A Brief History of Women’s Sport
Written by; Tao MacLeod
Over recent years a number of female athletes and sports played by women more generally have seen their profiles increased. Furthermore the media coverage of the matches, tournaments and events grow exponentially. Some of the exposure has remained on the more established sports that women have traditionally played, such as tennis and netball, but also with other pursuits that have become more popular with younger generations, like football and rugby. This has produced a veritable feast of new stories and forms of entertainment for the average fan, as well as those more youthful spectators who are exploring a whole new world of games. The history of women participating in various different activities is an interesting and multi faceted story, that has had many twists and turns, in addition to a number of different obstacles put in the way of those who have played their part. In this essay we will take a brief tour through this chronicle.
The Victorian and Edwardian periods of British life saw a number of different sports codified and created, with sports clubs springing up around the country. A lot of the perceptions that we have today towards these various activities is, broadly speaking, based around the ethos and ideals held by the organisers and sporting administrators of the era. However, it was thought that females were too delicate to play sport in the same manner as their male counterparts. This was a time when a woman wasn’t allowed to even own property. In the United Kingdom, half of the population didn’t have the right to vote until 1918 and that was those who were over the age of 30 and even then with certain limitations. It wasn’t until 1928 did they achieve parity with men in the country that created the first bill of rights, the Magna Carta, and lays claim to having the oldest parliament in the world. The concept that women should be kept as gentile ladies carried over into the sporting context. They were thought to be too weak, too fragile to compete in what was considered masculine activities.
The physicality of football and rugby were deemed too strenuous and not befitting the ladies of polite society. Netball was developed initially after a misinterpretation of the rules of basketball, but then was modified for women, before growing into a sport predominately played by females. Other sports such as golf, field hockey and certain racquet sports like tennis and badminton were popular amongst the middle and upper classes and were considered acceptable physical pursuits for gentlewomen. This was particularly so in social settings with gentlemen, who would take a softly-gently approach to play in order to not appear too brutish. To have a gentle rally, back and forth across the net, whilst having a conversation was considered to be in good form.
Rugby in particular has an ethos based around strength and physical bravery. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when many sports were being codified by the British, the social norms of the time espoused these attributes as masculine traits. Women who looked to participate and therefore develop these physical traits could be subjected to social scorn. In the case of other sports such as football the medical profession, staffed by male doctors, were sometimes even rolled out to provide incorrect opinions on how physical training was unhealthy for the female body. This mentality held back women’s participation in sport for years. The English Football Association banned women from playing in official football league stadia in 1921, only lifting the ban in 1971.
Women involved in other games such as rugby and basketball have been mocked, even in more recent times, for their participation and perceived standard of play. This is often done so without understanding of the journey that the athletes have been on to get to where they are, nor the challenges and obstacles that they have overcome along the way. Many girls and young women have dropped out of physical activities due to teasing and social stigmas around the way they look after becoming stronger and developing muscle tone from playing the games that they enjoy. Misogyny also seems to encourage some men to act in ways in sport that would be unacceptable in other aspects of society. In the pub, or at the office it would not be allowed for blokes to make jokes about a woman’s appearance, or competence at her job. However, for some reason within a sports stadium fans seem emboldened to make rude and discriminatory jibes about women, often with sexual overtones.
Fundamentally women and girls have had to hurdle many barriers over the years in order to get some way towards equality in sporting life. However, there have been advancements made in the past 150 years, or so. Let’s take a look at some of the important dates that have gotten us to where we are today…
Women’s Sport Important Dates
1884: Maud Watson wins the first Ladies’ Singles at Wimbledon (tennis)
The first women’s title of the English tennis Championship went to Maud Edith Eleanor Watson. Born on the 9th of October 1864, in the English town of Harrow, her father was the local vicar. Maud learnt to play tennis in the back garden with her older sister Lilian Watson. The Men’s Championships had been going since 1877, but it wasn’t until 1884 that women were invited to participate. The tournament was entered by 13 players, all of them were British, however one of them withdrew. The first prize for the ladies’ tournament was valued at twenty guineas, and the second prize was set at ten guineas. Maud reached the final having won her previous three games to get there. It was her sibling that she defeated in the Wimbledon final in 1884, with the scores reading as 6-8, 6-3, 6-3.
