The article “Flying, Flirting, and Flexing” follows a short 3 minute film that was produced by Thomas Edision. The film was called the Trapeze Disrobing Act. Here the woman in this case was Laverie Vallée, while suspended in the air and doing various stunts she would undress on the trapeze while two men watched from the balcony. Eventually she would be down to a leotard and tights, and with a few more stunts the film would be finished.
The reason that this film is so significant for this time period is that it really throws that idea and picture of femininity up in the air. This idea was really the result of a bodily reformation. Oftentimes the feminine body is depicted as slender and curved. While the ideal masculine body holds much more mass and muscle. With that being said during this most female trapeze artists had a very masculine like body. These females with masculine bodies combined media outlets such as newspapers, postcards, and more began to create shifts in what femininity and masculinity looked like.
This is really interesting because oftentimes in women’s soccer actions were often taken in order to keep that feeling of femininity. There were even some cases in which many questioned if women should even be allowed to play soccer simply because soccer had such strong ties to masculinity. What I believe makes this such an interesting topic is because of soccer and its ties to masculinity it had completely opposing effects of the genders, which really resulted in a gender gap. For example women were frowned upon for playing soccer simply because it took away from their feminine characteristics. While on the other hand men of any race were often positively affected by soccer because it was seen as more masculine.
