| Women's rowing in Australia | |
|---|---|
 Ladies rowing on the Brisbane River, ca. 1913 Spectators watching the floating procession of Henley-on-Brisbane, around 1913. The ladies four-oared Championships are being held in the river at the same time. | |
| Country | Australia |
| National team(s) | Australia |
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. [1] During the 1890s, cricket and rowing two of the most popular competitive sports for women in Australia. [1] A sculling race was held between two women from Victoria and New South Wales at the Albert Park Lake in Melbourne in 1901, during a regatta organised to celebrate a royal visit. The first recorded women's rowing club was the Albert Park Ladies' Rowing Club, formed in 1907 and based at Albert Park, with similar clubs formed in Brisbane in 1908 (the Brisbane LRC), Sydney in 1909 (the Western Suburbs LRC), and Tasmania in 1912 (the Buckingham LRC and the Sandy Bay LRC). [2] During that time period, rowing was considered an acceptable sport for women to participate in, [3] and was one of the first sports in which women were required to practise daily in order to excel at it. [4] Interstate competition commenced in 1912, when the Brisbane club travelled to Melbourne to race the Albert Park crew. A return race was held the following year in Queensland, but no more interstate events were held until after the conclusion of World War I, when a Victorian crew lost to a South Australian crew in Adelaide. The Women's Four-Oared Championship of Australia was first contested in 1920, in conjunction with the men's King's Cup, and was won by South Australia, who were to win seven of the first eight tournaments. [5]
In 1934, the Victorian Women's Centennial Sports Carnival was held. The event was organised by the Victorian Women's Amateur Sports Council and held at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds. The purpose was to increase women's interest in sport by providing them opportunities to play. Sports that were included on the programme included cricket, field hockey, women's basketball, bowls, rowing, swimming, athletics, rifle shooting, baseball, golf, tennis and badminton. There were over 1,000 bowlers involved over the course a week. Cricket featured a match versus a visiting English side. Women's basketball featured a Victorian side playing against a representative all Australian side. There was a day for watersports such as swimming and rowing. A tennis tournament was held. A field hockey tournament featuring Australian, Kiwi and Fijian teams was played. [6]
The first national championship for women's rowing in Australia took place in 1920. The national championship was for four women boats, [4] Also in 1920, the first national women's rowing sporting body was created. It was called the Australian Women's Rowing Council. [4] The rules of rowing changed, and starting in 1934, the national championship also had a competition for eight women boats. [6] In 1939, the national championships were canceled. This was being the men's only Victorian Rowing Council prevented the competition from happening by citing an obscure rule in their organisational rulebook that forbid men and women from rowing together on the same programme. [6]
In 1933, the New South Wales Amateur Women's Sport Council was created by Gwendolen Game. The organisation brought together all the women's sporting bodies on the state level. Sports represented included New South Wales's women's field hockey, cricket, women's basketball, baseball, rowing and vigoro. A similar organisation covering similar sports had been created in Victoria in 1931. [6]
In 1922, a committee in Australia investigated the benefits of physical education for girls. They came up with several recommendations regarding what sports were and were not appropriate for girls to play based on the level of fitness required. It was determined that for some individual girls that for medical reasons, the girls should probably not be allowed to participate in tennis, netball, lacrosse, golf, hockey, and cricket. Soccer was completely medically inappropriate for girls to play. It was medically appropriate for all girls to be able to participate in, so long as they were not done in an overly competitive manner, swimming, rowing, cycling and horseback riding. [7]
In 1940, a study of 314 women in New Zealand and Australia was done. Most of the women in the study were middle class, conservative, Protestant and white. The study found that 183 participated in sport. The nineteenth most popular sport that these women participated in was rowing, with 2 having played the sport. The sport was tied with cricket, mountaineering, rowing, and surfing. [8] In 1984, there were 1250 women who were a member of the Australian Rowing Council. [9]
Women's rowing was included on the Olympic programme for the first time at the 1976 Summer Olympics. Because of internal conflicts, no Australian women competed in the event until the 1984 Summer Olympicss. At that games, the four-person boat took home a bronze medal. [10]
The first Australian female coxless pair to win a medal at a major international event outside the Olympics were Kate Slatter and Megan Still, who won a gold medal in 1995 in Finland at the World Championships. [11]
Softball in Australia is played in Australia.
Women's soccer, also known as women's football, is a popular sport in Australia. The sport has a high level of participation in the country both recreational and professional. Football Federation Australia (FFA) is the national governing body of the sport in Australia, organising the W-League, the Australian women's national team, and the nine state governing bodies of the game, among other duties. Women's participation of modern soccer has been recorded since the early 1920s. It has since become one of Australia's most popular women's team sports.
Field hockey has been played by men in Australia since 1901. By 1907, there were clubs in several states including New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, and Victoria. Women's field hockey was eventually represented by the Australian Institute of Sport, though the amount of support it received was less than the support the men received. The All Australian Women's Hockey Association was established in 1910 to govern the sport in Australia. in 2000, Women's Hockey Australia merged with the Australian Hockey Association to form Hockey Australia. The game has been played by women on the university and school level. Interstate matches were being played by 1909. The level of play on the interstate level is very high. The Australia women's national field hockey team, established in 1914, has placed highly in many competitions.
