Jean Williams – författare

Britain has a long and distinguished history as an Olympic nation. However, most Olympic histories have focused on men’s sport. This is the first book to tell the story of Britain’s Olympic women, how they changed Olympic spectacle and how, in turn, they have reinterpreted the Games.

Exploring the key themes of gender and nationalism, and presenting a wealth of new empirical, archival evidence, the book explores the sporting culture produced by British women who aspired to become Olympians, from the early years of the modern Olympic movement. It shines new light on the frameworks imposed on female athletes, individually and as a group, by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the British Olympic Association (BOA) and the various affiliated sporting international federations. Using oral history and family history sources, the book tells of the social processes through which British Olympic women have become both heroes and anti-heroes in the public consciousness. Exploring the hidden narratives around women such as Charlotte Cooper, Lottie Dod, Audrey Brown and Pat Smythe, and bringing the story into the modern era of London 2012, Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the book helps us to better understand the complicated relationship between sport, gender, media and wider society.

This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport history, Olympic history, women’s history, British history or gender studies.

Britain has a long and distinguished history as an Olympic nation. However, most Olympic histories have focused on men’s sport. This is the first book to tell the story of Britain’s Olympic women, how they changed Olympic spectacle and how, in turn, they have reinterpreted the Games.

Exploring the key themes of gender and nationalism, and presenting a wealth of new empirical, archival evidence, the book explores the sporting culture produced by British women who aspired to become Olympians, from the early years of the modern Olympic movement. It shines new light on the frameworks imposed on female athletes, individually and as a group, by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the British Olympic Association (BOA) and the various affiliated sporting international federations. Using oral history and family history sources, the book tells of the social processes through which British Olympic women have become both heroes and anti-heroes in the public consciousness. Exploring the hidden narratives around women such as Charlotte Cooper, Lottie Dod, Audrey Brown and Pat Smythe, and bringing the story into the modern era of London 2012, Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the book helps us to better understand the complicated relationship between sport, gender, media and wider society.

This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport history, Olympic history, women’s history, British history or gender studies.

Can we truly call football England''s ''national'' game?How have we arrived at this point of such clear inequality between men''s and women''s football?

Between 1921 and 1972, women were banned from playing in football League grounds in the UK. Yet in 1998 FIFA declared that "the future is feminine" and that football was the fastest growing sport for women globally.

The result of several years of original research, the book traces the continuities in women''s participation since the beginnings of the game, and highlights the significant moments that have influenced current practice. The text provides:

*insight into the communities and individual experiences of players, fans, investors, administrators and coaches*examination of the attitudes and role of national and international associations*analysis of the development of the professional game*comparisons with women''s football in mainland Europe, the USA and Africa.

A Game for Rough Girls is the first text to properly theorize the development of the game. Examining recreational and elite levels, the author provides a thorough critique, placing women''s experience in the context of broader cultural and sports studies debates on social change, gender, power and global economics.

Can we truly call football England''s ''national'' game?How have we arrived at this point of such clear inequality between men''s and women''s football?

Between 1921 and 1972, women were banned from playing in football League grounds in the UK. Yet in 1998 FIFA declared that "the future is feminine" and that football was the fastest growing sport for women globally.

The result of several years of original research, the book traces the continuities in women''s participation since the beginnings of the game, and highlights the significant moments that have influenced current practice. The text provides:

*insight into the communities and individual experiences of players, fans, investors, administrators and coaches*examination of the attitudes and role of national and international associations*analysis of the development of the professional game*comparisons with women''s football in mainland Europe, the USA and Africa.

A Game for Rough Girls is the first text to properly theorize the development of the game. Examining recreational and elite levels, the author provides a thorough critique, placing women''s experience in the context of broader cultural and sports studies debates on social change, gender, power and global economics.

