormalities to scare women away from the sport. Meanwhile, progressive doctors encouraged cycling for its health benefits, and women were forced to contend with mixed information and advice. As dresses could still be worn during use, albeit somewhat dangerously, and many women adopted methods to ensure ankles were not shown during riding, cycling was not solely reserved for adventurous women. Cycling changed the image of an active woman and the sheer quantity of participants forced late Victorian society to accept the new activity. During a time when middle-class women were confined to the domestic sphere, cycling offered access to the outside world. Women’s only cycling clubs were organized as acceptable means of leisure, enabling women access to time away from the home among women with similar mindsets. Cycling for women represented freedom, exercise and mobility, concepts that many women were not able to realize prior to the cycling movement and of which implementation contributed heavily to the idea of increased rights for women.^[17]

Another way sports helped prepare for later women’s rights demonstrations was through clothing reform. In a society where the body, especially the female body, was seen as something private and even shameful, calls for clothing reform were particularly scandalous. Clothing served to restrict women physically, in order to restrain them from accomplishing anything other than playing a supporting role in their husband’s lives. Victorian fashion reduced women’s goals to martial ambition and “psychologically and physically rendered them subordinate to men”.^[18] If clothing made women physically unable to participate in the male-dominated world of sports, then perhaps women would simply stick to sports deemed feminine enough for female participation. However, this was not the case and clothing adaptations for numerous sports became more popular in the Edwardian era. Many sports were difficult for women to compete in with the traditional, turn of the century ladies’ garments. Nevertheless, many British women experienced discrimination and accusations of immorality up to and even after the turn of the century.^[19] This may have been because other sports were closed events, whereas cycling was used as a means of transportation; women had to be presentable while cycling, as well as after they had arrived at their destination.

In the late Victorian era, the typical sportswoman was still “an ornament of beauty,”^[20] with clothing requirements including heels, corsetry, and full-length dresses. The physicality of sports was discouraged, and clothing was used to incapacitate women to disregard them as serious contenders. Due to their physical, competitive nature, sports were thought to be the “natural domain of men,”^[21] hence the use of overly feminine clothing to combat the natural masculinity that sports were associated with. Tennis was another sport in which outfit guidelines became problematic for participation. In fact, clothing restrictions severely impacted the development of women’s involvement. In 1879, the Oxford University Tennis Championship introduced a women’s section, a move that delighted many women’s sports advocates. However, Wimbledon, “the most prestigious tennis venue,”^[22] opposed the idea of competitive women. As such, women were required to dress with their modesty in mind and in 1884, Maud Watson won the Wimbledon ladies’ single championship wearing “a bustle, hat and high heeled shoes”.^[23] By 1887, activewear for tennis-playing women had been introduced, giving them a chance to properly compete against each other. The freedom provided by less restrictive clothing allowed women to hone their skills, although female players would continue to face discrimination even after the Edwardian era. Prior to the entrance of women in the workforce during WWI, sports offered a reason for looser fitting, more breathable clothing. Freedom from the rigid norm of corsetry and other posture correcting devices, allowed for greater mobility, a mobility that would eventually extend into other aspects of women’s lives.

Assisting in the embracing of the sportswoman as a prominent figure in society were periodicals such as popular British publication, Punch. In print from 1841-1991, Punch witnessed much progression in the strive for women’s rights.^[24] Despite often mocking the image of the sportswoman, Punch hired many women contributors when many other periodicals during the time would not. This included Jessie Pope, a prolific contributor, who often wrote on women’s participation in sports.^[25] Known for its satirical content, many of Pope’s short stories in Punch ridiculed men for participating in sports with the sole purpose of finding a wife. At the same time, these stories praised the “seriousness and skill”^[26] shown by women in sports. A cartoon in 1906 featured a group of women expressing interest in shooting. As soon as the men had grown tired of it, one woman hit a bullseye on her first shot, receiving only grumbles from the men.^[27] As Marilyn Constanzo writes in her article, “‘One Can't Shake off the Women’: Images of Sport and Gender in Punch, 1901-10,” cartoons such as this, show a growing interest and competence in sports by many women. During the Edwardian era, Punch would go on to feature men and women playing over 30 different sports together, including more physical sports such as football, rock climbing and hunting.^[28] In a 1901 edition, a cartoon shows a woman wearing impractical clothing and riding sidesaddle, yet she keeps up with the male hunters.^[29] This subtly suggests to readers that the woman is more skilled, having to circumvent all of the restrictions in order to participate. Cartoons and short stories featuring skilled and successful sportswomen marked the beginning of a long relationship between periodicals of the time and women’s participation in sports. Punch helped to normalize the changing tides with cartoons featuring women beating men at their own games. While it did occasionally portray women as too unskilled or feminine to excel physically, Punch kept readers guessing, slowly wearing down old prejudices against sporting females. 

