Women in Rugby Union: A Social and Cultural History, 1880-2016

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This project will be the first comprehensive study of the involvement of women in rugby union in Britain. Beginning by examining the reports of early women's 'football' teams of the early 1880s and stories of individual players like Emily Valentine, the project will use archival, newspaper and other primary sources to trace the history of women's involvement in rugby as players, committee members and spectators across the next 130 years. It will examine attitudes to women's involvement in what is seen traditionally as the most masculine of sports and explore how these have changed. Perhaps most significantly it will chart the rise of the modern women's game from its emergence in higher education in the 1960s and 1970s to the present day, when it has become of the fastest growing team sports for women.