Ideals and Realities: Articulating Feminist Perspectives in Physical Education

Using on information gathered from five female feminist physical education teachers in Brisbane, Australia, this paper examines the relationship between theoretical debates in feminism and feminist practice in secondary schools. Specifically, this paper is concerned with the ongoing debate in feminism over the notion of equality. It is problematic that calls for equality for women are currently understood as calls for sameness to men, leaving men and their life experience as the only standard of analysis. In this paper, how this theoretical struggle between feminists is dealt with in sport and physical education is explored. The teachers articulated various feminist perspectives, but placed their feminism on the physical education agenda piecemeal. Moreover, they failed to challenge the notion of an equality for women based on their sameness to men. Given the duress under which these women articulate their feminism, notions of sameness may be all that is achievable in the current physical education curriculum.