This lesson plan was created by members of Historica Canada’s teacher community. Historica Canada does not take responsibility for the accuracy or availability of any links herein, and the views reflected in these learning tools may not necessary reflect those of Historica Canada
This lesson plan was created by members of Historica Canada’s teacher community. Historica Canada does not take responsibility for the accuracy or availability of any links herein, and the views reflected in these learning tools may not necessary reflect those of Historica Canada. We welcome feedback regarding the content that may be linked to or included in these learning tools; email us at education@HistoricaCanada.ca.
This study guide is based on viewing the Footprint videos about Bobbie Rosenfeld, Barbara Ann Scott, Carling Bassett,Marlene Stewart-Streit, and Marilyn Bell. These athletes represent 100 years of major achievement by Canadian women in international competition. Their stories also provide an opportunity to examine the history of changing attitudes towards the participation of women in Canadian sport, and the social forces that shape these attitudes.
To develop an appreciation for the often under-reported accomplishments of women in the history of Canadian sport; to encourage an understanding of the social and political contexts in which those accomplishments took place; and, to critically examine the complex and changing attitudes towards the participation of women in Canadian sports.
When the Canadian women’s hockey team took home the gold medal, defeating the United States in a hotly contested final at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Canadians from coast-to-coast celebrated their victory. The amount of attention given to a women’s team in a traditionally male sport seemed unprecedented in Canadian history. Canada’s women hockey players quickly joined the ranks of the most recognized and celebrated female athletes in Canadian sports history.
Because many of us know very little about the history of women in Canadian sports, it might come as a surprise to learn that almost one hundred years ago, an age in which many assume that stereotypical attitudes towards women dominated mainstream society, women were active and frequent participants in Canadian sporting life, often in sports which even today are primarily played by men. The first women’s hockey game in Canada was played in Ottawa, in February 1891. Ladies hockey clubs existed across Quebec at the turn of the century. And while most of us know about the gold medal triumph of Canada’s women’s team at Salt Lake City, far fewer know about the Edmonton Grads, Canada’s women’s world basketball champions, whose success made basketball a hugely popular women’s sport in Canada in the 1920s. In 1930, the Sunnyside Ladies Softball League drew bigger crowds, larger box office receipts, and more extensive media coverage than any other baseball or softball league in Canada.
It is during this period that Russian émigré Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld established herself as perhaps the most accomplished Canadian female athlete of all time. Known as Bobbie because of her bobbed hair, by 1921 Rosenfeld was the top-ranked female sprinter in Canada. In 1925 she was ranked number one in 220 yards, long jump, shot-put and discus and so perhaps it’s not surprising that Rosenfeld won Canada’s first Olympic track and field medal — a silver — in 1928. She also won the Toronto Grass Court Tennis Championship, and played competitive basketball, softball, and hockey, her favourite sport. As a star centre for the North Toronto AAA hockey club, and then as captain of the Patterson Pats, Rosenfeld dominated Ontario women’s hockey in the late 1920s. Perhaps surprisingly, women’s hockey of the era was full contact, and very rough. Players regularly suffered cuts and serious injuries, just like the men of their time.
As women’s participation in a broad range of sports in the 1920s exploded, objections to the kind of no-holds-barred athleticism displayed by Rosenfeld and her contemporaries emerged. In an editorial at the time, the Toronto Daily Star wrote: "If ladies hockey is to be made a success, body-checking must be eliminated.... The fans like to see the ladies perform, but they do not want to see any roughness creep into the contests." These fears that rough and athletic behaviour were "unladylike" and "inappropriate" became more pronounced in the 1930’s. A Saturday Night magazine article argued that women who "develop masculine attributes" are likely to produce "weak sons". Physical educators also produced "evidence" that women were unfit for athletics. At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin Montreal Star sports editor Elmer Ferguson wrote that he was disgusted by the "violent, face-straining, dirtying, body bouncing, sweaty, graceless, struggling..." of women athletes. Ferguson argued that women should only participate in what he considered graceful, feminine events, "free from grime." Figure skating, diving, swimming, and tennis were the sort of sports generally considered more appropriate for women of the time.
This sort of criticism of female athletes would intensify in the post-war era. During the Second World War, women were needed to replace men in the labour force, producing goods for the war effort and filling the jobs left by men who were fighting overseas. After the war, millions of men returned home and with this, an increased emphasis on women’s "femininity" and domestic responsibilities was used as a means of encouraging women to leave the labour force.
This focus on traditional gender roles was reflected in the remarkable post-war emphasis placed on the femininity of female athletics during the late 1940’s. The sports in which women were encouraged to excel tended to be the so-called "beauty producing" sports. These were the grime-free endeavours Elmer Ferguson identified, which reflected more traditionally feminine values, like p