Unlike Punch, Bernarr MacFadden’s Beauty and Health actively strove for an increase in physical women. American Bodybuilder turned editor, Bernarr MacFadden regularly advocated for women’s health through his many publications.^[30] MacFadden opposed body modifiers of any kind, including corsets and stays, arguing for loose, Grecian dress forms in which women could exercise. Often, MacFadden included articles arguing that no man “wishes his wife, sister or daughter to sacrifice health” for the sole benefit of fashion.^[31] This suggests that men’s vocalization of their support was just as important as women pushing against the system in the acceptance of women’s clothing reform. A British version of his popular American periodical Physical Culture, Beauty and Health was first published in May 1901 and featured exercise regimens for women and girls, short stories, and editorial pieces by women writers. In Beauty and Health’s depictions of everyday women, exercise, hard work and inner strength were common themes. In the short story, “To Suffer and Grow Strong” written by Elise Moulton, a young woman reluctantly begins to have feelings for a charming man. As it turns out, this man is already married, and confesses out of guilt after he is almost killed in an accident. Having led her to believe they would marry, the woman is distraught for months, finding little joy in anything. Eventually, she is advised to exercise, beginning her hard-earned journey back to herself. Moulton’s heroine picks herself up after heartbreak, demonstrating that female strength can be found both inside and out.^[32] She prospered without the weak-willed male character, sending out a strong message to women subscribers; happiness comes from within.

MacFadden’s Beauty and Health often reversed traditional gender roles, cleverly demonstrating the capability and potential of women. “A Village Scandal,” written by S. E Swanander, tells the tale of a woman who insists on working out with weights in the park in loose, breathable clothing, much to the horror of her conservative community. Forced to intervene, a young reverend attempts to chide her for her behaviour, but to no avail. Instead, he finds himself attracted to her fiery personality, and after she displays her strength by stopping his runaway horse from bolting into an oncoming train, he asks for her hand in marriage. In this story, not only is the male figure the “damsel in distress,”^[33] but it is a physically strong, courageous woman who saves him. The woman in this story did not have to choose between her physical wellbeing and becoming the wife of a widely respected man. There was no double life; MacFadden argues not only can women have it all, but good physical health is attractive to young, respectable bachelors. Beauty and Health also included articles solely on the injustices of inequality. Another piece, “Girl’s Freedom as Compared with Boys’,” written by May Brown, argues that “men are a great deal to blame for a girl’s restrictions,”^[34] asking why women are forced to hold back even laughter to appear meek and gentle. In the article, “Woman’s Sphere,” by a contributor simply known as Elizabeth, she accuses men of “living, intellectually, in a by-gone age,” and argues that as women produce more and consume less, they are “superior, rather than inferior”.^[35] The article goes on to dispel the danger in spreading “revolutionary ideas” about women,^[36] arguing that the truth is never revolutionary. MacFadden’s periodical earnestly encouraged women into physical activity and acted as a platform to air women’s grievances on inequality. Thus, Beauty and Health demonstrated the important link between sports, women’s physical health and women’s rights.  