1895: netball (as “newcomb ball”) begins
The game of netball has its origins in the American sport of basketball, which had been invented by a Canadian physical education teacher and sports coach James Naismith. He was working at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA in 1891 when he looked to create an activity for his students during rainy days. The sport became rather popular and saw variations of the rules and regulations popping up in different locations. Clara Baer, a sports teacher in New Orleans, wrote to Naismith asking for a rulebook and then misinterpreted what had been sent to her, thinking that players weren’t able to leave the zones that had been drawn on a diagram of the court. Netball, in its earliest incarnations, was first played in Britain at the women’s only Madame Ostenburg’s College. The sport took on a less physical aspect than its basketball cousin, suiting the Victorian ideals for gender based sport of the era. It became quite popular within British schools, as well as elsewhere, with 76 National Netball Associations affiliated to the global governing body World Netball. It has been played at the Commonwealth Games regularly since 1998, with an event only available for women. Australia, England Jamaica and New Zealand have so far been the only nations to win medals at the tournament.
1896: the first official women’s field hockey international, Ireland vs. England
The early national governing bodies for men’s and women’s field hockey were kept separate for several decades, before the world governing body insisted upon a single organisation for each country. Having been set up in 1895, the All England Women’s Hockey Association (AEWHA) wasn’t merged with the men’s set up until 1996. The Irish Ladies Hockey Union (ILHU) was established in 1894, a year after the Irish Hockey Union was formed. It was the Ireland ladies team that hosted the first international match in Dublin, when England came to visit and played on Monday 2 March 1896. It was the hosts who ran out winners by two goals to nil.
1900: the first time women competed at the Summer Olympic Games
The Paris Games of 1900 became known as farcical in its organisation. The Olympic movement was not as well established as it latterly became by the turn of the proceeding century and the organising committee had to be piggy backed this Olympiad onto the World’s Fair that was also being hosted in the French capital city. Subsequently this meant that the multi-sports festival lasted for five months, between May and October, instead of the approximately two weeks that we have become more familiar with these days. It was also poorly advertised, with a lack of branding at events. Several athletes hadn’t even realise that they were competing in the Olympic Games. Additionally, the American team complained when, upon arrival, they found out that some of their members were scheduled to compete on a Sunday, the Christian Sabbath.
A positive note, however, was that a total of 22 women competed in tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrianism and golf. Charlotte Cooper from England became first woman to take home gold at the tennis, winning the ladies singles and mixed doubles events, whilst American Margaret Abbott won the gold medal in the women’s golf tournament. However, the historical first ever women’s Olympic gold medal went to Helen Barbey (two months before Charlotte Cooper). American born in the mid-to-late 19th century, she grew up in New York. She subsequently married the Swiss sailor, Count Hermann Alexander de Pourtalès, who also competed at the Paris Games in 1900. Helen went onto represent her new adopted country, acting as a crew member of the boat Lérina which won the first race of the one to two ton class in the sailing events.
1917: Dick, Kerr Ladies Football Club play their first game
This was a football team that was forged in the factory yards during the First World War. They went on to dominate the sport across local, regional, national and international arenas at various times of their existence. Not many people have heard about this side, because it was a club made up by women, who played in an era that rejected female footballers. Trailblazers in every sense of the phrase, they toured France and North America when women’s football was still in its infancy, before playing through an official gender-wide ban by the English Football Association.
Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C. were known for playing a number of charity matches. The first game was played on Christmas Day 1917. The women played Arundel Coulthard Factory at Preston North End’s Deepdale Stadium, running out four nil winners. 10,000 people came to watch, with the profits from the gate receipts having provided much needed support for a local hospital. The club’s first captain was called Alice Cook (née Kell). Born in 1898, she was just 19 when she played in the 1917 Christmas Day charity match at Deepdale Stadium. A munitions worker at the factory, whilst the men were away at the war, she was a member of the early squads and turned out as a defender. She continued to play until 1928. Alice Woods was a midfielder who started out at St. Helens, before moving across to the more successful side. She was a part of the Dick, Kerr side that toured France and played in the 1920 Boxing Day match at Goodison Park, in which 53,000 spectators paid to attend, a record breaking crowd for women’s football at the time, which stood for several decades afterwards.
