| This dissertation analyses women's sports in Quebec from 1919 to 1961 from the golden age of women's sport in Canada to the adoption of the Fitness and Amateur Sport Act by the federal government. It shows how gender relations have been re/produced in women's sport by studying discourses and practices, while also considering the influence of class, ethnicity, and religion on women's sport. The analysis studies first the way doctors, physical education teachers, and the Catholic Church conceived women's participation in sport. The ideas of two active participants in women's sport organization in Montreal, namely Myrtle Cook and Cecile Grenier, are then analyzed in order to see how they contested dominant discourses. Finally, women's sports played at the Palestre and Young Women's Christian Association, two sport centers of Montreal, are detailed in order to show the differences, but also some similarities, in sport organization in the Francophone and Anglophone communities.;This dissertation highlights the tensions ensuing from gender, class, ethnicity, and religion, all of which were present in discourses and practices. As elsewhere in North America, and even in Occident, dominant discourses on women's sport in Quebec were not homogeneous, as different points of view contested them, and practices were numerous and varied. While taking part in the larger movement of women's access to sport in Occident, discourses and practice in Montreal had also their own particularities because of the Catholic Church influence and the ethnic tensions. The province of Quebec is thus an interesting case study to highlight the complexity of re/production of gender relations in women's sport. Moreover, women's sport is a greatly stimulating research avenue to better grasp the entry of the province in modernity.;Keywords : Women's Sports, Quebec, Montreal, Twentieth Century, Gender, Ethnicity, Catholic Church, Palestre nationale, Young Women's Christian Association. |
PDF Full Text Request