Melissa

I thought these events were really neat because they represent major leaps for women in sports. They show significant moments and advancements that happened before and after the passing of Title IX. (Found from The New York Times )

August 6, 1926- Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim across the English Channel setting a world record with 35 miles in 14 hours 31 minutes

1945- Babe Didrikson Zaharias became the first woman to play in a PGA tour

1960- At the Rome Olympics, Wilma Ruldolph was the first woman to win 3 gold medals in track and field

June 23, 1972- Title IX was passed quoting, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

September 20, 1973- Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in a tennis match called the
“Battle of the Sexes”

1984- Women’s basketball became huge after the passing of Title IX, allowing so many opportunities and strides. For example, Cheryl Miller led the University of Southern California women’s basketball team to the NCAA titles in 1983 and 1984 and helped the women’s USA team win the gold in the 1984 Olympics.

August 5, 1984-  At the first Olympic marathon for women, Joan Benoit took home the gold

July 10, 1999- USA women’s soccer team defeats China and wins the World Cup

September 8, 2001- Venus and Serena Williams competed against each other in the United States Open title- Venus winning the match

2010- The women’s basketball team from the University of Connecticut won 90 games in a row, beating the UCLA men’s record of 88 games. The women also won their second straight national championship. 

I thought these pictures/cartoons went well with my topic on women in sports! They are pretty self-explanatory, making jokes about Title IX and the stereotypes against athletic women.

FUN FACTS ABOUT MY TOPIC :]

Did you know…..

• “Prior to 1970, if a woman wanted to pursue a professional degree in college, chances were she wouldn’t be admitted to a law school or medical school program because she was a woman?”
• “Because a sport is revenue-producing or has more spectators, these facts cannot be used as an excuse for treating male athletes better than female athletes?” 
• “Schools cannot use a myth that “boys are more interested in sports than girls,” to justify providing more participation opportunities for boys than girls?”
• “A school cannot say men can get treated better than girls because the booster club of a boys’ team provides funds to be used just for that team?”
• “Cheerleaders and band members must support both men’s and women’s sports?”
• “A girl must be allowed to try out for the boys’ team if there is no girls’ team for her in that sport?”
• “A boy does not have the right to try out for a girls’ team if there are more boys playing sports at your school than girls?”
• “Football is included under Title IX?”
• “Sports participation provides boys and girls with a lot more benefits than getting in shape and having fun?” 

http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/sitecore/content/home/athletes/for-athletes/know-your-rights/athlete-resources/mythbusting-what-every-female-athlete-should-know.aspx

These foundations have helped increase equality between men and women in not only sports but other aspects of oppression. They have listed some goals for the public to help!

• Attend women’s sporting events
• Support companies that advocate for women’s athletics
• Encourage television shows and newspapers to cover women’s sports
• Sign up to coach a girls’ sports team
• Encourage young women to participate in sports
• Push for gender equity policies
• Speak out against homophobia
• Challenge the myths
• Become an advocate!

http://feminist.org/research/sports/sports10.html

http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/sitecore/content/home/athletes/for-athletes/know-your-rights/athlete-resources/mythbusting-what-every-female-athlete-should-know.aspx

I found this myth sheet from the Feminist Majority Foundation that talks about equality between men and women in sports. I only chose a couple to post that I felt were significant and stood out the most.

MYTH: ”Football and basketball create revenue and are important because they can fund the entire athletic department, generate visibility, and lead to TV money. Therefore, they should have large budgets.”

FACT: ”While it is true that many of the largest schools (Division I-A) have football and basketball teams that bring in profits, the vast majority of football and basketball teams actually run a deficit - sometimes a large one.”

MYTH: ”Compliance with Title IX means the doom of men’s athletics.”

FACT: ”Non-compliance with Title IX continues to mean the doom of women’s athletics. Title IX does not call for discrimination against men’s sport; it calls for gender equity. The aim is not to diminish the impact or importance of men’s sports, but instead to provide equity for women’s sports. Contrary to popular belief, as more women have entered athletics, they have not displaced men. In fact, athletic opportunities for both women and men in high school and college have increased over time.”

MYTH: ”Women are naturally inferior to men in terms of strength and speed. Therefore, women just can’t be as good at sports as men.”

FACT: ”All men are not stronger or faster than all women. There is great overlap in the strength and speed of men and women.”

“Because women on average have greater flexibility, a greater percentage of body fat (useful for ultra-distance races), and smaller size, we tend to be as good as or better than men in some sports: marathon swimming, very long-distance running, gymnastics, synchronized swimming, and horse racing, to name a few. And, in recreational sports like tennis, golf, “Ultimate” Frisbee, softball, volleyball, and countless others, women and men regularly play against and with each other at similar skill levels.”

