Between Spain and Argentina, tennis as a practice for the female body at thebeginning of the 20th century

Abstract

With a common root with other ball and racket sports developed in Spain and France, tennis spread from its creation and formalization in the last quarter of the 19th century from the United Kingdom to other countries around the globe, mainly among the upper classes linked to British business and migratory developments. While sports remained a purely masculinized space, tennis became one of the few physical practices legitimized for women in Argentina and Spain, among other countries, from the end of the 19th century, which also enabled them a way of citizen participation. This happened through various social institutions and can be reflected in the representation of the female body in some media and publications of the time. In a context of the primacy of hygienist thinking on the part
of the State, which sought to encourage the practice of sports among women with the aim of building a specific morality in a healthy population free of certain diseases, the female body was thought from its reproductive potential, which closed the practice of some sports to give way to certain representations of the female body through eugenic discourses and practices. Through a review of publications of the time in Argentina and Spain, we propose to explore similarities, local particularities
and differences when analyzing the process of participation of the female body in physical activities in these two Spanish-speaking countries, which in both cases had tennis in a central place.