ABSTRACT
About 100 years ago, in 1909, the Danish medical doctor Johannes Lindhard (1870–1947) became associate professor, and in 1917 professor, of the theory of gymnastics at the University of Copenhagen. Lindhard’s collaboration with the physiologist and 1920 Nobel Prize winner August Krogh (1874–1949) laid the foundation for the birth of exercise physiology in Scandinavia. In addition to his basic-level studies of physiology, Lindhard also became deeply involved in developing a theory of gymnastics that would bring a wide range of Danish gymnastics traditions onto a surer theoretical footing. Lindhard’s importance in the history of gymnastics is mainly attributable to the fact that he had a huge influence in the ‘gendering’ of the behavioural codes of conduct and the formulation of a gender-specific movement programme aimed at the socialisation of boys and girls as well as men and women in accordance with the new gender roles of the emerging capitalist society with its strict division of education and labour between the two sexes. Lindhard clearly supported ‘difference-feminism’ in contrast to ‘resemblance-feminism’.
