Gertrud Pfister

University of Copenhagen · Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports

Sport historians have lamented the dearth of studies relative to Asian sport. While scholars have begun to rectify this omission, there is still much to learn relative to the international sporting interchange and ramifications for the current geopolitical world. This examination reflects upon the Western imperialistic transfer of sport forms and t...

This essay describes the crusade for greater independence for women from the restrictive social norms of the Victorian era through the lens of the cycling movement and its consequent fashion choices, which challenged the cultural hegemony of men.

Old age has long been perceived and reported as a period of decline, diminished productivity, and debility. We contend that such a contention is a social construction that inhibits and limits full inclusion of the elderly in Western societies. Much of that perception is based on the decline of physical abilities. While aging undoubtedly results in...

Gender inequity in sport organisation boards, particularly in decision-making positions, remains a significant issue. Considerable research exists on the topic yet attempts to integrate non-academic perspectives on this literature are relatively limited. We present a systematic narrative review, constructed in conjunction with the work of a ‘reflec...

Arbejdspladsen er blevet beskrevet som en velegnet platform for sundhedsfremmende tiltag såsom motion – ikke mindst fordi socialt udsatte grupper kan nås. Denne artikel omhandler et kønsopdelt træningstilbud med holdspil til kvindelige rengøringsassistenter med anden etnisk baggrund. Med udgangspunkt i et socioøkologisk perspektiv til sundhedsfremm...

Over the past decades, the world population has become more physically inactive, leading to, obesity, elevated blood pressure and lipid profile, and decreased maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), which are risk factors for several non-communicable diseases. Health care workers are reported to have an unhealthy lifestyle with a high prevalence of obesity...

This presentation employs diverse theoretical frameworks (Guttman’s definition of modern sport, Lorber’s and Connell’s constructivist approaches to gender, and Bourdieu’s concept of habitus) to analyze the transformation of the Olympic Games from a folk festival to organized athletic performances promoting a particular male, upper class ideology re...

2019 NASSH Abstract Gender and the Sportification of Mountaineering: Changes and Challenges Gertrud Pfister, University of Copenhagen and Gerald R. Gems, North Central College This presentation provides a brief history of mountaineering in Europe and the United States with a particular focus on women’s inclusion and intrusion on traditional male sp...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how the psychological constructs volition and motivation influence successful and unsuccessful weight maintainers’ experiences during the difficult period following an intensive lifestyle intervention. Design/methodology/approach Post lifestyle intervention semi-structured interviews with 11 succes...

The topic of this article is the history of mountaineering using the concepts of gender and “sportification” as theoretical frameworks. Mountains have been and in many regions of the world still are deserted areas which may be accessed by hunters or used in the valleys for goat and sheep framing. People who had to cross them used, as far as possibl...

Studies of governance rarely examine how specific institutional configurations are designed to target specific ‘problem’ groups, including older adults via ‘active ageing’ policies. In Denmark, active ageing policy has been contoured by the Structural Reform of 2007, which drove changes in institutional landscapes at both national and local levels....

This edited collection draws on social science approaches to provide insights into the world of women’s football and female fans. Providing in-depth analysis of the development of the women’s game in different European countries, it examines both the experiences of female fans of men’s football and women’s views, perceptions and evaluations of wome...

The issues addressed in this paper are the place and role of physical activities for ageing women. The social and cultural aspects of sports allow us to pay attention to the effects of gender inequality and social division. This paper shows that involvement in physical activities offers different ways of becoming aware of and/or fighting against th...

The focus of this chapter is on the authors’ research into the experiences of Muslim women in sport and physical education. International studies with Muslim women in diverse situations have positioned the authors to reflect on the role that faith, religion and feminist thought have had on enabling or denying opportunities for this groups’ sport pa...

Heute beteiligen sich Mädchen und Frauen an allen olympischen Sportarten vom Skispringen zum Hammerwerfen, vom Boxen zum Gewichtheben und von der rhythmischen Sportgymnastik zum Synchronschwimmen. Dies ist nicht selbstverständlich. Die Integration der Frauen in den Sport ist das Ergebnis langer Entwicklungen und Auseinandersetzungen.

