GIRLS ON THE MARCH

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 39, 8 October 1952, Page 4

GIRLS ON THE MARCH

There are plenty of people alive tocay who can remember a time when any kind of atbletic sport was more or less taboo for girls. Tomboys were frowned upon. A Victorian tennis court, or croquet lawn marked the limit of their public pliysical exereises, played with genteel decorum and attired accordingly. Our girls have marched a long way since these prim and proper days, and en route have discarded much of their shrinking self-con-seiousness and not a few of their cumbersome garments. One has only to look at the records and the photographs of the last Olympiad at Helsinki to realise how far they kave travelled, and to what extent they have demolished the sports barriers which formerly had compilled them to lead a more or less ! cloistered existence. They have won the battle for the equality of the sexes in the right to enter the TeM of athletics, f'hou gh they may still have some distance to travel before that same equality which they are demanding in industry, commerce, and the professions can he mmpletely established in the renumerative sense. This liberation of the girls from the fetters of puritamieal tradition is, on an overa.ll survey, a healthy °nd wholesome development. It is aPogether .satisfactory that recogni'ion is now given by community opimon to the fact that health givmg snorts and other active recreations for girls make a solid foundation for good physique and charac-ter-building. For this reason Taupo welcomes the latest new movement for engaging the interest and actiyities of our girls — the marching teams — the demonstration given here on Sunday, September 28th. by visd.ing marching teams from Mount Maunganui and Rotorua was really impressive. It was an inspiring spectacle to see those erect oleanlimbed girls marching in uniform with the dfisciplined precision of tramed army companies on parade. The important thing about these •healthy activities is that the girls are given an expansion of interests and a wider horizon, and under cond> ions that drive home the virtues of discipline and good team work. The marching girls' movement as with the Girl Guides' is worthy of every encouragement, from the sociai as well as the physical standpoint.