The Girl and the Game: A History of Women's Sport in Canada

The Girl and the Game traces the history of women's organized sport in Canada from its early, informal roots in the late nineteenth century through the formation of amateur and professional teams to today's tendency to market women athletes, especially Olympians, as both athletic and sexual. When women actively participate in the symbols, practices, and institutions of sport, what they do is often not considered "real" sport, nor in some cases are they viewed as "real" women. What follows from this notion of sport as a site of cultural struggle is that the history of women in sport is also a history of cultural resistance.