Kvindeidrættens pionerer og den moderne kvinde

En analyse af 1. og 2. generationspionererne inden for kvindeidræt og deres betydning for kvinders deltagelse i gymnastik og sport.The pioneers of women’s sport – and the modern womanThe article contains an analysis of early women’s sport in Denmark seen through the eyes of the first and second generation of sporting pioneers. By means of three approaches relating respectively to health and science, education and training and emancipation and sports culture, an attempt is made to create a balanced understanding of early developments up to the beginning of the 20th century with respect both to a delimitation of the period and to an ideological starting point. The analysis indicates that the period up until the beginning of the 20th century can be divided into periods before and after the 1880’s, after which time new knowledge regarding woman’s physical body takes on decisive significance for the understanding of femaleness. The first generation of pioneers were to a large extent in agreement in their views on sex and physical activity, while the second generation after about the 1880’s demonstrate at least two fundamentally different views on femaleness, sport and gymnastics. One view, which took an form of adjusted femaleness, inner emancipation and gymnastics as its point of departure, was associated with a view of the possibilities open to women during the period 1850-80 and before; the other view is associated with what I call in the article an extended femaleness, outer emancipation, gymnastics and sport and was linked to a modern way of thinking that lasted well into the 20th century.