 Women and Sports: Direct Challenge to Men?
 A basic need for outdoor exercise to conserve national health and the sponsorship of social leaders thus served in large measure to break down the barriers that had formerly stood in the way of the development of organized sports. Games which could appeal to every one had at last been invented or developed. And a post-war atmosphere, in which the instinct for pleasure is naturally intensified, provided fertile ground for the growth of these new forms of recreation.
It is perhaps not so surprising after all that within a short quarter-century of the day when one English visitor declared that "to roll balls in a ten pin alley by gas-light or to drive a fast trotting horse in a light wagon along a very bad and dusty road, seems the Alpha and Omega of sport in the United States," almost every one of our modern games was being played by a rapidly growing army of enthusiasts.
The pioneer of them all, baseball, had evolved from the various bat-and-ball games that the early settlers had brought with them from England. A children's game actually known as base-ball had been played in the eighteenth century. It is noted in A Pretty Little Pocket Book, Intended for the Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly, which was first published in England in 1744 and soon after reprinted in this country. Jane Austen refers to it in Northanger Abbey. Four-old-cat, rounders, and town-ball, each of which contributed something to baseball, were also being played in the early nineteenth century by young men and boys throughout the country. Samuel Woodruff, writing on amusements in 1833, speaks of New Englanders as being experts in such games of ball as "cricket, base, cat, football, trap-ball."
Nevertheless, the first two decades of the 20th century saw the gradual expansion of a variety of female sports. Croquet, tennis, golf, badminton and skating were all fashionable middle-class sports. Cycling allowed women a new physical independence, and symbolized their revolt against the restrictions of tight-Iacing. During the over one hundred years that women in the United States have played tennis, the sport has changed dramatically. From the court-length dresses with their numerous petticoats of the 1870's to the short, pastel-colored tennis dresses of the 1970's, from patting a ball gently over a high sloping net to attacking baseline or net games, and from the pastime of the leisurely country-club set to a popular professional sport, women's tennis has come a long way. This transition was studied in order to identify and to record the contributions that women players, especially those from America, have made to tennis through their original or perfected styles of play, through their domination of or successes in tournament competition, through their liberation from the traditionalism in tennis attire, or through their enhancement of the popularity of the sport.
Women's participation in hockey, netball, lacrosse, rounders, gymnastics, cricket, athletics and swimming was possible only because they were played in "ladylike" fashion. These sports were played separately from the sports of men, in clubs, girIs' schools, universities and colleges, and so did not constitute a direct challenge to men.
In urban areas many women's sports clubs were attached to polytechnics and attraeted young working women from nearby shops and offices. The "Poly" girls became the pin-ups of the sporting world, providing the impetus for a more general acceptance of female sport and a gradual increase in working-class partieipation. As sport became increasingly popular, the public image of the new sportswoman was reproduced elsewhere.
The determined and clear soul of Marie-Thérèse Eyquem was readily apparent in her broad-shouldered body, solid yet graced with fine features. As is the case with many others, one had to search beyond the overall impression with her. When she stood up, her poised figure showed muscular legs slightly apart, her head, full of confidence and held up high. She was a creative woman in the full sense of the term. Always standing by her convictions to the end, she was at the same time tolerance personnified, and proof of this was in the vast gamut of faithful friends she had. She was always willing to take up a cause provided there was building to be done or a concerted effort was required. There were four parallel paths in Marie-Therèse Eyquem’s life. She was indeed a great lady who, in her own way, made a mark in her time, never to be forgotten. Firstly at the Ministry of Youth, and Sports where she made her whole career.
The modern Olympics remained a bastion of male sporting privilege and an unambiguous celebration of male supremacy and physical prowess. Prolonged struggle and protest were required before women were officially permitted to take part. In 1908 only 36 women competed, in lawn tennis, archery, figure skating and yachting; there were 2,023 male athletes.
The tennis styles of female players were only featured in 13 out of over 160 illustrations in Tennis Styles and Stylists by Paul Metzler. In the volumes of Outing, American Lawn Tennis, World Tennis, and Sports Illustrated women received this same secondary status. Sports Illustrated reported men's tennis during the mid-1950's about ten times more frequently than women's, although by the early 1970's this margin had narrowed to only five-to-one in favor of the men. Consequently, the reporting of tournaments and the performances of the women competitors were seldom foremost in these publications and were often relegated to the middle pages and given scant recognition.
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