Incarnations and Practices of Feminine Rectitude: Nineteenth-Century Gymnastics for U.S. Women

Chisholm, Ann

doi:10.1353/jsh.2005.0026

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…11 Likewise, Chisholm uncovers how notions of Republican motherhood legitimated gymnastics, and how notions of girls' poor health and the workings of the female body in terms of dyspepsia, constipation and gravity were used to conceptualise physical education's impact on women and the American society. 12 Apart from presenting the first in-depth study of Anton Santesson's visions of girls' gymnastics, this article contributes to this line of research through a further investigation into the discursive work required to justify the introduction of girls' gymnastics.…”

Section: Political Rationality Educationalisation and Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Girls’ Gymnastics in the Service of the Nation: Educationalisation, Gender and Swedish Gymnastics in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Westberg

2017

Nord J Educ Hist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Swedish gymnastics won a large following across the world. Employing the concepts of educationalisation and gender, I will explore how the physical education of girls was conceptualised and justified in the Swedish system during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Focusing on the publications of Anton Santesson (1825–1892), who was one of the main authors on girls’ gymnastics in Sweden, I will show how girls’ gymnastics was conceptualised as a response to a social, cultural and physical crisis, which was perceived as partly stemming from the detrimental effects of education on girls’ bodies and minds. Girls’ gymnastics was thus construed as vital to the future of the Swedish nation. While men and manliness remained fundamental to the strength of the nation, girls’ gymnastics was vital to women’s rearing of boys and thus instrumental to the development of masculinity in men.

show abstract

Section: Political Rationality Educationalisation and Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Girls’ Gymnastics in the Service of the Nation: Educationalisation, Gender and Swedish Gymnastics in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Westberg

2017

Nord J Educ Hist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Barker-Ruchti (2011) describes how women's artistic gymnasts were disciplined to hold their bodies tight, with straight legs and pointed toes, and gradually learnt particular movements associated with each apparatus. Chisholm (2005) used the same Foucauldian argument in her analysis of gymnastics in North America in the late nineteenth century to argue that the callisthenic exercises performed produced docile bodies; bodies which compliantly move and behave in particular, learnt and designated ways.…”

Section: Foucault and Gymnastics: Gymnasts As "Docile Bodies"mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Foucault to Latour: Gymnastics Training as a Socio-Technical Network

Kerr¹

2014

Sociology of Sport Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When fourteen-year-old Nadia Comaneci won gold at the 1976 Olympic Games, her youthful appearance inspired concerns about the hard training of young gymnasts. These concerns frequently centered around the coach as a figure of authority with the power to potentially exploit young girls. This paper both confirms and questions this assumption through using an Actor Network Theory (ANT) perspective. It is argued that what has been missing from previous accounts of sports training and competition is the role that nonhumans play. It is shown how existing Foucauldian work examining gymnastics can be extended through demonstrating the Latourian notion that power is enacted through nonhumans. It is further suggested that the inclusion of nonhumans such as video cameras into the gymnastics network can potentially generate different power arrangements from the traditional authoritarian coach/athlete relationship. Latour's concepts of mediators and intermediaries are used to show how nonhumans can have agency and affect gymnastics performance, demonstrating that power is shared among both human and nonhuman actants.Quand Nadia Comaneci a remporté l'or aux Jeux Olympiques de 1976 à l'âge de quatorze ans, son apparence juvénile a soulevé des inquiétudes à propos de l'entrainement rigoureux des jeunes gymnastes. Ces inquiétudes ont fréquemment tourné autour de l'entraineur comme figure d'autorité avec le pouvoir d'exploiter les jeunes filles. Cet article à la fois confirme et questionne cette supposition par l'utilisation d'une perspective de la théorie de l'acteur-réseau. Nous suggérons que ce qui manquait aux études antérieures sur l'entrainement et les compétitions sportives est le rôle que les non-humains jouent. Nous montrons comment les études foucaldiennes sur la gymnastique peuvent être élargies en démontrant l'idée latourienne que le pouvoir est exercé par les non-humains. Nous avançons également l'idée que l'inclusion des non-humains tels que les caméras vidéo dans le réseau de la gymnastique a le potentiel de générer différents arrangements de pouvoir à partir de la relation traditionnelle entraineur autoritaire/athlète. Les concepts de Latour de médiateurs et d'intermédiaires sont employés pour montrer comment les non-humains peuvent posséder une puissance d'agir et affecter la performance en gymnastique, démontrant donc que le pouvoir est partagé entre les acteurs humains et non-humains.

show abstract

“…27-28). In the US, women's gymnastics was devised in the nineteenth century with the purpose of cultivating overtly feminine bodies with straight spines and increased chest size (Chisholm, 2005(Chisholm, , 2007, and in Spain gymnastics conformed to prevalent ideals of femininity. Women's gymnastics, in the decades around 1900, was adapted to the female organism, which for example meant that particular attention was paid to the muscles around the pelvis (García & Herraiz, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adjusting Swedish gymnastics to the female nature: Discrepancies in the gendering of girls’ physical education in the mid-nineteenth century

Westberg

2018

ETE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During the nineteenth century, Swedish gymnastics became one of the main models of physical education in the Western world. The purpose of this article is to explore how Swedish gymnastics was adjusted to the female body and mind in the mid-nineteenth century. Using handbooks published by the Swedish educationalist Anton Santesson as an empirical starting point, this article shows how the relationship between gender and gymnastics was complicated and exhibited significant discrepancies. In part, Swedish gymnastics was marked by a one-sex model of gender differences, which meant that gymnastics was perceived as a method for catering to the deficiencies and weaknesses of the feminine nature, in an attempt to make girls and young women more similar to boys. Swedish gymnastics had, nevertheless, vital elements of a two-sex model, according to which gymnastics was supposed to realise the true feminine nature of girls. Following this line of thought, Santesson claimed that, since gymnastics merely followed the laws of the body, it could not make girls more like boys. Santesson’s vision of gymnastics also included disciplinary mechanisms, such as the partitioning of space, which were gender neutral. Apart from presenting insights into the ambiguous and contradictory notions of gender in Swedish girls’ gymnastics, this article thus also raises questions regarding whether other models of physical education were marked by similar discrepancies during the nineteenth century.

show abstract

Incarnations and Practices of Feminine Rectitude: Nineteenth-Century Gymnastics for U.S. Women

Cited by 9 publications

References 28 publications

Girls’ Gymnastics in the Service of the Nation: Educationalisation, Gender and Swedish Gymnastics in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Girls’ Gymnastics in the Service of the Nation: Educationalisation, Gender and Swedish Gymnastics in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

From Foucault to Latour: Gymnastics Training as a Socio-Technical Network

Adjusting Swedish gymnastics to the female nature: Discrepancies in the gendering of girls’ physical education in the mid-nineteenth century

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About