Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

111 A report into the curriculum of boys and girls by the College of Preceptors in 1923 echoed many of these criticisms. It stated that while cricket, hockey, tennis and lacrosse were suitable for girls, they recommended against making them compulsory elements of any curriculum. The purpose of physical education for boys was to produce muscular strength and energy; for girls, it was smoothness, elegance, suppleness, lightness of movement and grace. Due to their ‘nerves’ and a fear they might overexert themselves, it was believed games for girls should be limited in time and frequency, while their innate ‘sense of duty’ may lead to overly vigorous play and result in physical and mental exhaustion. Parents also complained of their daughters arriving home too late and not being able to complete domestic tasks. Meanwhile, the national press still expressed their belief cricket would encourage a ‘combative disposition’ and create ‘a creature who has male, rather than female characteristics.’ 3 Even as the sport gained greater acceptance among the teaching profession for its physical benefits, it was still viewed as corrupting their wider role as delicate, domesticated and submissive madonnas. Advocates of women’s team sports had, however, defended their moral value by wedding them to ideas of female citizenship. Jane Francis Dove, the Headmistress of Wycombe Abbey School, had justified her adoption of the public boys’ school curriculum, with its intense focus on team games, as essential for the cultivation of the mind and the ‘moral power’ it endowed girls with. Writing in 1898, Dove argued that it was the games mistress that chiefly taught girls how to become good citizens: ‘The woman who indulges in family selfishness is a bad citizen. To be a good citizen, it is essential that she should have wide interests, a sense of discipline and organisation, esprit de corps , a power of corporate action… [these principles] are being imbibed every hour and minute of the day, though nowhere more completely than in the playground, and in the playground the large organised games, such as cricket, hockey and lacrosse, are the most useful for this purpose.’ 4 Just as the government made clear two decades later, the principles of community life were best learnt on the sports field in team activities such as cricket. Through playing these games girls learnt to be organised, resilient, courageous, empathetic, determined, self-reliant, selfless leaders who could think and act quickly for the common good. Dove believed men’s role in public life meant they learnt these skills quickly as they were prioritised in schools, but were little valued in girls. While these ideas were physically emancipatory in the late-19th century, they remained submerged in the language of domesticity which justified their pedagogical use through the lessons they taught future wives and mothers. Unselfish behaviour was essential to learn for family management; loyalty and self-sacrifice indispensable in preparation for motherhood; and the value of team games important to pass on to their children. Playing ‘masculine’ sports did not have to mean masculine play. Dove stressed how cricket, hockey and lacrosse were based on etiquette, More than a Game: Citizenship and Cricket