This article presents the results of a multidisciplinary study which investigated the effects of a period with floorball training on health status, psychological health and social capital of older men. Thirty-nine untrained men aged 69.9 ± 0.6 (range: 65–76) were randomized into a group playing floorball (n = 22) or a group playing petanque (n = 17...

Turkey has a distinctive position with regard to its geography and history among Muslim countries. Particular features are its secular system and far reaching modernization processes particularly with respect to the ‘emancipation’ of women. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze sport and body politics as part of the modernization process...

Studies conducted in Denmark reveal that many young women drop out of sport and exercise in their teenage years even though they possess good knowledge about health recommendations and the benefits of physical activity. This raises the question as to how they interpret and make use of the current messages about a healthy and active lifestyle. Based...

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of team sports and resistance training on physical function, psychological health, quality of life, and motivation in older untrained adults. Twenty-five untrained men and forty-seven untrained women aged 80 (range: 67-93) years were recruited. Fifty-one were assigned to a training group (TRG) of...

Statistics about the recreational physical activity (PA) of minority ethnic Muslim women reveal very low participation rates. Drawing on approaches to socialization and Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and taste, the aim of this study was to investigate the (lack of) PA participation of Muslim minority ethnic women in Denmark and to identify key infl...

Western societies glorify youth and consider middle age as the onset of deterioration. The prevalent discourses on middle-aged women focus primarily on negative developments in their lives such as increased health risks after menopause. Little is known, however, about the lived experiences of this age group. In this article, we share information ab...

Aims: To investigate the relationship between volition, physical activity and weight loss maintenance. Methods: We recruited 84 sedentary (maximal oxygen uptake: 25 ± 5 ml/min), overweight and obese (Body mass index (BMI) 38 ± 7 m/h(2), fat 44 ± 7 %) women ( n = 55) and men ( n = 29) for an interdisciplinary prospective study with follow-up. The...

Numerous reports identify minority ethnic women as a population group which is greatly affected by chronic illness. Health authorities tend to attribute their health problems to their lifestyle, for example refraining from participation in recreational physical activity (PA). However, little is known about the perspectives of the targets of health...

This article explores women's lived experiences with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) on the basis of semi-structured interviews with 21 Danish women. It provides insights about the problems that they experienced and how they coped with PCOS. The interviews revealed that they were highly influenced by society's femininity norms. Many of them percei...

The workplace is regarded as an ideal setting for health promotion, not least because large sections of the population, including “high risk groups”, can be reached. One group which is reportedly in great demand of health promotion is that of female (migrant) cleaners – the participants in our study. In this article we share information about the d...

The aim of this study was to explore the opportunities and challenges of female cleaners with regard to participation in leisure time physical activity (LTPA). We gained information about their everyday lives via semi-structured interviews with 25 women, most of them from rural Turkey. Drawing on the relevant literature on women’s work–life balance...

Copenhagen municipal senior services have undergone significant changes recently. Activity centres (ACs) now promote social and physical activity (PA) for Copenhageners aged 65+ and offer members shared ownership of provided services. It remains unclear, however, whether i) AC staff consider PA delivery a key element of their role, and ii) how stak...

Copenhagen municipal senior services have undergone considerable changes over recent years. Activity centres (ACs) offer social and physical activities for Copenhageners 65+ with the unique characteristic that the seniors have shared ownership. ACs therefore represent a unique setting for the promotion of active lifestyles. Physical activity in old...

This study attempts to rectify the invisibility of female boxers and to narrow a research gap by examining the careers of four prominent female champions who managed to excel in the sport despite the social, psychological and physical restrictions imposed by the gender order of American society in the nineteenth century. The little studied roles of...

The aim of this article is the presentation and interpretation of the coverage of female football players in the largest German boulevard paper (tabloid) during the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Main issues are the ways in which the players are portrayed and women’s football is ‘framed’. In addition, the article explores the self-presentations of th...

