Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

107 Separate but Equal: Feminism Divides the Game The Association’s feminism was compatible with changing feminine ideals, but also tried to reconcile this with older established models of fragile womanhood. The belief that ‘competitive spirit leads to jealousy and rivalries and personal animosities’, as post-war WCA spokesperson Netta Rheinberg wrote in her diary in 1949, was certainly the view held by the Association from its formation. There is no doubt amateurism was a manifestation of their middle-class worldview, and the Association deliberately adopted a position similar to advocates of men’s amateurism that the game was more carefree and enjoyable when played without financial incentive. 44 This approach may seem overly deferential today, but given women’s football was banned just five years before the WCA was founded in 1926, it was the best method of appeasing a hostile cricketing public and establishment. Class and regional differences were important reasons for the sport’s division, but bubbling underneath these issues was a subtle yet visible conflict over feminism. For working girls in Yorkshire and Lancashire the English Federation provided cheap and entertaining recreation, the thrill of playing in front of large crowds but without the restraints on behaviour and attire that the Association imposed. In this respect, the English Women’s Cricket Federation’s contribution to the sport was significant. However, without a vision for its future if profits dropped, which they surely did, the game could not endure. The separatist philosophy taken by the Association and orchestrated by feminists was smart and logical. While publicly they claimed to ‘kill’ off any notion they were ‘averse to men’, they nonetheless forged a separate cultural world for their activities rather than compete directly with men in the same setting. 45 Many of the WCA’s members who may not have identified themselves as feminists came from environments where female autonomy was the norm; institutions wheremale supremacy was rejected and a spirit of freedomand transgression encouraged. In this respect, the WCA was simply a natural extension of the public-school playing field, but for working women this was unappealing and inaccessible. Although the WCA’s attitude to working women changed in the later 1930s, members’ reluctance to accept formal male power, competitions or commercialism alienated poorer women who did not have the luxury of generous employers like Cadbury’s. Marjorie Pollard, writing in The Observer in 1937 made this tension between access and autonomy clear. ‘There are players in the Association to whom the buying of a new bat would be an absolute impossibility. Is it fair to penalise such players?’ 46 Separation from men and commercialism came at a high cost that few could afford. In short, commitment to the future of the sport and feminist ideals were placed above greater accessibility. Nevertheless, while the English Federation folded due to declining profits and the inferior position women were placed in, the separatism of the WCA was wholly vindicated. The Association’s refusal to play second fiddle to men’s cricket allowed members to forge a space free from corrupting influences which threatened to weaken it, and instead built the organisation on the solid footing of equal opportunities, voluntary service