A History of Basketball for Women

This chapter provides a brief history of women’s basketball in the United States, revealing how women came to play basketball, the adapted rules that were put in place for women, and the way that the game varied across race and geographic location. It examines how basketball went from a sport largely considered a women’s game, though an adapted version, to a sport firmly coded as male. It tracks how female physical educators eventually lost control of women’s basketball to men, and how this has impacted the game today. This chapter works to historicise the discourses of gender, race, and sexuality that structure the WNBA, as well as provide a historical underpinning for the processes of embodiment within women’s basketball.