ABSTRACT
The New Culture and May Fourth Movements taught women about the concept of individual freedom. It provided a new climate, in which women could continue the attempt to free themselves from feudalism and gave them further opportunities to develop themselves physically and mentally. Women's participation in exercise, once again, presented them in non-traditional roles and provided important visible modifications to the feminine ideal: assertion, energy and action. Exercise brought women individual feelings of self-respect and self-awareness which were - in a wider context - the prevailing characteristics of the New Culture and May Fourth Movements. This consequence of individual participation in exercise for personal wellbeing rather than practical social purpose distinguished the women's emancipation movement of this period. In this way women's exercise had a special and specific cultural meaning for their emancipation in the May Fourth Era.
