«La alegría del músculo». Las mujeres y la cultura deportiva en la España de los locos veinte a través de la prensa

Abstract

Before the totalitarianism in the 30s turned the human body in reflection of the collective soul of the nation, the twenties were presented as a time in which individuals felt ready to enjoy the pleasures that their body gave them as a way to compensate the horror experienced during World War I. Therefore both, individual and collective delectation, were a way to forget the trauma of the immediate past. The modern period was evident in many aspects of life, one of them was leisure, a completely new and innovative concept that would have an overwhelming success. The sport, which had begun to spread strongly in the Western world, gave people the opportunity to start doing some free time activities. Many men, but now more and more women, popularized physical activity to make it one of the leading exponents of the new times. Although Spain was a neutral country throughout the war, it participated in many ways in the transformations that the Western world experienced during that decade. The press of the time would clearly record the firm will of those men and women to overcome the tragedy they experienced. This post-war generation needed a balm that would allow them to face the future with recovered physical and mental health. It was then that they realized that sport could provide them with what they were looking for, that is, health, fun and overcoming challenges with optimism and self-assurance. It is not surprising, therefore, that throughout the decade the popularity of well-known sports increased and others were incorporated that came to satisfy the growing demand. There were so many people who approached the world of sports as a player or as an audience that in a short time it reached the category of a social phenomenon. The increase in the hobby was accompanied by an increase in the number of specialized publications on the subject, which, as is easy to imagine, did not stop multiplying their sales. But such was the sports information generated by the new phenomenon that the rest of the press was forced to reserve a space for it on their pages, no matter how small it might be.