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14

Women's Physical Education:
A Gender-Sensitive Perspective
ANN DILLER AND BARBARA HOUSTON

Active exercise was my delight. . . . No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in
a race, and no girl if she refused to climb a tree, leap fences, and be a tomboy ( Louisa
May Alcott, quoted in Lerner 1977, p. 7).

Why should one talk about women's physical education? Why not talk about
physical education for both women and men, for children, for adolescents,
for adults, for persons? Some would argue that to raise the separate question
of women's physical education is to already affirm and perpetuate a detrimen-
tal distinction based on biological sex where such a distinction is neither re-
quired nor desirable.There is no question that physical education has been differentiated for
the sexes for reasons having to do with both perceived biological and social
differences between them. 1 Women have played an active role in the devel-
opment of their own formal physical education since its modern beginnings
in the mid-nineteenth century, and it has differed in character from men's
physical education in the following ways ( Kennard 1977, pp. 835-843):
1. The philosophy of physical education for women has emphasized the
importance of securing "the greatest good to the greatest number"
( Spears 1978, p. 11) and has all along placed a greater emphasis on
amateur as opposed to professional sport, on cooperation rather than
competition, and on the basic benefits to be gained by everyone rather
than pursuit of the scarce benefits affordable to the few.
2. Women and men have differed in their conceptions and administra-
tion of competitive athletics. In women's programs extramural sport
has been developed within the educational context, with goals and
staff allocations the same for general education, professional prepara-

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Publication Information: Book Title: The Gender Question in Education: Theory, Pedagogy, and Politics. Contributors: Ann Diller - author, Barbara Houston - author, Kathryn Pauly Morgan - author, Maryann Ayim - author. Publisher: Westview Press. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. Publication Year: 1996. Page Number: 179.
    
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