Women and Sports : Global Lives in Focus

This extensive volume is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning about the global history of women and sports, specifically the way in which gender norms interact with and affect accessibility and reception of women athletes. Equal pay. Better funding for uniforms and equipment. More media coverage. Sexual harassment and assault. These are issues that plague women's sports, from professional elite athletes to young girls.

What are the challenges that face women around the world when it comes to sports, and how are women overcoming these struggles?This volume serves as a broad history of women and sports in a global perspective, providing an overview that covers all the world's major regions.

Chapters include North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and East Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and Oceania.

Each chapter provides historical background, bringing readers up to date with today's issues.

A chronology of significant events provides a quick reference.

By connecting political, social, and cultural phenomena to women's participation in sports, readers will acquire a deeper understanding of the role played by gender and sex discrimination on such a seemingly apolitical endeavor as sports. Provides readers with a global perspective on women and sports, following themes that transcend race, ethnicity, region, and cultureIncorporates historical context from political and social movements that have directly affected women's access to sports and the public reception of female athletesIncludes vignettes of the personal lives of notable women's sports figures, illuminating the importance of political, cultural, and social environments outside of sports on the lives of female athletesOffers interesting and insightful information in sidebars placed throughout the text to make the reader's experience more enrichingProvides readers with at-a-glance information of the history of women and the military around the world in a chronologyIllustrates and supports the text in photographs