Tennis representations in the 20th-century Brazilian press: women’s bodies in focus

ABSTRACT

Involved in representations that produce meanings according to the characteristics of each time and space, the human body is a record of history and culture. The media is one of the instruments that convey these meanings, and, as tennis was a sport considered beautiful and without physical contact, it represented a practice that did not disfigure the femininity of cisgender women. Therefore, this study sought to discuss how the sport of tennis was represented in a women’s magazine in the mid-20^th century in Brazil, analyzing the stereotypes behind such a representation. For this, we used the pages of the Brazilian magazine Jornal das Moças and defined the period in which it was distributed as being from 1914 to 1965. We identified different representations of the tennis practice that reinforced whiteness and specific stereotypes, such as cisness and heteronormativity, when encouraging women to be attractive to men, with tennis supporting the importance of women in the constitution of families and being an opportunity for women from ruling classes to leave the domestic environment. In addition, it involved aspects of health maintenance and forms of beautification capable of developing physical characteristics that received high praise in virtue of the type of femininity.

KEYWORDS:

• Women’s magazine
• tennis
• sport
• body
• femininity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Generically and using a binary division of gender (man or woman), cisgender people are those who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth, chosen according to their genitalia. Conversely, transgender people are those who do not identify with the gender assigned at birth (Amara Moira Rodovalho 2017). Regarding this topic, we suggest the article by Rodovalho (2017), which problematizes the emergence of the terms “trans” and “cis.”

2. Although the time frame of this research ends in 1965, we would like to highlight that, in 1977, American Renée Richards was the first transgender tennis player to participate in official competitions of this sport (Camargo 2018).

3. During the period the magazine was published, there were some movements and new forms of insertion of women into society, such as the Women’s Republican Party, founded in 1910, the Brazilian Federation for Women’s Progress, founded in 1922, and the National Women’s Alliance, founded in 1931. The claims of these entities were various, such as women’s right to vote, the instruction of women, the protection of mothers and childhood, legislation to regulate women’s labor, a more significant insertion of women in politics, and emancipation, among others (D. E. S. Arango 2016). Such discourses were starting to disseminate among the women of wealthier classes in spaces of socialization such as sports clubs and were treated with information that should be contained to maintain a status quo.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the CAPES [001].