Studying the Spread of Volleyball in Pre-War Physical Education in Factories From the Perspective of Gender and the Labor Movement

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Abstract

This paper focuses on factory workers from the Taisho era to the wartime period; further, it seeks to identify the status of factory physical education as a popular sports activity, the process of its transformation, and the factors that led to its popularity. In particular, this study focuses on volleyball, a popular factory sport, and the relationship between the genders, the politics of hierarchy within the factory, and the influence of the labor movement. Volleyball was introduced as a suitable exercise and for increasing the production efficiency of women workers and it was considered a "sport suited to women" in Japan. However, the Kure navy yard volleyball team created a volleyball culture that had a "manly" fighting spirit, and was successful in national competitions. On the other hand, the prosperity of the "manly" volleyball culture had a parallel relationship with the "sluggishness of the labor movement" in the Kure navy arsenal. In other words, a "manly" sports culture related to the dominant class coexisted with a submissive worker class culture.

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