MYTH: ”Colleges can’t help it if more than half the athletes are male. Women are just not as interested in athletics as men are.”

FACT: ”It is no accident that colleges have more men athletes than women athletes. More money is spent around the country recruiting men athletes. The institutional average for athletic re- cruitment for Division I schools is $139,000 for men’s sports, and only $28,840 for women’s sports. If recruitment money were spent equally for women and men, schools would have a much better chance of enrolling an equal number of women and men athletes.”

MYTH: ”Women do not have as much relevant experience as men do in running large athletic departments. That is why they are not hired as athletics directors.”

FACT: ”Colleges and schools must make an effort to hire competent women athletic directors, to break the cycle. If women are not given the chance to gain experience, how will they ever get it?”

MYTH: ”It’s hard for schools and colleges to hire women coaches because women drop out of the workforce to raise a family.”

FACT: ”The argument that women drop out of the work force for family reasons is a common way to excuse sex discrimination. But there is no evidence that women drop out in great numbers. In fact, 54% of mothers with children under 6 are in the workforce - about the same as the percentage of all women who are in the workforce.”

HOMOPHOBIA

Not only do women face the battle of wage gap with athletic positions but interestingly  homophobia also drives women away from athletic careers. Many  female administrators, coaches, and athletes believe by being associated with sports allows others to believe they are lesbian and those who are lesbian are forced to deal with several disadvantages.

University of Iowa’s women’s athletic director, Christine Grant, compares homophobia in women’s sports to the 1950s McCarthyism and says the “fear is paralyzing”.

Mariah Burton Nelson, a former basketball player and author of “Are We Winning Yet?” believes homophobia in athletics is just another tact to control women. This all trails back to society’s norms and tradition of gender and what we know to be feminine and masculine. Sports along with aggressiveness and strength tag along with masculinity or the “butch” lesbian and that is whey people feel uncomfortable or fear the abnormality with women in athletics. Therefore, this stigma allows others to make false or unfair judgements/assumptions. This is very irritating and unfortunate that gay AND straight athletes, coaches, administrators are almost considered different since they do not follow traditional behavior. They then feel the need to stray away from these positions. It sucks that these women are forced to not feel completely content in there position or feel the need to redirect themselves completely from what they love to do and are talented at.

I just think it is sad that whether women are straight and assumed gay or masculine or whether women are gay and assumed “different” it is just a lose-lose situation. Lesbian women sometimes feel threatened or afraid to express their sexuality in fear of losing their position, sponsorships, support. People shouldn’t have to disguise or maintain an image that isn’t them to feel accepted or become successful. This doesn’t deal with sports but I remember watching an episode of Sex and the City and the opposite scenario happened. Miranda’s boss thought she was a lesbian and liked the diversity in the law firm so she took advantage of that to get ahead and promoted and it worked.

 The Feminist Majority Foundation discussed that an article in the Women’s Sports and Fitness magazine stated , “Homophobia is the cause of 4 women turning down scholarships at schools unfriendly to lesbians; lesbians getting married and divorced to maintain a heterosexual image; women terrified to reveal they were fired as suspected lesbians; single women who are not hired as coaches; heterosexual women declining athletic careers for fear of being labeled lesbians. Many parents worry that athletics might influence their daughters to become lesbians.”

I was trying to look at the other side and I’m sure men deal with a little discouragement too in sports, just not as drastic. For example, not joining sports like wrestling because of the contact, uniforms, and being “gay”.

I wish our society could change the norms associated with sports so that they are more feminine. Let’s focus more on the talent and not their personal life so that more women are successful, happy, and comfortable in sports and even participating in general instead of being discouraged.

http://feminist.org/research/sports/sports4.html 

Professional sports

I found some interesting examples of equities and inequities between men and women in professional sports. These examples have to deal with the differences in prize money, awards, and salaries.

EQUITY

Winner of the 2005 and 2006 New York City Marathon, Jelena Prokopcuka was able to take home the largest amount of money in marathon history-$130,000, both years!

Five years ago Wimbledon made the decision to allow both male and female champions to receive the same exact prize money.

INEQUITY

The difference in prize money for the winners of the PGA & LPGA tour is 206 million!

When comparing the salaries of athletes in the WNBA and NBA in 2005, each women’s minimum and maximum was 31,200-89,000 as opposed to the men’s 385,227-15.355 million!

Each athlete on the U.S. men’s national soccer team was able to obtain 200,000 for making it to the quarterfinal of the World Cup in 2002. In 2003 when the U.S women’s soccer team finished 3^rd place in the Women’s World Cup, each athelete only received 25,000.

http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/home/research/articles-and-reports/equity-issues/pay-inequity