Sports in Australian Colonies: Amateur, Professional, Gender & Class

This essay provides an overview of sports in the Australian colonies, highlighting the distinctions between amateur and professional sports during the late Victorian era. It examines the role of schools in promoting sports and addresses gender and class issues prevalent at the time. The paper discusses how amateur sports initially reinforced class distinctions, with only wealthy individuals having the time to participate, while the rise of professional sports in the 19th century introduced financial incentives. Schools, particularly denominational ones, aimed to instill values of muscular Christianity, but gender disparities persisted, with limited opportunities for women in sports until the late 20th century. Despite this, some scholars argue that women's involvement in sports was more significant than often acknowledged. The essay concludes that early Australian sports were heavily influenced by gender and class, with working-class individuals and women facing fewer opportunities for participation compared to their upper and middle-class counterparts. Desklib provides access to similar essays and study resources for students.

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Précis Writing
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Introduction
The Australian colonies were self styled settlers from Britain, who were not at all
equal in wealth, status and power. This paper is going to elaborate on the difference in the
professional and amateur version of sports, exiting in the late Victorian England; Schools and
gender issues and class prevailing at those times.
Discussion
Professional v/s amateur
It was thought that both amateur and professional sports in Australia were completely
different domains. The sports in their earliest form were played with amateur statuses. No
financial rewards were given to the players for their participation. Hence, only the rich people
used to play sports as they had enough time to spare. Hence, amateur sport ensured that the
issue to class distinction is prevailing between the sportsmen and this has also led to the
exclusiveness of sports clubs. The 19th century was the beginning of the professional sports
and these players were paid a handsome amount of money for their participation.
Schools within Australia
The schools in Australia were regarded as the nurseries for Rugby League, cricket,
Rugby Union, netball and foot ball. In the 19th century the denominational schools used to put
effort to instill muscular Christianity in the pupils and within that amateurism was of a key
value (Coppinger, 2013). There were two educational system prevailing- the state-subsidized
private schools and the stat-funded secular schools. The GPS schools in Sydney used to be a
traditional nursery for the recruitment into the New South Wales Rugby Union clubs. Girls
too had their place in school sport but as a secondary place.
Gender Issues

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Gender identities were regarded as the keys to investigate sports in the Australian
history (Connell, 2014). It is to be noted that for most of the boys at those times, sports have
been an important ritual of passage into the manhood. However, for the young women, it was
the reverse. Until late 20th century females used to get very less opportunity for participating
in sports. Until then, they used to get encouraged only to undertake the then considered
‘female appropriate’ activities and sports like netball. Nevertheless, according to scholars like
Gluck (2013), women have been much more active in the sports activities than many
historians has bothered to pay attention.
Class
Only the working class Australian colonies (males) and the upper and middle class
people used to take out time for their sports activities in the early Australian period (Veal,
Darcy & Lynch, 2015). In terms of female sports engagement, the women belong from the
upper class or middleclass used to get the opportunities to get involved in sports activities.
The women belonging from the working-class group used to get far fewer opportunities for
participating in sports than the others.
Conclusion
In this paper the difference in the professional and amateur type of sports has been
briefly examined and it can be concluded that in the early Australian period, there were
gender identity issues and class distinction in the competitive sports in great terms. With the
same, the schools during that period used to play a great role in encouraging students to join
in sports, recruiting them to several sports club.

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References
Connell, R. W. (2014). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. John
Wiley & Sons.
Coppinger, J. H. (2013). Secularization by Americanization: RV Borleske, Whitman College,
and Muscular Christianity (1882-1947).
Gluck, S. B., & Patai, D. (Eds.). (2013). Women's words: The feminist practice of oral
history.
Veal, A. J., Darcy, S., & Lynch, R. (2015). Australian leisure. Pearson Higher Education AU.