Have women started to “play hardball” on a “level playing field” in the American sporting culture?  From the commercial successes of the WNBA and World Cup Soccer to new studies that document the positive effects of athletics on girls’ self-esteem, women finally seem to be turning the American obsession with sports to their own advantage.  This course will examine how physical fitness and organized athletics for men and women have both reflected and helped to create norms of masculinity and femininity over the past one hundred and fifty years.