Fitness and youth may have been assets in all cultures and societies. However, with the great advances in medicine and the proliferation of human improvement technologies, a youthful appearance and a healthy body seem to be the obligation of dutiful citizens. With the help of numerous means of enhancement ranging from diet to surgery the dream of e...

While both the media and the academic literature focus primarily on male fans, in particular on violence and the prevention of hooliganism, little is known about female football supporters. This is also true of Denmark, a country that is known for its high degree of gender equality. This article aims to give insight into gender constructions and ne...

On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, a leading figure in the sociology of sport in Denmark, Gertrud Pfister, considers an important line of research on women and football (soccer). The analysis uses a diverse set of theoretical lenses to examine women’s participation and reception in football. Constructivist understandings of gender are co...

This article presents questions, methods, theories and early results of a study which is part of the conglomerate Football Research in an Enlarged Europe (FREE). A sub-project of FREE deals with the ‘feminisation of football’, by exploring the role of women as football players and fans in a European context. To answer whether, and to what extent, w...

Today the main doping deterrence strategy is to ban athletes from sport if caught. This study examines whether Danish elite athletes perceive the ban as a deterrent and how they evaluate social, self-imposed and financial sanctions compared with the ban. Questionnaires were emailed to elite athletes from 40 sports (N=645; response rate, 43%). Resul...

This article fills a gap in the very limited literature on women's boxing by examining the gendered space in which women engaged in the sport as participants in saloons, vaudeville theatres and the prize ring. In doing so, they challenged the contemporary gender order and disputed the notion of women as the weak sex. Vaudeville provided women with...

Traditionally, football and fandom have been male domains and celebrations of masculinity. So far there has been some sociological and historical research on women's football; however, little is known about women's fandom, in particular about its formation and development. This article focuses on the historical development of a Danish women-only fa...

World championships are the top-ranking competitions of national teams, as well as indicators of the development, performance level and the global spread of a sport. This is especially true of championships in sports which have a relatively short history, such as women’s soccer. The Women’s World Cup, organized by the International Federation of As...

Sportgeschichte war lange Zeit eine Domäne von Männern, von Sportlern und Zuschauern, von Sportpolitikern und -organisatoren. Auch die Sporthistoriker und die Rezipienten ihrer Werke waren (und sind) überwiegend Männer. In der „Olympischen Familie“ waren Frauen ebenfalls „Nachzüglerinnen“, die mehr als 100 Jahre warten mussten, bevor sie zu allen W...

This article deals with the images, metaphors and narratives in the media coverage of doping in the United States. It presents a case study with a focus on Marion Jones, the most celebrated track athlete of the turn of the millennium, and her husband, C.J. Hunter, a shot put world champion convicted of doping. The material consists of sport reports...

Football is an invention by men for men, and today, the majority of players and fans are men. There is an abundance of literature on football and fandom; however, gender is mostly not an issue in these publications. Research about female football supporters and fans is very limited. This is also true for Denmark, the country, which is the focus of...

Abstract This paper contains a sociocultural analysis of school sport experiences of Muslim girls in two countries with different gender policies in physical education (PE) classes: England and Denmark. In Denmark, PE lessons take place in co-educative classes, in England schools are more diverse, with predominantly co-educational but also single-s...

Aim This study aims to examine the circumstances which athletes say affect their (hypothetical) considerations of whether to dope or not and explore the differences between athletes of different gender, age and sport type. Methods 645 elite athletes (mean age: 22.12; response rate: 43%) representing 40 sports completed a web-based questionnaire. P...

Sir Galahad, alias Bertha Eckstein-Diener, was a famous Austrian author writing in the first half of the twentieth century. Her most important books include the novel The Conic Sections of God (Die Kegelschnitte Gottes [1921]), which contains much autobiographical material, and Mothers and Amazons (Mütter und Amazone [1932]), a cultural history of...

The authors describe, analyze and evaluate sport related globalization processes with a focus on transnationalism, colonialism, imperialism, and, more generally, geopolitical developments. They provide a variety of theoretical frameworks as they explore the emergence of modern sport and its dissemination around the world. In spite of resistance by...

