SEX IN GAMES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4562, 11 May 1923, Page 4

SEX IN GAMES.

(By A. E. Crawley, in the “Overseas Daily Mail”) Now that women are concentrating so much on sports and games it is worth while considering the differences between the sexes in this sphere of activity. An interesting psychological point is that women most enjoy watching games peculiar -to men, such as cricket and football; but it is not the game that attracts so much as the sight of men in action. Also, most men who watch women playfng goln or, lawn tennis, or hockey, or lacrosse are watching the women rather than their play. . This is the basis of the observers “attention.” Secondarily, he will note the characteristics of the play, as determined by sex; finally, in great performances, the sex element, is forgotten in . the appraisement, of the play. The player is now not a man or a woman, but a player. Apart from this final stage the sex differences are well marked. Women are slow in starting, where the start is from the feet. In arm work they are as quick as •men, though with less “punch.” Women are natural dancers, and

you would expect them to excell in footwprk, but their footwork is much inferior to men’s in lawn tennis. In golf it is as good. Lawn tennis shows a curious feminine defect in 90 per cent, of players. This is in service ; the ball is bit across instead of forward; it is a “brushing” movement, the stroke being al right angles to the direction of the ball. The reason for this peculiarity seems to be a desire to shirk the throwing action of the straight orthodox service. Women can throw, bm not very strongly, and they are not fond of the movement.