WOMEN IN SPORT

Evening Star, Issue 22463, 7 October 1936, Page 5

WOMEN IN SPORT

DUTY IS TO LOOK BEAUTIFUL Of some 25 sports in which ladies of to-day indulge publicly with vehemence and passion, there are only eight in which they do not manage to look utterly silly. Paul Gallieo, candid sports writer, contends in ‘Vogue ’ that it is a lady’s business to look beautiful. He definitely forbids, therefore, any sport in which women “ stick out” places when, they play, wear funny clothes, get out of breath, or perspire. Ladies have no business playing squash or any of its derivatives. They think they look beautiful and graceful playing tennis, but they do not. The girl who can run attractively has not yet been built—girls do something funny with their feet, or their knees_ go the wrong way. And the Uppityskipplty sort of jig they do from side to side to cover court is just about as elegant as a giraffe in a great hurry. And, besides, they get hot, and puff out their cheeks, and some of them stick out their tummies when about to lay into a forehand drive. Females who don track shorts and jerseys and run and jump in track meets are just wasting their time, and ours, because they can’t run fast enough or jump high enough or throw things far enough to matter, and besides they weren’t built for that sort of costume. The upper part of their legs go in at the wrong places; they carry too much weight from the waist up unless they are built like boys (in which case this doesn’t count, because then they aren’t ladies) ; and, finally, they ought to get a look at their faces as they break the tape at the finish of the 100yds dash, twisted and contorted and pitted with grey lines of exhaustion. Basketball and baseball played right are games for men, and good tough ones, and if you don’t play it right, why play it at all? If girls played basketball under men’s rules, they would ho taken away on stretchers after nve minutes.

Badminton sounds like a lady’s game, but it isn’t, because one hard set of badminton, well played, is more exhausting than three sets of tennis. Golf was never meant for women. If you don’t believe it just think back to some of the instructions given you by your professional as to what to do with your Whatsit and your Whosit when you swing. A girl just can’t do those things and .still be a lady. Fencing calls for the most absurd and unflattering posture in which a female could be asked to twist herself, and, besides, the clothes most of them wear are utterly ridiculous and unsuited to the figure. The only time a girl fencer looks graceful and feminine is in the lunge when perfectly executed. Girls don’t look well swimming free style or breast stroke, because their hips are too wide and they wear those dreadful tight-fitting bathing caps to keep their hair from getting wet. Why don’t they let their hair get wet? I am now happy to arrive at the sports that have my approval for public performance, beginning with angling. Somehow it is pleasant and stimulating to see a girl hooked into a fish and playing him well. Somehow, too, a lady can manage to look most fetching shooting a bow and arrow. Archery is a calm, contemplative sport, as well, and the movements are all graceful. Nor is there anything prettier than to watch a good girl flier—they’re all good or they don’t live long—circle her bright-coloured bird down out of the sky and set it down on the field neatly and smoothly, roll to a stop, and reach for her handbag and powder her nose and touch up her lips before she

scrambles out of the cockpit all aglow with the fun and excitement of it. FJying costumes are most becoming, too.

Hiding and shooting are on the "Yes" list. So is. hack-stroke swimming. It is graceful and full of rhythm and the girls swim, face up, their features wreathed and softened by the white foam they churn up in the green waters. Speed and figure skating are permitted, especially the latter, which is the female figure in the dance, but freed by the steel blades from the ordinary pull of gravity and lethargy of friction. An entire arena is her dance floor, and there is no costume lovelier or more graceful than the figure skating dress with its short, flared skirt and the jaunty caps to match. Ski-ing is on the doubtful list, not because the girls don't look simply magnificent in ski clothes and graceful as wheeling gulls when they do it well, but they are always running into trees or getting water on the knee, or twisting their ankles, which makes them practically useless as (lancing partners, and they hobble around looking woeful. And they do get themselves into the most ridiculous positions when they fall. It is to be hoped that tin's is all clear. It's my last warning on this