Games and dances, various forms of gymnastics, physical activities and performances (i.e., sport in a broad sense) have always existed and continue to exist in all societies. However, the numerous and various body and movement concepts have culturespecific patterns as they “embody” a society’s norms and values and reflect the dispositions and expec...

This article focuses on the anti-doping policies led in Danish fitness centers in a sport for all context. Fitness, an ever growing training form is gaining in popularity and has in this context been adopted as a training activity by DGI, one of the leading sports for all organization in Denmark. As a result of this gain in popularity, fitness acti...

Liebe Leserinnen und Leser,man mag den Eindruck haben, dass das Thema Doping den Sport nicht mehr loslässt. Wahrscheinlich ist diese Formulierung sogar eine Untertreibung. Das Thema Doping greift immer stärker um sich, es beansprucht mehr und mehr sowohl öffentliche als auch wissenschaftliche Aufmerksamkeit. In den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften...

Spiele, bei denen der Ball mit dem Fuß transportiert wurde, gab es in vielen Kulturen und vielen Epochen. Dies ist nicht zuletzt aufgrund der zahlreichen Abbildungen gesichertes Wissen. Welche Bedeutung diese Spiele hatten, ist allerdings oft nicht zu erschließen. Dies gilt auch fßr andere Körper- und BewegunVgskulturen, die in die jeweiligen gesel...

Sport is an area in which masculinity, youth and their achievements are celebrated and rewarded. Thus, ageing women face a double barrier when they wish to participate and perform in an endeavour which is currently of major interest in the industrialized world. However, the understanding of women and ageing is undergoing change, because of changing...

This article focuses on physical activities and body projects of female migrants from Turkey living in Copenhagen. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of sports participation as a relationship between the supply of sport and the dispositions of individuals, we conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with five women. Their narratives about physical exer...

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In Denmark as in other European countries, many girls, and especially Muslim girls, seem to lose interest in physical activities and sport with increasing age. However, in a Danish context, little is known about the reasons why girls drop out of sport and which role physical education (PE) plays in this process. In this article we present results o...

In Germany gymnastics and sport had formed alliances with medical "sciences" as early as the 18th century. At the end of the 19th century, the rise of sport provoked heated debates among physicians about the benefits and the dangers of sporting activities. After World War I, sport became a fashion and a mass movement that increasingly attracted the...

The purpose of this study was to explore the daily physical activities of Danish children with a focus on describing and explaining gender differences. Accelerometer measurements of physical activity in different contexts, as well as questionnaire data, were collected from more than 500 children at pre-school and later at third grade. The study sho...

In recent decades, research about collective memories of groups or nations has increased decisively. At the same time, ‘lieux de mémoire’ have become an issue of heated debates and controversies about the ‘right memories’, which may support political claims or even wars. Sports provide excellent opportunities for the representation of groups and na...

In Western countries, sport and physical activities are key components of health policy. They serve as preventive measures against so-called “civilisation diseases”, as symbols of a healthy and modern lifestyle and as important tools in the context of body enhancement projects. Thus, the questions that arise here are: to what extent are populations...

In this paper I explore the opportunities that women from Islamic countries have of participating in the Olympic Games and the barriers which they face when taking part in elite sport. Here, it must be taken into account that women's personal situations vary greatly according to - among many other things - the country they live in, their place of r...

This essay examines the under-representation of females on executive boards in sport in the Scandinavian countries at all levels except the sports club. Hitherto, there has been no comparative research at all in Scandinavia on this subject. The explanations of this under-representation are linked to individual actors as well as organization-centred...

Worldwide, men appear to have the upper hand in terms of the power distribution at the societal level. Also in sport organisations women are usually a minority on the decision making committees. The aim of this article is to uncover gender inequalities and policies in the Danish sport system. In this article I will explore the opinions of senior le...

