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Women's Rights
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WomenMatter will continuously post updates on all this and other issues as we monitor the continuing philosophical and practical debates nationwide.
Please check back often for updates. Past updates are available for reference on the Women's Rights Archives page.
Since Women's Rights is in many ways an umbrella issue, WomenMatter will highlight related updates from other Life Issue areas here:
I Wanna Play: Women and Men Are Left Out Of Sports
On Friday, July 11, 2003, feminists and women athletes breathed a collective sigh of relief. Simultaneously, men in collegiate wrestling, swimming and tennis took in a sharp breath that they are still holding. Why? Because the Bush administration decided to do nothing.
No change
Back in February 2003, The President’s Commission on Opportunity in Athletics recommended relaxed enforcement of Title IX, but Bush has decided not to relax anything. Under pressure from women’s groups, Bush will continue the somewhat-rigorous enforcement of Title IX brought on by the Carter and Clinton administrations.
What is Title IX?
Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs. The 1972 law is most visible against the backdrop of high school and college sports. Although the law is not specific to sports, it has found its home there, and both proponents and opponents of Title IX use sports examples to make their points.
Major impact on sports
The Commission on Opportunity in Athletics reviewed Title IX because of complaints of discrimination against male athletes. Many men’s wrestling, swimming and tennis teams have been cut and some claim that Title IX is to blame.
Schools may choose how they wish to apply Title IX, so some schools cut men’s teams instead of adding women’s teams. The participants, coaches and supporters of those teams are angry, and are convinced that if Title IX were enforced differently, fewer men’s teams would be cut.
Add don’t cut
In a recent letter sent to high schools and colleges, Gerald A. Reynolds, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, made it clear that schools do not have to cut teams in order to comply with Title IX. They can also add women’s teams or expand women’s rosters. Reynolds discouraged schools from cutting teams and reminded them that quotas are not required.
Schools often choose to cut men’s wrestling, swimming and tennis because these teams do not generate revenue for the school. Schools invest in the most popular (and therefore most lucrative) sports. Therefore, it could be said that men’s football is as serious a threat to men’s wrestling as is women’s basketball.
In many schools, women’s basketball exists because of Title IX. If the law were not there, the team would not be there. Proponents of Title IX claim that the law has increased women’s participation in sports by 400% at the college level and 800% at the high school level. Despite these statistics, many people believe that women are less interested in sports than men, so there should be fewer women’s teams than men’s teams.
Nature versus nurture
The debate over Title IX can be traced back to beliefs about what is “natural"
to men and women. Many believe that nature dictates men’s greater interest in sports. Others believe that nature has nothing to do with it; they claim that society has established sports as a men’s activity and that schools’ emphasis on men’s teams reinforces the relationship between male gender and sports.
Title IX insists that women have the same chance as men to participate in sports. Individual schools may decide to decrease men’s participation instead of increasing women’s participation. This maneuver illustrates the rigid reluctance to women’s participation in sports.
Uneven support of sports
Many schools say that they would like to create new women’s teams, but claim that they don’t have the resources. So, instead of re-allocating football money to women’s lacrosse, they cut men’s swimming to bring down the number of male students participating in sports. Feminists and male wrestling coaches would agree that that isn’t the proper approach.
Perhaps Bush should have his Commission on Opportunity in Athletics investigate the uneven distribution of funds within male sports. Why are wrestlers being denied their opportunities to compete while football players are given fancy cars?
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Article Posted on: 7/16/2003
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