Do ladylike values clash with the norms of sports performance?

I wonder sometimes about the clash between the gender role socialization of girls and the demands of athletic performance. I’ve been reading and writing about the history of women’s cycling (see Riding this summer? Beware of bicycle face! and Bicycles: Making good women go bad since the 1800s) and it strikes that the mismatch between ladylike behavior and the norms of sport haven’t entirely gone way. What worries me is that if I think this, given that I consider myself mostly free from the oppressive aspects of femininity, I imagine there’s lots of other women for whom it’s worse.

I know, I know. I’m not free of femininity entirely, and I even embrace some aspects of chosen femininity as fun, but I don’t think of myself as particularly ladylike.

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