"This book is about the historical influence of late nineteenth-century medical beliefs and values on the perceived benefits of physical activity for women across their life span. The practice of medicine and the knowledge which underpins it have never been simple and logical progressions from one truth to another. Rather, scientific knowledge, medical practice and social perception have interacted to affect views concerning what kinds of amounts of physical activity, including sport and healthful exercise, might be most appropriate for girls and women at different points in their life course. "A review of thinking is needed in the field of sociohistorical analysis concerning attitudes toward the female body and attempts to regulate female physical activity. Such analyses may generate new insights into the questions of both social control and the unevenness of progress in women's real or perceived opportunities for participating freely and fully in sports and exercise of their choice."

This book looks at sport not just as recreation, but as an integral part of contemporary culture, with connections to industry, commerce and politics. It explores the history and theories of sport, and touches on more controversial issues.

Hope and Healing Are at Hand Extraordinary emotional pain cries out for something more than a Band-Aid, a pat on the shoulder, or a greeting card cliché. When the wounds go deep, real help, honest encouragement, and tangible healing may be hard to locate. But it is there to find, and the search is worth the effort. Compassionate and experienced counselors Dr. Steve Stephens and Pam Vredevelt, LPC, have walked alongside women in pain for years—they’ve heard the stories, seen the tears, felt the pain, and entered into the devastation. They’ve also seen how wounded women can step out of darkness into hope, regain their feet, restart their lives, recover their energy, and even reclaim their joy. Real-life stories and proven, practical counsel serve as powerful tools to help you recover from past and present wounds, moving you into a new season of productive living. Hope Is Here “My pain is too deep for a Band-Aid.” “Will this heartache ever end?” “Why me?” Today is your day…a fresh season of living has arrived. Coming alongside as faithful friends, Dr. Steve Stephens and Pam Vredevelt meet you in the depths of your circumstances and uncover the pathway to healing. They offer an opportunity to regain your feet, restart your life, recover your energy, and reclaim your joy. These real-life testimonies and proven, practical counsel will guide you toward complete recovery and inspire you to press forward in newfound strength—not in spite of your wounds, but because of them. “I believe this is one of the most important books ever written for women. Every page is filled with nurturing wisdom and refreshing hope. At last, for every wounded woman, there is a pathway out of the hurt and pain.” -Alice Gray, author of Treasures for Women Who Hope, coauthor of The Worn Out Woman and The Walk Out Woman Story Behind the Book The authors are licensed therapists who see an enormous number of women struggling with the same basic issue: wounds that result from living in an imperfect world with imperfect people. “Some are great at hiding their wounds,” they say. “Others are so overwhelmed by them that they are unable to recover and bounce back. We consistently meet women with incredible potential who are stuck in emotional pain. Unable to move forward, their wounds block them from becoming all they can be. We want to help them work through the process of letting go of this pain and progress in healing. The abundant life Jesus promises will be theirs!”

The surprising roots of the self-defense movement and the history of women’s empowerment. At the turn of the twentieth century, women famously organized to demand greater social and political freedoms like gaining the right to vote. However, few realize that the Progressive Era also witnessed the birth of the women’s self-defense movement. It is nearly impossible in today’s day and age to imagine a world without the concept of women’s self defense. Some women were inspired to take up boxing and jiu-jitsu for very personal reasons that ranged from protecting themselves from attacks by strangers on the street to rejecting gendered notions about feminine weakness and empowering themselves as their own protectors. Women’s training in self defense was both a reflection of and a response to the broader cultural issues of the time, including the women’s rights movement and the campaign for the vote. Perhaps more importantly, the discussion surrounding women’s self-defense revealed powerful myths about the source of violence against women and opened up conversations about the less visible violence that many women faced in their own homes. Through self-defense training, women debunked patriarchal myths about inherent feminine weakness, creating a new image of women as powerful and self-reliant. Whether or not women consciously pursued self-defense for these reasons, their actions embodied feminist politics. Although their individual motivations may have varied, their collective action echoed through the twentieth century, demanding emancipation from the constrictions that prevented women from exercising their full rights as citizens and human beings. This book is a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to one of the most important women’s issues of all time. This book will provoke good debate and offer distinct responses and solutions.

In her speaking engagements, Fish encounters much unresolved pain that women experience because of disappointment and seemingly unanswered prayer. Divorce, the death of a loved one, and emotional strain plunge many into a state "in which they cannot seem to recover hope". Fish weaves Biblical wisdom with detailed case studies to lead women through a gradual process of restoration.

Athletic contests help define what we mean in America by "success." By keeping women from "playing with the boys" on the false assumption that they are inherently inferior, society relegates them to second-class citizens. In this forcefully argued book, Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano show in vivid detail how women have been unfairly excluded from participating in sports on an equal footing with men. Using dozens of powerful examples--girls and women breaking through in football, ice hockey, wrestling, and baseball, to name just a few--the authors show that sex differences are not sufficient to warrant exclusion in most sports, that success entails more than brute strength, and that sex segregation in sports does not simply reflect sex differences, but actively constructs and reinforces stereotypes about sex differences. For instance, women's bodies give them a physiological advantage in endurance sports, yet many Olympic events have shorter races for women than men, thereby camouflaging rather than revealing women's strengths.

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.

A magisterial reconstruction and analysis of the heated debates around the 'woman question' during the French Third Republic.