However, attacking player Lily Parr was the star player for the club. Born in 1905, as the fourth child amongst seven siblings, she grew up playing sports with her brothers. Like many of the other players at the club, her working class background and opportunities to perform manual labour allowed Lily and her team mates to develop physical strength and power gave her a physical advantage over some footballers from the other women’s sides of the era. Parr seemed to be particularly exceptional, in that she was reported to be able to hit shot harder than some of her male counterparts. She played predominately as a winger, joining the club in 1920. Apparently, Lily scored 43 goals in her first season, whilst only 14 years old. She continued to play for several more years, until her retirement in 1951. She has also subsequently become an LGBTQ+ icon, being openly homosexual when such things were much more socially taboo.
This ban came into force in 1921 and was kept for a further five decades. One of the reasons cited was that it was unsuitable for women, with doctors and sporting administrators saying that the game was too physically strenuous for the female body, with the potential to do harm on the female reproductive systems. However, it is more likely that the FA were jealous of the popularity of women’s football and worried about the impacts on the men’s game and the possible dwindling of gate receipts for men’s clubs. The ban on women’s football effectively drove it underground, putting progress back decades, whilst men’s footy was able to grow, without challenge. The football club pushed on irrespective of the sexist opinions of the national governing body, going undefeated during a number of friendlies and charity matches. However, they inevitably struggled to gain large scale crowds due to not being able to play in officially recognised league grounds. After breaking ties with the factory in which they were formed in 1926, the team became known as Preston Ladies FC, before finally being disbanded in 1965. There is a book about Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C., called Girls with Balls; the Secret History of Women’s Football, by Tim Tate.
1966 & 1967: First women to run the Boston Marathon
The social perception up to the 1960s and even into the 1970s was that women were incapable to running long distances. Officially sanctioned distances for ladies were often very short, only covering one or two miles. Subsequently many of the elite races would not allow females to register for such events. Boston, one of the major marathons was particularly adamant that women would not be allowed to run its course alongside everybody else. However, this didn’t stop a number of different trailblazers from training and running themselves. In 1966 Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Gibb snuck onto the Boston race at the start of the event. She had initially disguised herself, wearing her brothers shorts and a hoody pulled up so that it covered most of her head. However, by the finish line she felt supported and encouraged enough by those running around her that she crossed the line without the inclination for concealment. It has since been reported that her time was three hours, 21 minutes and 40 seconds, which was better than two-thirds of the male runners.
The following year Kathrine Switzer managed to officially register for the Boston Marathon. She had put down her initials instead of fore and middle names before her surname, so that the form read “K.V. Switzer”. She was able to pin a race number to the front of her top and make her way to the start line and begin her run. However, after realising what was happening the race organiser Jock Semple assaulted Switzer, whilst she was running. He grabbed her by the shoulder and looked to remove her from the competition. He reportedly shouted, ‘Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!’ He was only prevented from further action as Kathrine was accompanied her boyfriend at the time, Tom Miller, who managed to shove Semple to one side. Despite this aggression, she carried on and crossed the finish line in an approximate time of four hours and 20 minutes.
1970: the first women’s (unofficial) football World Cup in Italy
The first officially recognised men’s football World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930, before being held every four years, with the only exception being due to the Second World War. Women’s football had become broadly taboo in various parts of the world, due to varying degrees of sexism and misogyny. As mentioned above, the English Football Association had enacted a ban of women from playing in the grounds of their league clubs, which was still in place when FIFA organised their inaugural World Cup. The Federation of Independent European Female Football (FIEFF) was set up in Italy, during the late 1960s, and was backed by private investors. They looked to promote women’s football, initially in the Mediterranean country, but then their events took on a more global outlook, spreading across Europe and Central America. In 1970, they hosted an unofficial Women’s World Cup. Held across seven Italian cities, the tournament saw seven teams play in a straight knock-out format. Austria, West Germany and Switzerland went out in the first round, with England placing fourth, Mexico finishing third and Denmark beating Italy by two goals to nil in the final.
