How Have Women Evolved in the Sports World?

             How Have Women Evolved in the Sports World?
             Over the last century women have come a long way in the world of sports. There used to be a time when a female athlete was almost unheard of and sports involvement was a dream that young girls could never pursue. Today however, women participate in every sport, including basketball, soccer, and even football. It took hundreds of years for women to get this far and they are still struggling for equal rights (Mullims). In these next few pages that you will be reading, I am going to tell you how women have got from where they were in the 1600's to where they are today.
             Women were far more visible in American sporting life across time than the portraits of them in many histories would suggest. In about 1600 the earliest sportswomen were Native Americans (Struna). They participated in religious ceremonies, which called upon hours of dancing at a time. The passage from maidenhood to womanhood included physical displays and tests. Ball games were also a part of women's daily life.
             By the mid Eighteenth Century, the sporting experiences of women of European and African ancestries were far more varied then they had been earlier. Agricultural fairs, initiated by white farmers, planters, and traders, included contests, especially foot races, for black women who competed for articles of clothing.
             Middle and upper-class women had a lot more access to a broader range of sports and other forms of recreation. Many women in the South raced horses and went fox hunting with their husbands (Struna).
             The pursuit of active sports by women was not present by the Nineteenth Century, however. During the second half of the Eighteenth Century, a series of complex changes gradually altered gender roles and relations. The emergence of a capitalist economy helped to redefine women's place, to move them to the home and away from public activity (Struna).
             The immediate impact of these changes ...

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How Have Women Evolved in the Sports World?. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 05:26, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/12500.html