Società Italiana delle Storiche; Siglinde Clementi (Web)

Time: 17.-19.11.2022
Venue: Roma
Proposals by: 15.05.2022

Starting from the stages of women’s participation in the various sports disciplines, the conference aims to develop the role of feminist movements in stimulating or claiming women’s sports practice and the formal admission of women to competitions. Furthermore, it intends to investigate the field of sport as a fundamental context for the definition of male and female attributes, the construction of gender and binarism.

The successes of the ‚Azzurre‘, the discussions on professional women’s sport and the ensuing legal protection, the exclusion of women from certain sports, the controversy surrounding the natural testosterone levels of some women athletes, the political tensions generated by the restriction or exclusion of women from sport in certain regimes, the new visibility of the Paralympics, are just some of the current issues that touch on gender issues and call for in-depth reflection.

On an international level, in recent years there has been a proliferation of historical studies from a gender perspective on competitive and amateur sporting practices. Despite the fact that Italy is not absent in the panorama of studies – the Italian Society of Sport History has recently been established and the journal ‚Storia dello Sport. Rivista di studi contemporanei‘ – has been recently established, research is still relatively limited. In this context, the conference organised by the Società Italiana delle Storiche aims to stimulate research and to offer a ground for international comparison on sport in a long-term gender perspective.

Starting from the stages of women’s participation in the various sports disciplines, the conference aims to develop the role of feminist movements in stimulating or claiming women’s sports practice and the formal admission of women to competitions. Furthermore, it intends to investigate the field of sport as a fundamental context for the definition of male and female attributes, the construction of gender and binarism.

This is a terrain of competition and conflict, with forces on the ‚field‘ attempting to define the boundaries of male and female eligibility, and the bodies themselves, as demonstrated by … read more and source (Web).