Title IX

I think that Title IX is a really tricky concept that is hard to please everyone with. It is hard to make everything fair to the extent that everyone is actually satisfied with the outcome. Men don't think it is fair when their sports are cut to add a woman's sport, but it isn't fair for women when there are far more opportunities for men to compete in sport. In the Messner article it talks about boys and girls competing equally alongside each other in youth sport. Both boys and girls are able to participate in the sports they like and even in some circumstances be part of a coed team. They are taught at a young age that when there is one sport for a boy, they should expect there to be the same sport for the girls. Even though when they get older they may not be playing together anymore, they still see that there are equal opportunities for them to be in what they like. But once you get into high school and then even more so into college, you start to see some sports diminish because of schools trying to stay in compliance with Title IX. In high school there are obviously the sports that are just for men (football, wrestling) and sports for women (volleyball), but then as you enter college there is a drastic change. Take the U of I for instance. We offer women’s soccer, rowing, and field hockey, but not for men. These are sports that also can be played by men, but because of the other sports like football and wrestling, the school has to make up for the women’s side. Though I completely agree with the fact that men and women should have equal opportunity in sport, I think that we get a mixed signal from growing up to when we enter college. A lot of things change and we are given a lot narrower of a window to do the things we like.