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.
#2607037 in Books 2006-10-05Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 10.00 x 1.20 x 7.00l; 2.20 #File Name: 0252073053576 pages
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. not quite as billed; but a solid enough anthologyBy Constant ReaderIf you're picking this up; you're probably either a student required to read it or a faculty member considering it-- and I think the latter group will find this a very mixed bag. While the editors have managed to gather together a group of the hottest scholars in transnational/new immigration history (Erika Lee and Gabaccia herself; for instance); this collection is firmly focused on the period from 1880 to 1925; post-1965 immigration; to the degree it's covered at all; only appears toward the end of the book; and receives spotty coverage (an article on Polish emigrees in the Reagan years; for instance; but only one article on undocumented Mexican immigration). The authors also either seem unsure about what audience they are aiming toward or perhaps were sometimes recycling journal articles. Some of the pieces here are appropriate for undergraduates; while others are aimed more toward academic audiences and those fascinated by reviews of the literature. I would recommend cherry-picking the best from this but not using the whole book in an immigration class-- especially since you'd have to assign a different book to cover post-WWII immigration in any case.
