
Female Gladiators
Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America
Sarah K. Fields(Author)
University of Illinois Press
Published on 25. June 2008
Book
Paperback/Softback
232 pages
978-0-252-07584-1 (ISBN)
Description
Female Gladiators is the first book to examine legal and social battles over the right of women to participate with men in contact sports. The impetus to begin legal proceedings was the 1972 enactment of Title IX, which prohibited discrimination in educational settings, but it was the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the equal rights amendments of state constitutions that ultimately opened doors. Despite court rulings, however, many in American society resisted-and continue to resist-allowing girls in dugouts and other spaces traditionally defined as male territories.
Inspired, women and girls began to demand access to the contact sports which society had previously deemed too strenuous or violent for them to play. When the leagues continued to bar girls simply because they were not boys, the girls went to court. Sarah K. Fields's Female Gladiators is the only book to examine the legal and social battles over gender and contact sport that continue to rage today.
Inspired, women and girls began to demand access to the contact sports which society had previously deemed too strenuous or violent for them to play. When the leagues continued to bar girls simply because they were not boys, the girls went to court. Sarah K. Fields's Female Gladiators is the only book to examine the legal and social battles over gender and contact sport that continue to rage today.
Reviews / Votes
"Female Gladiators is the first book to examine the legal and social battles that won women the right to participate with men in contact sports."--Diverse: Issues in Higher Education"A compelling study. . . . A sound, grounded, meticulous, and careful reading of a thorny and heated issue."--Aethlon: Journal of Sport Literature
"Professor Fields makes a fresh and excellent contribution to the literature by suggesting that the intensity of opposition to female football and baseball players was not simply--as is conventional wisdom--a somewhat quaint paternalistic protection of the 'weaker sex,' but rather due to the role of these major sports in promoting the American construct of masculinity and the desire to save these sports as a male 'preserve' as gender roles are deconstructed."--Stephen F. Ross, Penn State University
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
313 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-252-07584-1 (9780252075841)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2004
University of Illinois Press
€21.49
Available for download
Previous edition

Book
10/2004
University of Illinois Press
€30.99
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Sarah K. Fields is a professor in communication at the University of Colorado-Denver. She is the author of Game Faces: Sport Celebrity and the Laws of Reputation and coeditor of Sport and the Law: Historical and Cultural Intersections.
Content
Contents Figure 1 Acknowledgments Preface 1. History of American Women in Sport, Society, and Law Chapter 2: Baseball Chapter 3: Football Chapter 4: Basketball Chapter 5: Soccer Chapter 6: Wrestling Chapter 7: Boxing Chapter 8: Boys on Girls' Field Hockey Teams Chapter 9: Wrapping Up Contact Sports Notes Index
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Sports for women United States History, Sports for women Social aspects United States, Sex discrimination in sports Law and legislation United States
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Sports for women United States History, Sports for women Social aspects United States, Sex discrimination in sports Law and legislation United States