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"Because sports were and continue to be defined by men, they are shot through with certain stereotypes that are internalised by both sexes. “The major stereotype is still this ‘masculinisation’ of women who play sports and that this masculanisation leads directly into ‘lesbianism,’” says Balbier. “You cannot be a ‘beautiful’ wrestler or even a ‘beautiful’ boxer because even though we try to get out of our gender perspectives, we can’t… We still see certain sports that don’t fulfill our own perceptions or images of femininity. And that is why many people really don’t want to watch women box, for example. It takes such a long time to establish new images.

But while the Industrial Revolution meant physical liberation for well-to-do men, it meant the opposite for their wives and daughters. The prevailing medical dogmas of the time dictated that the ‘nature of women’ was determined by a fixed degree of energy for all their endeavours (mental, physical, emotional, etc.). This theory meshed well with the bourgeois Victorian ideal of the idle, porcelain-doll woman whose role in society was to look good, be the moral heart of the family, show off her husband’s wealth through the purchase of expensive items and make babies. The last point is paramount because it has often been a reason, overt or underlying, to exclude women from sports."

more of the article can be read here ( via HUCK magazine)