This is the first edited collection of its kind to analyse the distinct but overlapping topics of dress, costume, sport and leisure history. For researchers of bodily adornment and movement, sport and costume history are both primarily concerned with industrial practice and embodied experience. The ways in which bodies are adorned, embellished and clothed (or revealed) highlights the hybrid nature of dress history, encompassing as it does the everyday clothing solutions of the mass of people and the unusual or more ceremonial aspects of costume, as well as elite high fashion. Although this is as yet an under-researched area, there are an increasing number of fashion and clothing undergraduate and postgraduate courses that specialise in sport and leisurewear. This publication is intended to give an introductory overview of the historical and contemporary issues as it does for the growing number of sport marketing and sports studies courses concerned with dress, costume history and branding.

This book was published as a special issue of Sport in History.

This is the first edited collection of its kind to analyse the distinct but overlapping topics of dress, costume, sport and leisure history. For researchers of bodily adornment and movement, sport and costume history are both primarily concerned with industrial practice and embodied experience. The ways in which bodies are adorned, embellished and clothed (or revealed) highlights the hybrid nature of dress history, encompassing as it does the everyday clothing solutions of the mass of people and the unusual or more ceremonial aspects of costume, as well as elite high fashion. Although this is as yet an under-researched area, there are an increasing number of fashion and clothing undergraduate and postgraduate courses that specialise in sport and leisurewear. This publication is intended to give an introductory overview of the historical and contemporary issues as it does for the growing number of sport marketing and sports studies courses concerned with dress, costume history and branding.

This book was published as a special issue of Sport in History.

This book is an historical survey of women’s sport from 1850-1960. It looks at some of the more recent methodological approaches to writing sports history and raises questions about how the history of women’s sport has so far been shaped by academic writers. Questions explored in this text include: What are the fresh perspectives and newly available sources for the historian of women’s sport? How do these take forward established debates on women’s place in sporting culture and what novel approaches do they suggest? How can our appreciation of fashion, travel, food and medical history be advanced by looking at women’s involvement in sport? How can we use some of the current ideas and methodologies in the recent literature on the history and sociology of sport in order to look afresh at women’s participation? Jean Williams’s original research on these topics and more will be a useful resource for scholars in the fields of sports, women’s studies, history and sociology.

This book is an historical survey of women’s sport from 1850-1960. It looks at some of the more recent methodological approaches to writing sports history and raises questions about how the history of women’s sport has so far been shaped by academic writers. Questions explored in this text include: What are the fresh perspectives and newly available sources for the historian of women’s sport? How do these take forward established debates on women’s place in sporting culture and what novel approaches do they suggest? How can our appreciation of fashion, travel, food and medical history be advanced by looking at women’s involvement in sport? How can we use some of the current ideas and methodologies in the recent literature on the history and sociology of sport in order to look afresh at women’s participation? Jean Williams’s original research on these topics and more will be a useful resource for scholars in the fields of sports, women’s studies, history and sociology.

This was the most helpful book while I was going through my divorce. Doug G

Its a lonely walk through a divorce, but when family and friends are there to encourage and lift spirits, it gives great hope. The children of a broken home especially need the strength of family and God.

When all hell on earth breaks forth, how much we need the Peace that only comes from Heaven.

A complete history of women’s football in Great Britain, from its Victorian games beginning in 1881 to 2022 and planning for the Euro Finals. In The History of Women’s Football, author Jean Williams demonstrates how women’s football began as a professional sport, and has only recently returned to these professional roots in the UK. This is because there was a fifty-year Football Association ‘ban’ on women playing on pitches affiliated to the governing body in England. The other British associations followed suit. Why was women’s football banned in 1921? Why did it take until 1969 for a Women’s Football Association to form? Why did it take until 1995 for England to qualify for a Women’s World Cup? Answers to these key questions are supplemented across the chapters by personal accounts of the players who defied the ban, at home and abroad, along with the personal costs, and rewards, of being footballing pioneers.Praise for The History of Women’s Football “This book was very informed, detailed and a very good read. As a football fan, I was staggered by how much I didn’t know and how if football had been better supported at the beginning of the century there is a good chance women’s football would be on a par with the men’s game now . . . this was a very interesting read and I would happily recommend this book to fellow football fans.” —UK Historian