Women's sport in Australia started in the colonial era. Sport made its way into the school curriculum for girls by the 1890s. World War II had little impact on women's sport in the country. After the war, women's sport diversified as a result of new immigrants to the country. In the 1990s, the percentage of media coverage for women's sport on radio, television and in newspapers was not at parity with male sport. Basketball is nominally professional in Australia but players do not earn enough from the sport to compete full-time. Some Australians have gone overseas to play professional sport. Many television spectators for Australian sport are women. In person, netball has large percentage of female spectators. The Australian Federal and State governments have encouraged women to participate in all areas of sport.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. Athletic events were being held in schools in Australia by the early part of the twentieth century. The Glennie School in Toowoomba was one school to host races for girls during their annual girls' sport day. During the 1920s, girls were able to run while wearing bloomers, instead of skirts. The first meeting for women's athletics took place in 1926 and was organised by the NSWAAA. The purpose of the meeting was to determine if it would be possible to send women to compete in the 1928 Summer Olympics based on merit. Only one female athlete was determined to be good enough to send. That was E.F. Robinson. The first women's national athletics body designed to govern the sport in Australia was founded in 1932 and was called the Australian Women's Amateur Athletic Union. It was designed to oversee state organisations in Victoria (1929), Queensland (1921), New South Wales (1932) and South Australia. (1932) The first Australian woman to travel overseas to compete was E.F. Robinson, who went to the 1928 Summer Olympics where she ran in the 100-metres. She came in third and was the only Australian female on the 1928 Australian Olympic team.
The beginning of women's badminton in Australia dates back to the year 1900, when for the first time badminton was played in Australia.
The first women's bowls match played in Australia took place in Stawell, Victoria in October 1881. The first women's only bowls club was not created for another seventeen years, when the Rainsford Bowls Club was created on 16 December 1898 at the home of J. Rainsford Needham, who lived in Glenferrie, Victoria. The first women's bowls association was created in September 1907. The association was called the Victorian Ladies' Bowling Association, and was created by six Melbourne, Victoria based clubs. It was the first women's bowling association created the world.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created.
Croquet has historically been a sport in Australia where men and women were able to compete on a level playing field.
Women's cycling was controversial during the 1890s in Australia. The issue was discussed in several periodicals of the era including the Bulletin. There was a question of whether women should be allowed to ride bicycles in the first place, an issue settled in 1895 of yes. There was a question of the appropriate clothing to wear while riding a bicycle, if women should be allowed to compete in bicycle races, the most appropriate style of bicycle riding for women, if bicycle riding was good for a woman's health, and if the sport was appropriate for women to participate because of the possibility of making women more manly. Bicycle shops, such as Massey-Harris Bicycles of Brisbane, Rockhampton and Charters Towers, were catering to female customers by 1896. Malvern Star was also featuring female cyclists on the cover of their cycling catalogs during the same period. During the 1890s, cycling's popularity increased because it served several purposes, including transportation and recreation. It made parts of Australia more accessible to women than they had previously been.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. One of the reasons women were encouraged to play croquet, tennis and golf during the late 1800s was because it was scene as beneficial to their health. These sports were also seen as passive, non-aggressive and non-threatening to the period's concepts of masculinity and femininity. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, women were allowed to be members of golf clubs but most women could not be because the game was too expensive to play. Women were also limited because of restrictions imposed upon them by the men who ran the clubs and courses. For example, at the Brisbane Golf Club in 1901, women were not allowed to become full members, only associate members, could not belong to any club committees and there were limited times when they could play. Women were allowed to play and did in places such as Willowburn, Queensland. Like other sports of the time, women wore long sleeved blouses and skirts that were ankle length. They also wore hats while they were playing.
Women were involved with horse racing in Australia by the 1890s. Since then, they have owned horses, trained horses, gambled on horses and attended the races. Their participation in the sport was hampered because of a lack of facilities and participation rates were not as high as other sports.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that point, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. During the 1900s in Australia, lacrosse became more socially acceptable for women to participate in. Subsequently, female participation rates rose in places like Queensland.
Shooting was an important skill for women in the bush to possess. It was encouraged as part of self-reliance. Rifle shooting as a sport was being played in Queensland by 1914.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. For swimming, the rapid expansion of facilities took place during the 1880s and the 1890s. Compared to the past when the whole of the swimming community was made up of males, currently 55 percent of the Australian swimming membership is made up of women. Not only do females dominate swimming in the pool but there are more than 5,500 female coaches in the swimming world in Australian and over 2,000 female technical officials.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. One of the reason women were encouraged to play croquet, tennis and golf during the late 1800s was because it was seen as beneficial to their health. These sports were also seen as passive, non-aggressive and non-threatening to the period's concepts of masculinity and femininity.
In the 1880s in Victoria, there were school competitions for girls involving interschool competitions for rounders, an early form of baseball. The competitions were abandoned in the 1890s. Girls who played rounders/baseball during the 1880s and 1890s were required to wear long sleeved shirts and long skirts. These restricted a player's ability to move.
The history of sport in Australia dates back to the pre-colonial period of the country.
| Individual sports | |
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| Team sports | |
