PHYSICAL EDUCATION, FEMNITIES AND UNIFORMS. THE CASE OF THE DEPARTAMENTO DE CULTURA FÍSICA (1929-1946) OF THE UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE LA PLATA (ARGENTINE)

Abstract

We investigate the construction of femininities from the use of uniforms for Physical Education classes. For this, we base ourselves on the case of the Department of Physical Culture, an institution that existed between 1929 and 1946, of the National University of La Plata (Buenos Aires, Argentina). We wonder how and why the Physical Education uniforms contributed to gendering and sexualizing the bodies of the female students. We build three periods from the compulsory establishment of uniforms for women for Gymnastics classes: 1929-1934, 1935-1939 and 1940-1946. This use was due to the decisions made by the authorities of the Colegio Secundario de Señoritas, which also implied different ways of understanding and teaching the subject. From a qualitative methodological strategy, we propose the interpretation of a case, approaching it from the tools coming from a critical perspective of gender and visual history. We use written and visual sources, as well as semi-structured interviews with former students.

We consider that what has happened in terms of the use of uniforms, in relation to the construction of femininities, involves moral, aesthetic, sexual, material, erotic and kinetic dimensions. We conclude that what happened with the teaching of Physical Education at the Colegio Secundario de Señoritas, in terms of transmission of femininities, and in regard to the use of uniforms for classes, shows a permanent tension in society between equality and inequality between women and men, and it is not at all a linear path that goes from inequality to equality or less inequality.