Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

139 Britain, and cricket mirrored those changes. Before the First World War, cricket had been used by some feminists to argue for a more active role in public society for women, but their arguments were still rooted in women’s biological role as mothers. Mary Scharlieb, one of the earliest female physicians, had supported efforts for equal pay and better access to the professions, calling on women to ‘realise her equality with man’ and take a greater share in public life in Edwardian Britain. She praised team games for endowing girls with skills like endurance, self-respect, courage, intelligence, fairness and selflessness. In 1911, Scharlieb boldly claimed if girls played more team games like cricket it would result in ‘better work, less breakdown, less temptation, less vice, less misery, less insanity, and less pauperism.’ In fact, there was little she believed sport was not capable of achieving. However, while team games were ‘invaluable’ for girls and held great power to shape a new form of participatory citizenship, Scharlieb’s arguments stemmed from a conviction in traditional gender roles. ‘The destiny of man is emphatically to be the breadwinner’, a woman’s to ‘give to the nation its future citizens, to feed them, to nurture them, to teach them.’ Reproducing ‘the race’ was her highest priority, and she warned girls too much cricket and hockey could warp their development, and make them infertile or ‘less well fitted for the duties of maternity than their more feminine sisters.’ 6 In this respect she echoed Martina Bergman-Österberg’s belief sport was a tool for cultivating better racial health. Even for progressive feminists like Scharlieb and Bergman-Österberg, motherhood was the greatest contribution a woman could make to the nation. When the WCA praised their members for performing ‘their fair share of dangerous and stern duties all over the world’ in 1946, it was clear women’s value in British society had fundamentally changed in less than three decades. 7 They had once again come to the rescue of the nation, helping to defeat the threat of Fascism in their roles home and abroad. It was not their wombs that were valued, but their intellect, bravery, teamwork, loyalty and tireless labour. They had not been dragged into war by a reluctant government after two years of attrition, like in 1916, but enrolled from the start. By 1941, when women were conscripted, the women’s air and naval services already had waiting lists. 8 The meaning of citizenship was transformed between the wars. Cricket was not only a symbol of this change but had actively enriched it. Sporting females not only had to prove their capacity to play well, but also the utility of the game for women. Cricketers had to firstly demonstrate they could play, and thereafter that they should play. Men very rarely faced challenges to either principle. The ‘rhetoric of citizenship’ used by advocates of the game went some way to remedy the latter, while an obsessive emphasis on decorous, highly skilled and smartly-dressed public performances countered the former. Cricket was held up as an act of voluntary civic duty. Organising the game was a service to the community that taught girls and young women vital moral skills needed for adulthood, and provided a productive, worthwhile Conclusion - War Again, and its Aftermath