ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the relationship between physical education (PE) in secondary schools and young women’s subcultures. It attempts to relate PE teaching to the subcultural experiences and resistances of young women and thus move beyond a biologically determined position which traditionally has explained young women’s responses to PE as ‘natural’ and inevitable. Young women were defined either as extensions of the experiences of ‘the lads’ or as direct inhibitions on these experiences. School PE fails to provide ‘meaningful experiences’ for many young adolescent women because it appears at odds with the culture of femininity. Their resistances which are complex and not always consistent, relate to what they perceive as on offer from PE–the development of muscle; sweat; communal showers/changing facilities; ‘childish’ asexual PE kit; low-status activities. By contrast, women’s PE needs to develop a new programme geared to assertiveness, confidence, health, fitness and the capacity to challenge patriarchal definitions of submissiveness, passivity, and dependence.
