Female corporal practices in paulista clubs in the earlier XX century

Abstract

In the second decade of the XX century, sports were still accepted as a male institution, which disabled the female athletic experience, being only the athletics, the classic dance and the basketball (called "bola ao cesto") considered as healthy activities to the so called "fragile gender". Once banned from stadiums and sport institutions as well as from the very public life at that time, the female condition was limited to home and family activities. Notwithstanding, the Feminism strived for the right to citizenship and to a legal existence in public life. The Physical Education very itself referred women as physically active through its discourses within eugenics and hygienic purposes. The aim of this study is to discuss how occurred the women participation in corporal practices in clubs in the decade of 20 in São Paulo city