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According to The Ideal Schools of Menomonie, written by Adele Marie Shaw in 1904, Mr. MacArthur, the director of physical education at the time, had a theory that girls should be treated equally in sports. He says:
"The characteristic features of the instruction given in this school are that the girls receive the same attention as the boys, and that the training of both begins while they are young. ... It is previous to her fourteenth year that a girl can best be developed and strengthened for the duties of life. Up to that time she is the boys' equal or superior in physical prowess, if given an equal chance, but the conventionalities of modern society rob her of freedom during her years of growth and cause her to become delicate and unhealthy. No amount of subsequent physical training will compensate for the loss of freedom during the years from nine to fourteen. He also believed that it's important to give equal care and attention to all students, not just the ones who are already well developed for the task. Miss Bornheim, an assistant, told her take on his teaching method, "The masterly of the body the pupils are learning now will be mastery of the future. They won't grow up to cry when they want to smile!" |
Lets compare how many Stout sports photos I could find of women's and men's sports at from the 1900s-1980s:
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| Baseball team, 1909. |
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| Ski jumper West Burdick, 1921. |
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| Stout's first gym team, 1921. |
from
http://www.uwstout.edu/about/history/stories.cfm
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| A few "artists of the blades" started hockey in 1926. |
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The Blue Devils were champions of the Northern State Teachers College Conference, 1942.
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| Intramural battle for a rebound, 1957. |
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| The basketball team added another title in 1966. |
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A gigantic victory cake as the basketball team wins another WSUC championship in 1969, and traveled to Kansas City for the national tournament.
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| Hector Cruz led the 1970 wrestling team to its second championship in four years. |
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Baseball added a conference title in 1982.
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Total Photos: 15
Women's Sports
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| A big cheer for the Blue Devils, 1955. |
There are less than half the amount of pictures of female athletes as male. You can say men only show up more because the male athletes won more titles and championships, but why is that? Well, it probably because Title IX didn't come out until 1972. Title IX states that no matter what sex a person is they can not be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. Now I'm not saying that the law changed everything all at once, but it helped bring the problem of women being discriminated against to everyone's attention. It forced colleges and universities to accept female students and it also helped women receive scholarships that used to only go to men. After Title IX sexual harassment was now suppose to be addressed and the saying "boys will be boys" was no longer a good enough excuse. Also education was now offered for pregnant and parenting students. Women getting to play more sports outside of gym class was only have of what Title IX accomplished for women. For Stout hopefully in the future photos we will see more female athletes, because they have many more sports opportunities now where women can prove that they deserve to be remembered too.
UW-Stout accepted women since the school was opened. When Stout decided to fund the school he said, "I will place upon the school grounds, in a place designated by the Board of Education, a building of proper kind and size, furnished with all of the equipment necessary for the instruction of classes of boys and girls in the subjects included in the first year in a course of manual training." The school accepted both genders but mostly into separate fields of training.
Click on this link if you want to know more about Women's Education at Stout
I like how the pictures tell a story that you didnt write about.
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