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…

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…

In Australian culture, males dominate sports such as football, cricket and Australian Rules Football. Girls and women in such sports are frequently required to negotiate persistent gender constructs and stereotypes. Despite this, in recent years there has been an increase in girls' participation in sports that are constructed as masculine. The…

The sport of track and field in the United States has a storied but tumultuous past, especially in women's collegiate athletics. In the late 19th century, it was enjoyed by women at elite colleges in the form of a "field day," but would have trouble surpassing that level, among middle class Whites especially. This hurdle in large part…

Despite the growing popularity of women's ice hockey in North America, players continue to face limitations because of the prohibition of body checking. In this paper, we argue from a liberal feminist philosophical perspective that this prohibition reinforces existing traditional stereotypes of female athletes. Because the women's game does not…

Discusses how the media represents U.S. women's gymnastics, examining the degree to which the manifest promises of gymnastics (veneration of mass-mediated femininity and celebration of flexibility, strength, and agility) function in relation to economies of perversity. Suggests that the promises and perversities embodied by gymnasts are…

This article brings the reader up to date on what's happening in girls' and women's sports. The outcome of the current movement toward equal opportunity for a male and female high school athletes will depend ultimately on funding, this author believes. (Editor)

This text of a panel discussion explodes the myth of female inferiority in professional sports. (JS)

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…

Although sex discrimination has been widespread in many areas of public school education, in no area has it been so blatant as in athletics. Much of the support for the posture that competitive athletics was morally and physically bad for girls came from the physical education profession itself and from the women in the profession. Misconceptions…

Despite the disagreements among personality theorists on methods of testing for masculine and feminine traits, recent investigations tend to support the belief that females who compete in athletics at a highly competitive level have more masculine traits than their nonathletic counterparts. To determine whether studies done on a regional basis can…

The development in women's athletics was discussed, the role of the athletic male versus the athletic female evaluated, and several concerns about the expansion of athletic programs for girls and women were examined. (Author/RK)

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)

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…