Game Face: What Does a Female Athlete Look Like? - Hardcover

Gottesman, Jane; Marshall, Penny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375506020 ISBN 13: 9780375506024

Publisher: Random House, 2001

Synopsis

The extraordinary collection of photographs and rich personal stories that make up Game Face documents the tremendous impact that sports has on the daily lives of millions of girls and women. On playing fields and street corners, in backyards and gyms, the people in this arresting array of pictures are unselfconsciously exploring the physical and emotional pleasures of competition and play. Each image offers an affirming and satisfying answer to the question at the heart of Game Face: What do girls and women look like, freed from traditional feminine constraints, using their bodies in joyful and empowering ways?

When Title IX was passed in 1972, only one out of twenty-seven school-age girls played sports. Now one in three does. Yet their expanding involvement in sports is still largely overlooked by the media, and as a consequence, millions of young female athletes crave not only role models but an authentic and appealing reflection of their own athleticism. As a young sports journalist, Jane Gottesman was all too aware of this imbalance, and saw the need for a book that honors both our top female athletes and the everyday girls and women whose self-image is strengthened through athletic participation. With the goal of showing America what women's sports looks like, she searched through the work of our country's best photographers, from the newest photojournalists to artists such as Annie Leibovitz and Ansel Adams. The result is Game Face, a unique and inspiring selection of color and black-and-white photographs, a text with first-person accounts by athletes, and an illustrated time line of women's athletic milestones.

Published simultaneously with the opening of an important exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution that will tour for five years, Game Face has been endorsed by the Girl Scouts of the USA, who've developed a Game Face patch, the NCAA, and the YWCA of the USA. An inspiring gift for an athlete of any age, this powerful, timely book takes one of art's most studied subjects the female body and celebrates it in a brand-new way.

About this title

Review:

A friend was looking for a great book for a young woman, to help ease her into adulthood. The usual fiction fare came to mind, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, To Kill a Mockingbird, and so on. Then I came across Game Face: What Does a Female Athlete Look Like? and immediately decided this was the perfect choice for a preteen girl. In fact, it's a great addition to your mother's coffee table, your best friend's bookshelf, and your sister's "girls rule" collection.

Created and edited by Jane Gottesman, and including a foreword from Penny Marshall, this book takes you on a romp through women in sports from the 19th to the 21st century. The pictures capture superstar athletes like Serena Williams and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, along with small-town sports victors like the determined young "tomboy on a skateboard." The photographs range from showing the agony of defeat to the gritty triumph of victory on the faces of women from all around the world. It's a truly magnificent display of woman power on the field and court, in the ring and stadium, and beyond. Definitely recommended for all the "girlz" in your life. --E. Brooke Gilbert

From the Back Cover:

“A marvelous collection, in photographs and words, of women athletes.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

“[Game Face] is designed to broaden, deepen and perhaps even transform
long-standing perceptions of the female as athlete.”—The Washington Post

“Years before it even occurred to me that there might be different standards in the way we cover male and female athletes, Jane Gottesman was on the case.”—The New York Times

“Explodes the perception of sports as a male bastion.”—Time Out New York

“This book is terrific. . . . I am giving it to my granddaughter . . . and I hope it will inspire her to be whatever she wants to be.”—Philadelphia Daily News

“We see women large and small, slim, powerful, straining, graceful, awkward, in their prime and well past it. What we do not see is cheesecake.”—The Denver Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0375506020
• ISBN 13: 9780375506024
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224