Women and Sports

Contents: Preface. 1. Women and sports: an introduction. 2. Female athletes and masculinity. 3. Archery for women. 4. Golf as a course for women. 5. Swimming as a sport for women. Bibliography. Index.

"The history of sports in India, women have had to battle society\'s strict conventions to participate in competitive sports. The Victorian attitudes of the nineteenth century created an atmosphere that discouraged women from participating in the "masculine" world of sports. For more than a century, women had limited or no access to facilities, training, and coaching. The opportunities available, to sportswomen in the 1990s and into the twenty-first century were created by female athletes whose competitive spirit and athletic skill forced changes that opened doors for future generations. Those women who achieved success despite the odds shaped women\'s history, and sports\' history in India.

The launch of this reference work, perceptions of a variety of complications beset the editorial team. First, the hope that the work would be widely read became palpable. This realization quickly gave rise to yet another consideration that such use will diminish the work\'s comprehensibility in its conceived wholeness. The preface material is intended to supply a framework so that these considerations will be obviated.

This book attempts to address this subject in a single volume, we cannot do full justice to the topic. To each and every person whose story we have failed to tell, we offer regrets. It is our belief and hope that this book will spawn a hundred other such projects." (jacket)