This article explores the potential for martial arts to support transformation and community building for women. Findings indicate women can derive many individual benefits from learning martial arts. Yet, the benefits must extend beyond the individual level to create social change. Based on an evaluation of literature on women's experiences…

Traditional narratives of sport posit winning as the defining goal in ways that can feel and be exclusionary to young people and result in a lack of enjoyment and subsequent decision to avoid or discontinue involvement in sport. This is particularly true for girls and young women who participate in sport at lower rates and quit at higher rates…

Background: Female learning of movement in elite combat sports has not been studied enough to date. Literature on movement learning and teaching of complex skills has not, to date, focused on karate, and the scarce literature on the learning of elite karate practitioners mostly does not focus on women. Nevertheless, women fighters participated in…

We investigated whether doing sports has any effect on the androgynous characteristics of women. In 15 universities from different regions of Turkey, a questionnare was administered to 341 students (170 elite sportlers from nine sport categories and 171 sedantary controls) during the 2012-2013 study period. The Bem sex role inventory was used to…

Describes the life of "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias from her start as a basketball player and Olympian through her career as a professional golfer. Addresses the difficulties faced by women who are successful in the male arena of athletics. Discusses her struggles against cancer and to be seen by the public as a normal female. (DK)

Since the mid 1970s, studies measuring self-perceived sex roles of athletes and nonathletes have, in general, supported the notion of androgyny, and have found that female athletes who have engaged competitively in sports have not necessarily lost their perceived femininity. Subjects for this survey were 657 females older than 15 years who were…

Presents a lesson plan dealing with women and sport in U.S. history. Discusses the themes of physical capabilities, propriety, and femininity. Describes exercises and projects that can be used to integrate the lesson into different subjects. Includes a reading list, modified rules for women's basketball, and portions of the social debate on women…

Female athletes are as psychologically well-adjusted as nonathletes. (MM)

This survey report focuses on sex differences in response to 11 attitude items concerning the female opportunity structure in sport, females in traditionally male sports, and sex role socialization in relation to sport. On all items, females were more accepting of women in sports than males were. (Author/SJL)

Male high school students (N=121) indicated which female athlete (associated with sex-appropriate or sex-inappropriate sport) they would most like to date. Female students (N=111) indicated which female athlete they would most like as a friend. Females associated with sex-appropriate sports were given significantly greater status than females with…

An empirical research study based upon the expectancy-value model of Eccles and colleagues (1983) investigated the effect of gender-role orientations on psychological dimensions of female athletes' sport participation and the likelihood of their continued participation in a stereotypical masculine activity. The model (Eccles et al., 1983) posits…

This study examined the role of women as portrayed in the mass media, focusing on the depiction of women in the traditionally passive role as compared with men in the traditionally aggressive role. The analysis of media coverage was highlighted by the examination of women and men in magazines, billboards, television, and newspapers between January…

The Victorian concept that women would sacrifice their femininity by participating in vigorous sports has to some extent been ameliorated, but vestiges of the bias remain today. This attitude was not based on hostility toward women but on overprotectiveness and concern for imagined dangers for the health of women, whose prime function in society…

Examination of 106 female high school athletes and nonathletes revealed that athletes experienced significantly higher levels of role conflict than nonathletes. However, role conflict was not related to gender role orientation or type of sport. Overall, levels of perceived and experienced role conflict were low. (Author/BJV)

While contemporary society struggles with redefining the role of women, college women in sports are learning the same social lesson from sports that men have learned for years (aggressiveness, cooperation, and the ability to take both physical and emotional hardship and recover). (MLW)