Women in the chase: Sports, empire, and gender in Shanghai, 1860–1945

Abstract

This paper adopts the idea of informal empire and focuses on women in treaty port Shanghai. Examining two British equestrian sports, called “the chase” at the time, i.e. horse racing and paper hunt, this article shows how, notwithstanding racial differences, British and Chinese elite women in Shanghai adopted the same strategies to empower themselves. By joining the chase, as actual hunters, leading horse owners or trainers, they successfully broke the physical, psychological, and social constraints society imposed on them. This article argues China’s treaty ports created rare opportunities for both British and Chinese women. On the one hand, the strict class system of the home country was temporarily broken and reshaped, and on the other hand, the traditional Chinese social hierarchy of literati, peasants, artisans, and merchants was also disrupted and re-arranged. Exploiting this rift and using equestrianism as a tool, elite women subverted the tradition of sport as a male domain and dramatically expanded the space for their public life.