MLARTC_FM.part 1.qxp

In the words of a Scientific American
author in 1936, “Feminine muscular de-
velopment interferes with motherhood”
(Laird 1936).
Despite some loosening of dress
codes during the Edwardian era, before
World War I most female athletes
dressed as conservatively as Iranian fe-
male athletes of the 1990s. Afterwards,
however, dress codes relaxed, and news-
papers started showing pictures of at-
tractive movie starlets dressed in bath-
ing suits. As a result, by the 1930s
female athletic attire roughly matched
equivalent male attire except in “gen-
teel” sports such as fencing and golf,
where skirts remained the norm into the
1950s. Still, Mrs. Grundies worried
about “indecent exposure,” and as a re-
sult various elastic undergarments were
developed. During the 1910s, for exam-
ple, some women tried Leo McLaglan’s
“Jûjutsu Corset,” and during the 1950s
female professional wrestlers supported
their rhinestone-encrusted bathing suits
with 2-inch-wide elastic bands. The
most popular device, however, was the brassiere. First developed by the
New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacobs around 1914, its original purpose
was not to assist in athletics but to flatten the bust.
Even allowing for hype—vaudevillians and society women both re-
ceived more than their fair share of media coverage—early twentieth-
century women played combative sports for the same reasons as their
granddaughters. In short, they did them for one of four main reasons: body
sculpting, socializing with friends or business acquaintances, personal em-
powerment, or physical self-defense.
Another constant over time was the derisive attitude that people—
women as well as men—took toward female participation in “unladylike”
sports. For example, as recently as 1981, some sociologists in the United
States wrote about female karate black belts:

There was evidence that a psychology of tokenism is operating in Karate as it

operates in other domains. The skills of these “tokens” are belittled, and rit-

ualized deference is withheld. The interesting question is whether increasing

Women in the Martial Arts: Britain and North America 687

Tamami “Sky”

Hosoya, USA

Boxing Women’s

national champion

(1997) and

professional

wrestler. (Courtesy

of Sky Hosoya)