In Women, Horse Sports, and Liberation, Erica Munkwitz examines British women's involvement in equestrianism from the eighteenth through the twentieth century. In chronological order, she examines British women's participation in horse sports and how such involvement shaped—and was shaped by—gender, social, cultural, and sporting ideals. Muntwitz begins presenting women's participation in hunting, relating it to the sporting revolution in Britain, which spanned 1772 to 1825. Women have a long history of participating in hunting, and the late eighteenth century was an era of widespread and talented female horsemanship. Yet female numbers decreased in the first part of the nineteenth century as a consequence of the changing nature of the hunt. From 1805 through 1857, horse riding was seen as a healthy exercise for women, and the practice of riding in the city parks developed. According to Munkwitz, horse riding was connected to the elite up until the mid-nineteenth century. Thereafter, it trickled down the social ladder as horses became more affordable. The number of women as horse owners, the number of riding horses available, and riding manuals for women all increased. From 1857 to 1913, women's participation in hunting thus grew further. In the last periods analyzed in the book, 1894–1932 and 1932–1956, women's importance in equestrianism continued to expand. Women worked with horses during war times, and in the interwar period, there was a massive surge in the number of riders. Horse riding activities for women had emerged earlier than many other sports activities, and Britain, to an increasing extent, was represented by women in equestrian competitions at elite levels.In Munkwitz's work, the importance of national identity also comes forward as an important explanatory factor in relation to women's riding. Haute école (a style of horse riding born from cavalry movements and training for the battlefield) declined in Britain following the Civil Wars as the British considered it inadequate riding; this rejection was seen as a consequence of the British sporting revolution where hunting became important. Later, horse riding in India became a way of marking British nationality for both men and women, and women participated in horse riding activities in the colony to a higher (and broader) extent than in Britain. In imperial India, women could train horses, ride cross saddled, and participate in polo and gymkhana (a competitive sport played on horseback). In this context, being white was more important than gender identity in deciding who could ride or not. Women's involvement thus reshaped ideals of race and reinforced imperial ideology in the British Empire.The book is unique and fascinating in describing the history of equestrianism over a long period and from a gender perspective. There are, however, some critical issues I would like to raise (possibly deriving from my belonging to a different tradition of writing history). The work lacks a thorough presentation of the source material (and possibly a list of the sources). The author uses magazines, books about horse riding and women, and pictures (the book is beautifully illustrated with black-and-white prints, many in the author's collection). It is, however, difficult to know how many of these magazines and books are used as sources and how they were individually interpreted. Likewise, more information about readership and circulation of primary sources would have been useful. It is sometimes difficult to follow whether the number of books on horse riding was actually increasing or not, and especially whether any rise was part of the development of increased book publications in general. An argument in the book is that women's participation in horse sports “transcended limitations of class and gender in Britain and highlights the democratic ethos that allowed anyone skilled enough to ride and hunt—from chimney-sweep to courtesan.” Even though the author presents examples of this, it is, without a thorough discussion of the sources, difficult to know how widespread the development was.My objections do not detract me from the pleasures of reading a book that takes a holistic approach to women and equestrian sports. Muntwitz gives the reader excellent insights into the material culture of women's equestrianism. She presents and discusses aspects of social reality grounded in objects like the saddle and equestrian clothing and makes clear that men and women had different technical opportunities in relation to riding. The history of saddles is closely connected to the development of behaviors, norms, and rituals in relation to female equestrians. Over time, (British) women abandoned the sidesaddle—which they had been riding in for almost half a millennium—to ride astride like men. This is fascinating reading for all interested in how the intertwinement of material culture, gender, social class, nation, and whiteness influenced who participated in the sport and related activities and how the different positions were more or less important in various times and places.
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Jun 15, 2024
Andrea Szalai 
Open Access