1971: the second women’s (unofficial) football World Cup in Mexico
The more famous of the unofficial women’s World Cups happened a year after the European one in Mexico. The FIEFF managed to get corporate sponsorship for a tournament in the Central American country, a year after they hosted the official men’s competition. This is a nation that remains to this day football crazy, with clubs and franchises all over the country. The businesses that supported the women’s tournament obviously saw an opportunity to make some money. Drinks company and tournament sponsors Martini & Rossi paid for the travel, accommodations and kit for the team’s. Games were played between the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, which hosted the Group A fixtures of the first round, and Guadalajara, in the western state of Jalisco, which saw the Group B fixtures. Six teams entered the tournament. England and France didn’t make it to the semi-finals, however the French did run out three two winners in a fifth vs. sixth place play-off. Argentina came fourth, with Italy finishing third. Denmark won again, this time beating hosts Mexico in the final. Crowds in the tens of thousands were commonplace throughout the event, with the 100,000 mark being broken on more than one occasion that summer. In 2023 a documentary was produced called Copa ’71, that chronicled the history the 1971 Women’s World Cup.
1972: Title IX enacted, banning sex discrimination in federally funded education, boosting women’s sports, within the United States of America
The American sporting culture could be described as overtly male orientated, with little attention given to competitive sport played by women. The ethos around American Football, the code played on a gridiron pitch, is largely based around physical strength, big tackles and dominating opponents. These aren’t necessarily male attributes, but when enjoyed by a broader society that doesn’t habitually promote females in their sporting pursuits it suggests a deeper malaise. The North American tournament structures in the various elite sports are also based around corporate franchise teams, instead of the European community clubs. Therefore these teams have to use a draft system to gain young players from the universities and colleges that effectively develop the various youth teams. High school pupils who show athletic talent are offered academic scholarships to attend the colleges, thus follow a pathway to the major leagues.
These educational establishments are able to gain money from sporting contests and gain gate receipts from those who attend a variety of games played within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competitions. This capitalist mindset, beloved in the USA has traditionally focused on those who will help to turn a profit, instead of developing minority sports. Women have not always been included in this drive for more money within American sports. Female programs have been considered a drain on profits, instead of a cash earner and therefore have often been disregarded over the years. However, in the 1970s a major step forward was taken by the USA federal government. Title IX legislated that any educational institution, program, or activity that received public funds could not discriminate based on an athlete’s gender. This prompted a rise in female participation and a greater number of opportunities for women to not only participate, but also gain access to a college education.
1972: the first official women’s international football match, Scotland vs. England
On the 18th of November 1972, at the Ravenscraig Stadium in the Scottish town Greenock, Scotland hosted England with the tourists winning 3-2. The Scots took a two nil lead, with Mary Carr bagging the historic first, followed by another from striker Rose Reilly. The English then made a comeback with goals from Sylvia Gore, Lynda Hale and Jeannie Allott. The fixture came a century after the first official men’s international game. It represented a significant step forward after the English Football Association’s ban on women’s football was lifted the previous year. Women’s games had been going on unofficially, of course, for decades, but this recognition from national governing bodies the FA and the Scottish FA, as well as the world governing body FIFA shows the progress made in since the ban was put in place in 1921.
1973: Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” (tennis)
Billie Jean King has been an advocate for female sports for decades. She has consistently strived towards improved prize funds for women in tournaments and greater parity between the genders in her sport of tennis. Bobby Riggs, a male player from an older generation and a former Wimbledon champion, was very public in his sexism and dislike of female participation in sport. In the early 1970s, whilst retired he spoke of his disregard of the ladies tennis game, suggesting that the best player wouldn’t be able to beat him. At the age of 55 he managed to arrange an exhibition match against Billie Jean King, who was aged 29 at the time and a multiple grand slam champion. Despite Riggs taking an early lead, King won in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in order to strike a decisive victory for all women in sport over outright sexism.
