Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

52 It’s not Cricket? Public Hostility and Apathy The dearth of recognition or serious journalism was partly a result of the relatively low playing numbers, or a genuine lack of interest, but it was also an attempt to maintain absolute male authority over the game. The president of the Club Cricket Conference warned the WCA in 1929 that men would treat women with ‘serious misgivings or disfavour’ should they ‘deprive’ male players of facilities or pitches, and warned the WCA against ‘alienating’ the ‘detached feelings of toleration’ felt by some men. Although letters of support were sent from some prominent members of the MCC, including former England captain Pelham Warner, this rarely resulted in material assistance. It was not until 1937 that any financial support was offered by cricket’s governing body, a rather patronising £25 towards a tour fund of more than £1,000, and despite requests it was only in 1976 that a women’s cricket match was played at Lord’s. 16 The MCC stood firm in its belief women’s cricket would remain a passing fancy, unseen and unheard. The end of humanity? Fertility and women’s bodies Critics often guised sexual discrimination in the language of sexual difference or benevolence. Sport, and especially strenuous team sports, was a battleground for gender politics in the interwar years. Some mothers felt the game was too violent for their daughters, fearing they would lose teeth or develop unnaturally, and called for the sport to be banned. For many men, masculinity was defined through the absence of female influence, and the MCC was their shining, Masonic example. Highlighting women’s alleged psychological limitations was a chief method of maintaining the status quo. Emphasising their seemingly innate, physical frailties was even more common. ‘A woman’s mental make-up is all against her chances of making good at a game like cricket’, England batsman Patsy Hendren claimed in 1932. ‘She has not the patience to practice detail to the extent which it has to be practised, and she loves a “flutter” too much to be able to stay long enough at the wicket to overcome a really good attack.’ 17 Journalists warned the competitiveness cricket demanded went against women’s nature and fostered ‘caddish … mean, hateful acts, like catching one another out, bowling one another – acts which, but for the demands of team spirit, they would no sooner contemplate than they would discuss one another’s ages or run down one another’s hats.’ 18 If the game was fundamentally unfeminine in its demand for competitive and disciplined play, it was also to be opposed on medical grounds. The British Medical Journal cautioned against nurturing ‘a love of pleasure, detrimental to home and other interests and to lessen womanly qualities’, while some Edwardian female commentators argued cricket caused a ‘disease in her mental power’ resulting in: ‘loud voices, loosened hair, rough words and gestures… they are not beautiful; neither are big, reddened hands, large feet, to be admired.’ A letter to The Lancet in 1921 from ‘Ms Cowdroy’ went further still, diagnosing female cricketers with a host of physical and social ills. Players not only suffered morally, through selfish and materialistic behaviour, but also physically through ‘hard muscles, a set jaw, flat chest and often hard aggressive manners.’ Girls infected with