Opportunity Cuts and Re-adds

As I was reading the Title IX Blog titled “Cal Berkeley Could Restore Women's Teams”, a lot of questions came to my mind about the intentions of organizations, such as those at Berkeley, that are in charge of cutting and adding program opportunities for women and men. When I read that the University was considering re-adding five teams that were cut last year, it made me question their true reasons for considering doing this. In the reading ,“Olympic Women” from our book, “Women and Sports in the United States”, it discusses women’s progressiveness from the start of the Olympic games to modern day. It talks about how in the first Olympic games of 1896, that women were completely out of the picture and excluded from the games. As time went on, women were slowly added to the program and as the years progressed more women were allowed to compete in more of a variety of sports at the Olympics. But what were the IOC’s intentions in allowing women into the games? Was it done because they, themselves truly agreed that women should have just as much of a right as men to compete in these games? Or, was it done to make them look good and to make everyone happy? This is a question that, to me, pertains to many situations in today’s society, aside from the Olympics. In the blog about the situation at Berkeley, it stated that one of the reasons for the consideration of reinstating some of the teams that were previously cut, came from pledges of financial support. Shouldn’t the reason for these teams being re-added come from people’s moral thoughts and beliefs that they should be instead of done for financial reasons? Another issue at University of California-Berkeley comes from the matter of them cutting the gymnastics and lacrosse programs. It states in this blog that Berkeley would have to cut 30 more men’s opportunities than women’s, in order to achieve proportionality at their school. If there is such a drastic difference in the number of women’s vs. men’s opportunities, then why go and cut two more women’s sports and make that gap even larger? As a woman, I think it would be great if we lived in a society where women were given as many opportunities as men. But, I think it would be even greater if the reason this was achieved, was because everyone truly believed that women should have these rights, and not just done for reasons such as looking good to the media, financial support, and more.