Not only did periodicals introduce late Victorian and early Edwardian society to the image of the sportswoman, but they also helped normalize the changing role of women in Britain. Women’s rights movements were gaining supporters, and by 1918, the first step in women winning the vote was legalized. While ignored as a contributor in the battle for women’s rights, sports and periodicals depicting sporting women, helped break down rigid societal boundaries, aiding in clothing reform, mobility, and bodily freedom. Not all women strived to be the “New Woman,”^[37] but many believed in the importance of physical exercise for health benefits. In the written accounts of the Paget family, one can find examples of real women actively disregarding the “angel in the house”^[38] stereotype that permeated their eras. In 1880, both Maud Paget and her close friend Edith Tait enjoyed hiking up Mt. Snowdon in Wales. Both regular outdoorswomen, the mountain had an incline of 3,500 feet and was climbed by the women in less than two hours.^[39] Ten years earlier, Catharine, Lydia and Mary Paget documented the “capital bathe” the three had in the ocean.^[40] Additionally, every Paget woman learned to ice skate during the winter season and enjoyed horseback riding in the warmer months. These women were middle-class ladies with husbands and children, all unwilling to forfeit their health and freedom for the sake of Victorian expectations. The letters detailing their sporting ventures are only a few examples from real women on how Victorian anti-athletic sentiments were actively ignored. During the late Victorian era, women across Britain challenged the status quo in education, body autonomy, clothing reforms, and more, arguing for the right to live their lives the way they pleased. Despite societal expectations, late Victorian and early Edwardian women used sports to further women’s rights, rights that were then normalized in periodicals such as popular British publication, Punch and Bernarr MacFadden’s Beauty and Health. While both Punch and Beauty and Health referred to women’s physical exercise in different ways, with the former using comedy and the latter in earnest, both worked to normalize the image of the competent, exercising new woman. Overall, British middle-class women were still fulfilling their multiple domestic duties, but times were changing in unprecedented ways.

  

^[1]  Peterson, M. Jeanne. “No Angels in the House: The Victorian Myth and the Paget Women.” American Historical Review 677.

^[2] Constanzo, Marilyn. “‘One Can't Shake off the Women’: Images of Sport and Gender in Punch, 1901-10.” 32.

^[3] Hargreaves, Jennifer. Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women's Sports 51.

^[4] Kiersnowska, Beata. “Female Cycling and the Discourse of Moral Panic in Late Victorian Britain” 88.

^[5] Perkin, Joan. Victorian Women 73.

^[6] Cordea, Diana Otilia. “The Victorian Household and Its Mistresses: Social Stereotypes and Responsibilities.” 11.

^[7] Perkin, Joan. Victorian Women 73.

^[8] Combs, Mary Beth. “A Measure of Legal Independence: The 1870 Married Women’s Property Act and the Portfolio Allocations of British Wives.” 1028.

^[9] Ibid 1033.

^[10] Constanzo, Marilyn. “‘One Can't Shake off the Women’: Images of Sport and Gender in Punch, 1901-10.” 43.

^[11] Kiersnowska, Beata. “Female Cycling and the Discourse of Moral Panic in Late Victorian Britain” 90.

^[12] Hargreaves, Jennifer. Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women's Sports 60.

^[13] Ibid 101.

^[14] Ibid 102.

^[15] Ibid 100.

^[16]  Kiersnowska, Beata. “Female Cycling and the Discourse of Moral Panic in Late Victorian Britain” 92.

^[17] Ibid 93.

^[18] Nelson, Jennifer Ladd. “Dress Reform and the Bloomer.” Journal of American and Comparative Cultures 22.

^[19] Kiersnowska, Beata. “Female Cycling and the Discourse of Moral Panic in Late Victorian Britain” 98.

^[20] Constanzo, Marilyn. “‘One Can't Shake off the Women’: Images of Sport and Gender in Punch, 1901-10.” 34.

^[21] Hargreaves, Jennifer. Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women's Sports 43.

^[22] Ibid 99.

^[23] Ibid 99.

^[24] Constanzo, Marilyn. “‘One Can't Shake off the Women’: Images of Sport and Gender in Punch, 1901-10.” 33.

^[25] Ibid 33.

^[26] Ibid 36.

^[27] Ibid 47.

^[28] Ibid 34.

^[29] Ibid 35.

^[30] Endres, Kathleen L. “The Feminism of Bernarr MacFadden: Physical Culture Magazine and the Empowerment of Women.” Media History Monographs 3.

^[31] MacFadden, Bernarr. Woman's Beauty and Health 1, no.1 (1902) 19.

^[32] Ibid 18.

^[33] MacFadden, Bernarr. Woman's Beauty and Health 1, no.2 (1902) 39.

^[34] Ibid 54.

^[35] Ibid 55.

^[36] Ibid 56.

^[37] Constanzo, Marilyn. “‘One Can't Shake off the Women’: Images of Sport and Gender in Punch, 1901-10.” 34.

^[38] Peterson, M. Jeanne. “No Angels in the House: The Victorian Myth and the Paget Women.” 677.

^[39] Ibid 698.

^[40] Ibid 698.

 

 

Bibliography

 

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