1974: the first official women’s Hockey World Cup
The inaugural women’s hockey World Cup took place in the French commune of Mandelieu-la-Napoule. The men had already had two editions in 1971 and 1973, but we didn’t have to wait as long as we did in hockey to see a ladies edition as we did in football. 10 teams from three confederations competed for the global title. Mexico, Switzerland, Austria, France, Spain and Belgium were all eliminated in the group stages. India finished in fourth place, whilst West Germany took the bronze medal. In the grande finale Germany beat Argentina by one goal to nil.
1980: the first appearance of women’s field hockey at the Summer Olympics
This is another example of men’s sport and male athletes getting more opportunities to perform at the elite level than their female equivalents. The first appearance of a men’s tournament at the Summer Olympics occurred at the London Games of 1908, before establishing itself more permanently by 1928. It wasn’t until Moscow 1980 that women were invited to compete. Due to the political nuances of the Cold War, many teams who had qualified declined to turn up, meaning a reduced competition. Six teams played a round robin tournament, with Poland, Austria and India making up the numbers. The Soviet Union took the bronze medal, Czechoslovakia came second, with Zimbabwe becoming the only African country to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games. The top goalscorer where Natella Krasnikova of the Soviet Union and Patricia McKillop of Zimbabwe who bagged six goals each.
1982: the first women’s international rugby match, Netherlands vs. France
On June 13, the Netherlands played France, in Utrecht with the French winning 4-0. The fixture was decided by a solitary try by right winger Isabelle Decamp. This game proved to be a pivotal moment in women’s rugby as it was the first international tie to be officially recognised as a test match. Progress was slow, with the first test match being played outside of Europe three years later, between the United States of America and Canada. Women’s rugby is now played all over the world, with more and more players joining clubs.
1984: women allowed to compete in the Olympic Marathon
Through the 1960s and 1970s women had been pushing the relevant sporting governing bodies to allow them to compete in a greater number of athletic events, such as middle and long distance races. However, it wasn’t until the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 that they were invited to run in the marathon. 50 athletes, from 28 countries entered the competition, with 44 able to cross the finish line. Portugal’s Rosa Mota finished in third place, with a time of 02 hours 26 minutes and 57 seconds and Grete Waitz-Andersen of Norway came second with a time of 02 hours 26 minutes and 18 seconds. However it was the American runner Joan Benoit who took the gold medal with a time of 02 hours 24 minutes and 52 seconds. It allowed campaigners for female sport to point towards successful competitors in their movement towards equality.
1991: the first official football women’s FIFA World Cup
The inaugural women’s World Cup was a long time coming. As mentioned above, the ladies game had been going on for as long as the guys had been playing. However, the first official competition took place more than 60 years after the first ever men’s tournament. It was hosted in the Chinese province of Guangdong, between November 16th and 30th, 1991, with games being played in cities Guangzhou, Foshan, Jiangmen, and Zhongshan. 12 national teams, from six continental confederations qualified. Brazil, Japan, New Zealand and Nigeria went out in the first round, with Taiwan (playing until the title Chinese Taipei), Denmark, Italy and hosts China going out in the quarter Finals. Germany came fourth, losing to fellow Europeans Sweden in the third place playoff. The United States of America (USWNT) overcame Norway by two goals to one in the final. The Americans would go onto become the most successful national team in women’s football, dominating the sport for years to come. It was the USWNT players who dominated the awards, with Carin Jennings winning best player and Michelle Akers-Stahl taking the golden boot with ten goals.
1996/97: the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) debuted with eight teams
Women’s National Basketball Association was approved by the NBA Board of Governors on April 24, 1996. The first season included eight teams, Charlotte, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Sacramento and Utah. It is now an established competition played by over a dozen sides, with expansion plans for 18 by 2030.
1998: the first official women’s Rugby World Cup
The inaugural women’s rugby World Cup happened 11 years after the men’s tournament. There had been unofficial competitions beforehand, with women taking matters into their own hands. 1990 saw the four countries (New Zealand, USA, the Netherlands and the Soviet Union) compete in the Women’s World Rugby Festival, hosted by the Kiwis. World Cup competitions in 1991 and 1994 went ahead, despite not being sanctioned by the world governing body, the International Rugby Board (IRB). The 1991 event, held in Wales, was won by the United States, who beat England in the final. This fixture was repeated in the 1994 tournament, hosted by the Scots, with England running out 38-23 winners, whilst France beat the Welsh in the third place play-off.
