Exercise, physical capability, and the eternally wounded woman in late nineteenth century North America.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, arguments about women’s limited physical and mental capacity and the centrality of reproduction for understanding women’s bodies defined medical views of women’s health and the productive boundaries of their lives. Ostensibly basing their views upon new scientific evidence, influential medical practitioners, many of whom were men, utilized pseudo-scientific theories about the effects of the reproductive life cycle upon women’s physical capabilities to control the life choices of middle class women and set limits upon their activities. Though women were held to be victims of their reproductive apparatus in general, the onset of menstruation and its recurring cycle were believed to be the cause of particular handicap. Women’s limited physical achievements as compared to men were increasingly ascribed to the burden placed upon them by their reproductive apparatus, especially menstruation. The onset of menses at puberty was considered an illness to be weathered only with particular care. For the next thirty years of life’s pilgrimage, women were advised to treat themselves as invalids once a month, curtailing both physical and mental activity during the “catamenial week” lest they succumb to accidents, disease and loss of fertility. The widespread notion that women were chronically weak, and that they had only a finite amount of mental and physical energy due to the recurring fact of menstruation had a strong effect upon the medical profession’s attitude and consequently the public’s attitude toward female exercise and participation in sport. Furthermore, these attitudes have continued to persist throughout the twentieth century despite accumulating scientific and medical evidence that menstruation need not affect physical performance. Wells, in a recent summary of the scientific literature related to exercise and menstruation, notes that misinformation and traditional views concerning the menstrual function are still major blocks to the active participation of girls and women in competitive sports. Until quite recently, for example, the International Olympic Committee believed that sports training and competition were detrimental to proper reproductive functioning in women and used these beliefs