Gender Equality in Sports

The literature review of this article focuses on Title IX itself, as well as statistical numbers that provide the reader knowledge about the impact it has had. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that has removed many barriers that once prevented people, on the basis of sex, from participating in educational opportunities and careers of their choice (Bower & Hums, 2013). Acosta and Carpenter (2012) reported that the number of female athletes playing college sports has risen from 16,000 in 1968 to over 200,000 in 2012. Although the increased number of opportunities has provided women the chance to participate in the sport, the percentage of women coaching women’s teams has decline over time from 90% in 1972 to 42.9% in 2012 (Acosta & Carpenter, 2012). Alongside coaching is the lack of women working in intercollegiate administration. In 1972, the percentage of female athletic directors overseeing women’s programs was 90%, Today, the percentage of female athletic directors is 20.3%, a small increase from 2010

These could include running sprints for time, catching footballs, throwing or kicking footballs, tackling other players, etc. At the end of the tryouts, the question then becomes.who made the team and who

Twenty-seven Division I colleges participated in a study where researchers found male athletes received almost six hundred dollars more in scholarships than female athletes and coaches of male teams earned around 190,000 dollars more than coaches of female teams (Kenschaft & Clark, 2016: 355). To earn almost 200,000 dollars more for coaching males instead of females, is only contributing to the sexist theories of women in sports. We wonder why so many female teams cannot find strong coaches but they are all headed to coach the men’s teams to receive more money. The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team received two million dollars for winning the 2015 Women’s World Cup, while

With these numbers of schools that participate a lot of woman sports teams are not getting the equal treatment they deserve.

     What you have just read above is the “Prohibition of Sex Discrimination”, also known as Title IX. Title IX has been effective in the realm of education for nearly three decades, but has been a source a controversy in collegiate sports. Since the beginning of time, women were believed to be inferior to men in every way. Women were socialized to bear children and take care of the household when, and only when, the men were out hunting.

Over two decades have passed since the enactment of Title IX, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education, including athletics. As a result of Title IX, women and girls have benefited from more athletic participation opportunities and more equitable facilities. Because of Title IX, more women have received athletic scholarships and thus opportunities for higher education that some may not have been able to afford otherwise. In addition, because of Title IX the salaries of coaches for women's teams have increased. Despite the obstacles women face in athletics, many women have led and are leading the way to gender equity.

Before Title IX, women scholarships were not entirely existent. An article stated, “Women and girls were virtually precluded from taking advantage of most athletic opportunities in schools before Title IX, but we are beginning to see the outcome of equal opportunity on the playing fields.”.Title IX has helped girls and women participate in interscholastic and intercollegiate athletics in far greater numbers than they had in the past. “When Title IX became law, dramatic change was needed to level the playing fields of this nation's schools and to change the perception of the place of girls and women on them” (“Achieving Success Under” par. 1). Title IX really shifted the way women were being treated such as getting into

The articles, “Title IX Under Fire As Colleges Cut Teams” by Jean Marbella and Carrie Wells and “40 Years Later, Title IX Is Still Fighting Perception It Hurts Men’s Sports” by Gloria Goodale, share different viewpoints on Title IX. Marbella and Wells share details and statistics showing that men’s teams are sometimes cut in order to meet Title IX’s requirements. However, Goodale counters that the reasons for the teams being cut was not Title IX, but the budgets of the university. She explains that Title IX is being framed for these incidents (Goodale). Goodale and Marbella and Wells argue two different viewpoints on the Title IX.

In today's society, women and girls have developed an interested in athletic opportunities at the collegiate level. Title IX provided a standard for athletics around the world within the aspect of education, health, and social. The purpose is to not allow discrimination of sex and racism within the terms of provides equal opportunities for athletes. Critics argue that Title IX has a negative impact on the reduction of male opportunities in collegiate athletics. Title IX has affected on the opportunities for growth in women's athletics, but the increase in opportunities will affect the men athletics outcome of opportunities due to the cutting of programs and finical issue.

Money is usually a problem with many things in life, one of them also happens to be gender equality. Colleges and universities spend an average of $1.6 million on the men’s athletics program. Yet, the women’s athletic teams receive nearly half that amount (Almond 2). Women should not be receiving half the amount that a men’s team gets just because their sports are less ‘popular’ than men’s. A school’s main objective may be to promote the men’s team first, to get out of a deficit. Then they may be able to finance the women’s team with the money they make from the men’s sporting events. That is not an equal or fair solution. It would take years to pay off a deficit and then sufficiently finance the female athletic programs. Numerical equality would take a vast quantity of public tax money in addition to the financial assistance that now pays for most of women’s sports. Universities increased its support of women’s athletics over the years but according to Ellen Voelz,

Title IX is a federal law that was passed in 1972. The law states that on one can be kept from participating in any education program or activity because of his or her sex. Before Title IX took effect, women rarely played sports at the college level, and you never saw a woman coaching a sport. It was very unheard of for colleges to have several different girls’ sports teams. The Gender Equity in Athletics and Sports acknowledges, “Before Title IX, women were 2% of the college students participating in sports” (1). Title IX gave women who wanted to be able to play sports the opportunity to do just that. Today we have thousands of women athletes at the college level, and some of them have even moved on to play sports professionally. Terrance Ross confirms, “At the collegiate level, there are currently more than 207,000 female student athletes, a 180 percent increase from the early 80s. Much of this success can be attributed to Title IX” (6). Thanks to Title IX, our daughters have a better chance to go to college and play the sport they love and to fulfill their

As a future women’s basketball coach, it is important to understand the ins and outs of Title IX, and furthermore it is important to understand women’s basketball’s place in the history of Title IX. As a female sporting opportunity, Title IX is at its core supposed to equate these opportunities with those of male sporting opportunities.

Women’s equality is an issue that has been around for awhile. While women have been given many rights to increase equality, including the right to vote and go to college, the problem hasn’t completely vanished. One area that still sees this is in sports. Women’s sports do not draw nearly as many fans and are not covered in the media as much as men’s sports, pay differences between male and female athletes are large, and female athletes have to wait longer to start their professional career than men, which risks their professional career before it even starts.

Over time, it has been argued that at the intercollegiate level, female athletes are in one way or another more likely to be subjected to some form of discrimination. In this case, discrimination could either be in terms of funding or participation. In regard to funding, the dominant question asked is; should there be any difference in funding between men's and women's athletics? There is an urgent need to address this and many other questions regarding the advancement of financial support to female and male athletics.

“According to the University of Minnesota’s Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, women’s athletics receive only about 4 percent of all sports media coverage.” This statistic shows that women aren’t focused on in the media as much as men are. It also explains that less people watch women’s because there isn’t as much to watch. In the NBA their average salary is $4,500,000 but in the WNBA their average is $72,000. On an average that is $4,428,000 less than the males salary. There is no reason women playing that same sport should be earning that much less. Another reason is scholarships. Men are able to receive more scholarships than women