Har kvinnorna en sportslig chans? : den svenska idrottsrörelsen och kvinnorna under 1900-talet

Abstract

This study examines the conditions of womens´s participation in organized sport. The Swedish Sport Confederation and the two associations with the largest number of female members, the Swedish Gymnastics Federation and the Swedish Football Association, have been studied. Gymnastics is a traditional sport for women and is mainly a fitness sport. Soccer is a competitive sport and a new sport for women. The discussions and decisions of the sports associations regarding women and sport have been analyzed through studies of official documents, minutes and debates. An interview study with female leaders in gymnastics and soccer completes the analysis of the documents. Women represent just over a third of the members of the sports movement. Women participate in fewer sports than men. They only dominate in non-competitive and in aesthetic sports. According to this study there is no female sport or womens´sport - apart from gymnastics - only male sport with female participants. The attitude of the sports movement is that women and men are different but the form and rules of competitive sport are based on equality. The social gender system and thus mens´control over womens´ participation in sport is obvious in the sport movement. Three female counterstrategies have been identified: in the beginning of the 20th century female gymnastics coaches developed a form of gymnastics for women based on the ideology of peculiarity; in the 1970s women claimed equality with men for their breakthrough into soccer; in the 1980s women try to combine the ideologies of equality and peculiarity through male sport behaviour and the accentuation of traditional femininity. Womens´subordinate position in the sports movement is reflected in the lower valuation of womens´sport performances. Sport is an essential part of male character building. The motives of health have always been emphasized for women. The official ideology has in recent years passed on to a general accentuation of the aspects of health, which has facilitated womens´participation in sport. This is contradicted by the development of top-level sport and its manifestations in the form of for example drug-taking.

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