Although women have made remarkable gains during the present century in terms of voting rights, education, and recreational and employment opportunities, the fact remains that their metamorphosis from "fair sex" to "full persons" is still an ongoing process. This paper examines certain historic educational and scientific attitudes which have been used to hamper such minimal successes as women have achieved to date (e.g., less than 1% of all amateur or professional athletes in the Western world are women). During the Victorian era, the ideas of the embryologist Von Baer were applied to adolescent psychology, with the effect that sports were urged for young men but ignored as an activity for young women. This attitude reinforced the prevailing educational arguments held against developing females mentally or physically. Changes in attitudes in the 1920s enabled sports for females to develop normally. (KM)