The article offers a fresh perspective on college play days, challenging previous scholarly interpretations and providing new insights into the experiences of women in college sports. It explores how these events reinforced and reshaped notions of respectable female physicality, drawing from a variety of historical sources.
The article 'More Than Milk and Cookies: Reconsidering the College Play Day' by Sarah Jane Eikleberry provides a nuanced examination of college play days, an event that has been previously misunderstood by scholars. The author argues that these events were more than just social gatherings; they were sites where ideas about female physicality were both reproduced and reworked. By analyzing professional literature, magazines, textbooks, and college newspapers, as well as correspondence and memoirs, Eikleberry builds a new framework for understanding the significance of play days between 1926 and 1971. They highlight how various groups used these events to advance their professional and cultural concerns, offering a more complex understanding of women's experiences in college sports. The article is a valuable contribution to the field, providing a fresh perspective on a historically significant event.
Quick quotes
This paper considers how examining events such as college play days can provide additional insights into the experiences of women involved in college sport.
This article interrogates the dominant discourses that scholars have previously assigned to the play day and seeks to build a new framework for understanding why play days were adopted and how they evolved between 1926 and 1971.
I also examine how the play day served as a site where notions of respectable female physicality were reproduced and reworked by various groups to advance specific professional and cultural concerns.