A Theory of Their Own

“Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball?” is a memorable quote about the blurred lines of men and women. Much like critical theory, there’s no crying either. Penny Marshall’s film A League of Their Own dissects a period of American history in which gender roles were not only switched but also transferred from one to another. The film illustrates the way women are thrust into a position predominantly occupied (if not completely until recent years) sport by men yet the parameters of the All-American baseball league never give women a real chance to play the game. Instead, women were selected for other reasons than their ability and in the end the league failed without a resurrection for many years to follow.
Because of the Second World War a large number of young men were drafted, while others volunteered to go, leaving holes throughout American culture causing a change in lifestyle. Women went to work in factories leaving their kitchens behind in order to make ends meet, and without America’s pastime in effect a league for women’s baseball was created. During one scene of the film a baseball scout searches for possible players and runs into a tall, beautiful, and talented female baseball player. In addition she has a younger sister who is just as capable, if not better, but lacks any physical good looks. Although her talent outweighs her aesthetic appeal the scout is weary of selecting her to play. In Luce Irigaray’s selection “Women on the Market” she speaks out preconceptions from men about women and how certain ideals are kept above others in decision-making. “Woman’s price is not determined by the ‘properties’ of her body – although her body constitutes the material support of the price” (801). This quote connects with the process of selection made by the baseball teams during the Second World War and as shown through Marshall’s film. Because the society was undergoing a drastic change during the early 1940s some of the “familiar” had to stay intact. Since most of the spectators of women’s baseball were men, the business owners had to rely on crude terms in order to make money. Men were not paying money to see talented women play baseball but instead to watch cute girls run around and play a game that was familiar and took peoples mind’s off of the war.
In addition to pretty women being selected over the talented players the uniforms of the players speak volumes of the purpose of the league. All of the women were forced to wear dresses during the games, which was completely irregular for the players at the time due to the nature of sliding and playing in the dirt. But because the society at the time was run by a group of men who wanted to see women perform their tasks, changes were made in order to suppress the true capabilities of women but give enjoyment to the spectators.



WORKS CITED

Irigaray, Luce. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed.
United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.