Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions: On gender and the limits of female emancipation in the Sokol gymnastic movement

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61988987%3A17250%2F21%3AA22029MR" target="_blank" >RIV/61988987:17250/21:A22029MR - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/67985921:_____/21:00547963

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions: On gender and the limits of female emancipation in the Sokol gymnastic movement

Original language description

The Sokol movement, which used to be the signboard of Czech and Czechoslovakian national identity, took great pride in allowing women to work out early after the establishment of this mass gymnastic organisation in 1862. Most of the publications concerning the movement present this move as a very progressive phenomenon at that time, and a display of how Sokol contributed to the emancipation of women. The involvement of women was undoubtedly ground-breaking, but from a long-term point of view it is deceptive to evaluate this move as a step towards emancipation. The Sokol organisation has been a purely masculine entity since its very beginning, and its principles were always laid down by men; women’s emancipation took place within the scope delineated by their male counterparts. The chapter raises the issue of the so-called paradoxical women’s emancipation. Despite the fact that Sokol allowed women to work out, it strongly reinforced old relationships based on masculine domination and feminine submission. These issues were reflected at the organization level (men’s and women’s committees), at the spatial level (men’s and women’s sections of gym), at the technical level (men’s and women’s apparatuses), at the symbolic level (men’s trousers, women’s skirts), and the performance level (via manifestation of the masculinity – defence exercises performed in shorts, and manifestation of feminity – exercises emphasizing gracefulness and elegance in becoming clothing). This layout was supposed to inculcate traditional cultural stereotypes into the society (man – strength, mettle, superiority; woman – loveliness, charm, inferiority). Regardless progressivity and democratic tendency, the Sokol movement took a conservative if not discriminatory stance regarding the issue of women.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project

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Continuities

V - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z jinych verejnych zdroju

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Critical Reflections on Physical Culture at the Edges of Empire

ISBN

978-1-928480-68-6

Number of pages of the result

27

Pages from-to

57-83

Number of pages of the book

226

Publisher name

African Sun Media SUN PReSS

Place of publication

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UT code for WoS chapter

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