Historical Perspectives on Female Sports Fandom

<p>This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. As far as journalism assignments go, Margaret Pratt Allen was handed a fun one: Investigate whether women can be sports fans.</p><p>“For two years the New York World gave me costly tickets to the season’s major sporting events so that I might observe and report whether or not women were there, and what seemed to be their reactions and interest,” she recounted in the May 1928 issue of The Atlantic. “I saw the Yankees and the Giants clash for the pennant, and I watched Firpo knock Dempsey into the press box and Dempsey knock Firpo into oblivion (at least I had a $27.50 ringside seat from which I was supposed to see this), not to mention other less thrilling affairs.” (The latter refers to the infamous heavyweight championship fight between Jack Dempsey and Luis Ángel Firpo in 1923—adjusted for inflation, Pratt Allen’s ticket would’ve cost more than $500 today.)</p><p>Sports fanaticism was on the rise in America in the 1920s, when superstar athletes drew crowds of tens of thousands of both sexes, across a variety of sports. Pratt Allen acknowledged herself to be “a pretty good baseball fan as women go,” eager to applaud a good play and possessing extensive knowledge of the sport rivaling that of her male companions. Nevertheless, her Atlantic story on women and athletics was constrained by the gendered assumptions of her time. Title IX was half a century away. Women had begun to compete in the modern Olympic Games only at the turn of the century, initially limited to more “refined” activities, such as tennis, croquet, and golf. And when they did show rousing enthusiasm watching games, they were criticized for their behavior.</p><p>Hoping that women’s presence could temper the boisterous behavior of male attendees, and aware that women too wanted to spectate and spend money at games, some baseball teams started regularly hosting “Ladies’ Days,” offering them free or cheap entry (though in some cases they were required to be accompanied by a man). As these promotions took off, so did complaints about the female fans: that they cheered “at the wrong times,” that their presence caused more disruption than it kept in check.</p><p>Pratt Allen disagreed, but in the form of a backhanded compliment. “The stuff that fans are made of—frenzied, hysterical, pleading, shouting, swearing fans—is not of the same piece as the pattern from which women are cut,” she wrote. At the Dempsey-Firpo boxing match, women were “conspicuous by their absence or their uncomprehending blankness in the face of the mob frenzy which gripped the male fans,” she explained. And women would never become so caught up in the game as to lob things from the stands: “Plenty of men would sacrifice brand-new headgear to the greatness of the moment, but can you imagine a ball game meaning more to a woman than a hat?” Sure, they “go because it’s the thing, these days, to be interested in all sport,” but ultimately, as the headline declared, “Women Aren’t Fans.”</p><p>Pratt Allen’s essay nods at the perennial bind women find themselves in: Damned if they cheer; damned if they don’t. Even if a female spectator “was just terribly glad St. Louis had won, her grown-up self, her real woman self” would keep her jubilance in check, Pratt Allen explained. And when women and girls have engaged in unrestrained fangirl behavior, they have been routinely mocked and denigrated for their joy. In 1964, one writer called Beatles fans “who scream themselves into hysteria” “the least fortunate of their generation.” In 2012, a critic referred to a One Direction album as “a reliable shriek inducer in girls who have not yet decided that shrieking doesn’t become them.” Modern fandom in particular has turned Pratt Allen’s assertion about “the stuff that fans are made of” on its head. The fangirl familiar to us today—shouting herself hoarse for the likes of Taylor Swift or BTS—might indeed be “frenzied, hysterical, pleading,” in Pratt Allen’s eyes. What is a girl to do?</p><p>In other words, the question is not whether women can be fans, but whether they are seen as the right kind of fan. The behavior of the female spectator ringside, courtside, in the stands, or in the gallery has long confounded those observing them. And here is where I come clean as a fangirl myself. I have screamed with abandon at concerts, but I have also held back, wondering if such enthusiasm befits a professional woman in her 30s with a mortgage and a baby. The truth is, women have long been fans. But what remains unclear is how a woman can ever be a fan in the way that she wants to be—without judgment not only from others, but also from herself.</p>