Book Review: Bloomer Girls
Dec. 2nd, 2016 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI need to be pickier in the books I get from Netgalley; I've hit a whole string of duds in a row. The latest one is Debra A. Shattuck's Bloomer Girls: Women Baseball Pioneers, which is both boring and unconvincing. How do you write a boring book about early women baseball players?
It's possible that Shattuck just doesn't have the sources to write an interesting ones. Most of what she's got seems to be newspaper mentions of either women's baseball pick-up games, or the occasional touring women's baseball team, which is interesting in the limited sense that it shows that some women did play baseball, but doesn't give much insight into how they thought about it themselves.
It might, in different hands, give quite a bit of insight into what nineteenth century white American culture thought about women baseball players, but it certainly doesn't in Shattuck's, because she's intent on proving that baseball wasn't seen as a "men's game" until around 1900.
That would be super interesting if it were true, but Shattuck's own evidence totally disproves this. The newspaper articles she quotes make it very clear that baseball was seen as a masculine pursuit (possibly a masculine pursuit more suited to boys than grown-up men - this seems to be the loophole that Shattuck is hoping to shove her argument through - but still masculine). Many of them heap scorn or condescending amusement on women and girls playing baseball, and the ones that favor it do so with an argumentative air: they know very well that they're going against the tide of public opinion.
The fact that many women did play baseball doesn't mean that it wasn't considered masculine. You wouldn't have tomboy stories if women doing something automatically meant society considered it feminine!
Did Shattuck come up with her thesis and then run with it, actual evidence be damned? It's really too bad, because I think someone without that axe to grind probably could write an interesting book about women baseball pioneers - but this is not that book.
It's possible that Shattuck just doesn't have the sources to write an interesting ones. Most of what she's got seems to be newspaper mentions of either women's baseball pick-up games, or the occasional touring women's baseball team, which is interesting in the limited sense that it shows that some women did play baseball, but doesn't give much insight into how they thought about it themselves.
It might, in different hands, give quite a bit of insight into what nineteenth century white American culture thought about women baseball players, but it certainly doesn't in Shattuck's, because she's intent on proving that baseball wasn't seen as a "men's game" until around 1900.
That would be super interesting if it were true, but Shattuck's own evidence totally disproves this. The newspaper articles she quotes make it very clear that baseball was seen as a masculine pursuit (possibly a masculine pursuit more suited to boys than grown-up men - this seems to be the loophole that Shattuck is hoping to shove her argument through - but still masculine). Many of them heap scorn or condescending amusement on women and girls playing baseball, and the ones that favor it do so with an argumentative air: they know very well that they're going against the tide of public opinion.
The fact that many women did play baseball doesn't mean that it wasn't considered masculine. You wouldn't have tomboy stories if women doing something automatically meant society considered it feminine!
Did Shattuck come up with her thesis and then run with it, actual evidence be damned? It's really too bad, because I think someone without that axe to grind probably could write an interesting book about women baseball pioneers - but this is not that book.
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no subject
Date: 2016-12-02 11:28 pm (UTC)I frequently have to remind myself of this.
Too bad about the book! It's such a potentially interesting topic.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 02:10 am (UTC)Re: Netgalley, sometimes I feel left out because I can't manage to read more than five pages on any kind of screen, but today I feel that it's for the best. Paper books only means that my to-read pile can never be larger than the total number of square feet in my apartment.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 12:55 pm (UTC)Netgalley is definitely a mixed blessing. So many books! So little guidance as to whether they'll be worth your time!
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Date: 2017-03-05 09:09 pm (UTC)As for not proving my thesis, my point was that early female players did not face the same vitriol the later players did. They were even encouraged to play. (Example: at the Eagleswood school in 1859 and at Vassar College in 1879). As men's professional baseball emerged, the anti-female attitude increased throughout the century and was especially directed at the barnstorming theatrical-type teams.
Again, sorry you didn't enjoy the book.
Debbie Shattuck