Medical texts on gender, sexuality, and sport in Norway, 1890-1950: changing metaphors on femininities and masculinities.

This article focuses on authoritative and representative texts by doctors on female bodies in sport and physical education from 1890 until 1950. These sources do not tell us directly about the actual practice of these professionals, but they do illuminate dominant gendered ideas and ideologies. These works focused on females’ bodies’ lack of ability—a deficit in relation to the “original” male bodies. Medical texts that focus on men from a gender perspective are, on the other band, scarce in Scandinavian works. In this sense males may be interpreted as the “natural” participants in sport—a point of departure for all physical bodies. The period from 1890 until 1950 was one of transition in work and leisure in Norway. This change had started near the middle of the nineteenth century, when the family was no longer a blend of a unit of productive work and leisure. Norway changed from a society of Standsamfunn [estates of the realm] to a class-based society. Even before this change, Norway went through an economic boom from the 1830s onwards. There was no longer any new land to be cultivated for the new generation of farmers. Norwegian people in the south of the country moved to towns and to the north to get work. The consumer culture started to sprout. Simultaneously, the American and German industrial economies advanced with giant steps. Britain was the largest exporter of capital of financial, commercial, and transport services until the end of World War I. Products such as soap, beer, candles, textiles, margarine, and tinned (canned) foods were available in Norwegian shops from the middle of the nineteenth century. Between 1890 and 1950, the average number of children in a