This chapter presented a lot of new information that helped me understand the attitudes towards women participating in sports, and I wasn’t surprised to see some of the information because of past units in class. One thing that I noticed immediately is in the opening paragraph, and that was the strictness of the Brazilian government with so publicly preventing women from participating in any physical activity. Because they were so restricted they didn’t have a chance to voice their thoughts, and decisions ended up under a sort of “patriarchal control”. Some of the ideas of the “experts” mentioned in the article were that women should avoid developing their muscles to far, and it reminded me of the opinions towards Charmion in our other weekly read. Her most well known feature was her very muscular body which she used to her advantage in performances, which women in Brazil unfortunately had no chance because of the harsh restrictions put into place by those who hadn’t included such important opinions like those who know their own limits better than others. Class distinctions come into play in spaces women are finally able to participate, they were usually considered high-class and elite with little physical exertion that reflected the ideal sexuality and body types of the time period. This chapter brought a ton of new information about Latin American women in sports that I would otherwise had been unaware of, and the connections to attitudes in North America about femininity and masculinity and what is “normal” in their respective societies and cultures.
