A Study on Representations and Gender Norms of “Sporting Girls” in a Girls’ Magazine of the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

In the 1920s, sports were recognized as modern culture and rapidly became popular among female students through school extracurricular activities. Representations of sporting females began to appear in the monthly girls' magazines of this era as protagonists of sports-related fiction or real female athletes who took part in school matches or international athletic meets in non-fiction articles and journalistic reports with photos. The purpose of this study is to examine some representations and gender norms of “Sporting girls” by focusing on descriptions and visual images from “Shoujo Kurabu”, which was one of the most popular girls' magazines during the 1920s and 1930s. The results of this study are summarized as follows: 1. When “Shoujo Kurabu” was published starting in 1923, the sports boom among female students had already started, so we can see various reading material and visual images concerning sports appeared in the magazine from an early time. 2. (1) Visual images of female athletic bodies on front covers of “Shoujo Kurabu” reflect the developing process of typical representations of “sporting girls” in the initial stage of female sports participation. (2) From the representations of “sporting girls” on photo pages in the June issue of 1934, we find that society expected female athletic bodies to adhere to the social norms of traditional femininity including modesty and restraint when engaging in sports. (3) From readings about round-table talk discussions with female student athletes in the May issue of 1935, we can find that the traditional gender norms were rewritten by males, applying a sporting spirit that encourages female students to have high morals including diligence as well as decency and politeness in their behavior. The magazine seems to have contributed to the construction, promotion and cultivation of a new gender norm of the “sporting girl”.