In 1998 the IRB finally saw fit to officially sanction the women’s game, with the World Cup being hosted in the Netherlands. 16 teams entered this inaugural competition, with England beating Canada in the bronze medal match. However, it was the Kiwis who beat the USA in the grande finale by 44 points to 12. New Zealand’s Annaleah Rush finished as the tournament’s top goalscorer, whilst Dutch player Minke Docter scored the most tries.
2007: Grand Slam tennis tournaments achieve equal prize money
Equal pay for male and female athletes has been a major talking point within sport. It’s a broad ranging debate, with variables around professionalism, semi-professionalism, levels of sponsorship and media interest. However, when athletes put in the same amount of effort then the levels of income should also be identical. Unlike many other sports men’s and women’s tennis has more, or less, moved in parallel over the past several decades in many aspects apart from price money. Having said that, there was a major step forward in 2007 when Wimbledon offered equal prize money from the champions down to the first round losers in all events for the first time in its history. This brought the tournament in line with the other three Grand Slams, who offered similar packages. The US Open did so in 1973 and the Australian Open initially 1984 and then consistently in 2001. The French Open equalised the pots for the winners only a short time before the English did so in 2007.
2012: women compete in every sport on the Olympic program
The London Olympics represented a major milestone in the progress towards gender equality within the Olympic movement. 2012 was the third time that the English Capital City had hosted the summer games. It was also the first time that women competed in every sport on the programme. Women’s boxing was included for the first time, with British athlete Nicola Adams taking the first ever gold medal in the flyweight category, a feat she repeated in 2016. Italy took a clean sweep in the foil event of the fencing tournament, with Italians winning all three medals – Valentina Vezzali the bronze, Arianna Errigo the silver and Elisa Di Francisca the gold. Chinese women also made filled out the podium of the 20 kilometres walking competition, with Lü Xiuzhi coming third, Liu Hong finishing second and Qieyang Shenjie coming out on top. Other successes for the hosts included Jess Ennis (now Ennis-Hill) taking gold in the heptathlon, with Victoria Pendleton and Laura Trott (now Kenny) winning cycling events. Team GB even came third in the hockey tournament, the ladies first medal since the Barcelona games of 1992.
2022: the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team won a landmark lawsuit, ensuring equal pay and prize money with the men’s team
As mentioned earlier in the essay the conversation around equal pay in sport can be a layered one. A part of the debate is that often enough men’s teams and athletes bring in greater levels of income from sponsorship and gate receipts. However, this isn’t the case within the sport of association football in the USA. Soccer is one of the most popular sports for girls and women in Norther America, with a significant amount of players involved in teams all over the country. Not only this, but the United States National Women’s Team is more successful than the men’s team, having won the World Cup and draws in considerable viewing figures on television. The national governing body for soccer in the USA, however, thought it appropriate to recompense the men to greater effect. The women’s squad took a series of legal actions in 2016. $24 million was set aside in February of 2022. A lump sum of $22 million went to the players, with a further $2 million put into an account to benefit the athletes in the post playing careers and related charitable causes related to women’s and girls’ footy.
2024: gender parity in athlete participation at the Olympic Games
The Paris Olympics of 2024 saw the most equal levels of participation between male and female athletes at the Summer Games in the history of the movement. Having said that, it wasn’t exactly an even split, unfortunately. There were 16 men’s teams in the football tournament, compared to the 12 for the women’s event. Similarly in the water polo, there were 12 men’s sides and only ten for women. The Women in Sport website reported that in total there were 157 male events, compared to 152 for women. In addition to this there were 5,630 male athletes compared to 5,416 female. There is also a conversation to be had around getting more women into backroom roles, with a significant lack of ladies moving into coaching. However this was the closest we have ever been up to the date of writing. It was another step forward in the Olympic movement that started with the first appearance of female athletes at the Paris Games of 1900 and continued further in the 21st century, at London 2012. Hopefully there is more to come…