Starting off from deliberations on the ‘nature’ and significance of gender differences and gender relations, I first of all present in this contribution my theoretical framework: a constructivist approach to gender. If gender is understood as a social construction, gender differences are not ‘natural’ but acquired and enacted, and also vary accordi...

Artiklen udforsker, hvis og hvordan vestlige sport diskurser og praksisser kan bidrage til kvinders udvikling i islamiske lande. Muligheder og barrierer, de Islamske kvinder står over for i sporten belyses.

In the early and mid-nineteenth century German immigrants brought Turnen with them to the United States. There, it changed in many respects, adapted to new situations and adopted new aims, roles, meanings and practices. On the one hand, the Turnen underwent ‘Americanization’ processes; on the other hand, The Turners attempted to exercise influence...

This special issue intends to explore, analyze and explain divergent ideologies and practices of gymnastics in selected European nations, to reconstruct the export and import processes from Europe to America and to determine the processes, interrelationships and transformations of these 'transatlantic movements' in their new home country. It is hop...

Since the nineteenth century the USA has served as an international model for business, lifestyle and sporting success. Yet whilst the language of sport seems to be universal, American sports culture remains highly distinctive. Why is this so? How should we understand American sport? What can we learn about America by analyzing its sports culture?...

Throughout the world, women are a small minority within the governing bodies of organized sport. This paper presents the results of three empirical studies that have been undertaken within a German research project. The representative survey of all male and female executives in German sports federations (N=697) included questions concerning their s...

Without a doubt, Evelyn Zegenhagen has presented the best-researched book published on the history of female flight and on the role of female pilots in aviation history between 1918 and 1945. This amazing achievement of research has closed many gaps in current research on the subject. The author has also processed, for the very first time, the biog...

Resumo: Este artigo 1 apresenta os resultados de três estudos empíricos, levados a cabo no projeto Mulheres Tomando a Liderança, na Universidade Livre de Berlim, na Alemanha. A pesquisa, que compreende todos os executivos, homens e mulheres, nas federações esportivas alemãs, incluiu questões relacionadas à sócio-demografia dos atores, suas carreira...

Artiklen beskriver og forklarer de forandringer, som sporten har gennemgået, og den indflydelse, som disse forandringer har haft på udøvere og på deres kroppe og images. Der er særlig fokus på mediernes rolle i forhandlingen om konstruktion af ambivalente maskulinitetsformer. Gertrud Pfister & Rikke Schou Jeppesen: Images, Bodies and Masculinities....

IntroductionOnlookers at the Olympic Games: 1900–12Women's Olympiads: the interwar yearsThe Olympic Games in National Socialist GermanyWomen athletes in the limelight

A presente pesquisa objetiva discutir a liderança feminina em organizações esportivas. Para tanto recorre a uma análise a partir de dados quantitativos de alguns países ocidentais com destaque no campo esportivo (Alemanha, Dinamarca, Estados Unidos e Austrália) ressaltando que, em termos de cargos dirigentes em instituições esportivas, as mulheres...

On the basis of a constructivist approach, this article offers insights into the social meanings, the enactment and the re-production of the body, movement cultures, gender and health. The contribution highlights the considerable changes of body constructions in various historical periods and the role of medicine in the “de-tection” of gendered bod...

This paper presents results of a research project about the experiences of male and female volunteer leaders in German sport organisations who "dropped out" of their leadership positions earlier than originally planned. In Germany the sports system is based on clubs and federations, and sports organisations are run by unpaid volunteers who also mak...

In the world of football women have always played a marginal role and this is still true today. Why have women had to overcome so many obstacles just because they wished to play football? Were women football players living in socialist systems confronted with the same problems as like-minded women in capitalist systems? These are the questions that...

Artiklen undersøger ligestillingsdebatten og -holdninger i de skandinaviske lande med særligt fokus på repræsentationen af kvinder på ledende poster i idrættens verden.Ulla Habermann, Laila Ottesen, Gertrud Pfister, Berit Skirstad: »It will solve itself« (?) – On the Attitudes of Scandinavian Sports Managers to Equal OpportunitiesThe authors of thi...