The article argues for sport and physical culture to be recognized as a fruitful field for gender history research. I would argue that different forms of physical activity should be considered part of the processes that create, reproduce, or challenge current gender positions - and identifications - be it symbolically, structurally, or individually. Women's sport challenges the historical linkage of femininity and passivity, as well as calling into question the 'naturalness' of the body and gender. Physical activity shapes the body in historically or culturally specific ways at the same time as the body, by embodying or challenging norms, in turn shapes history The empirical examples discussed include Svenska Kvinnors Centralforbund for Fysisk Kultur (the Swedish Women's Central Federation of Physical Culture), an association that was active in the inter-war period and had close links to Sweden's liberal women's movement. Based on a feminist analysis, bodily activity and strength are here viewed in relation to women's emancipation.