Title IX: Women and Athletics

National Girls and Women in Sports Day is an annual event that celebrates the participation, success, and accomplishments of women athletes. Up until today, I had no idea that this day even existed until I read Erin Whiteside’s article, Changing the Title IX Narrative: A Prescription for Change, and I decided to Google for more information. When I found out that the event began in1987, my jaw dropped. I was completely surprised that the event was going on for 25 years and I haven’t heard anything about it. This event not only celebrates women athletes, but it encourages people to keeping pushing for the benefits that Title IX offers.

As Whiteside states in her article, “We need to support equality efforts, while advocating for new frames in sports.” This quote means that the harder we try to make a change for women in sports, the better the outcome. I like this quote because it shows that even though sport for women is slowly progressing, one day there will be a big change. Though Whiteside states that advocacy for equality is good, it may not be enough of a change that women advocates want. We need to push through the barriers of masculinity and sports to show that women are just as capable of playing sports as men are.

When I read the blog, I thought about Babe Didrikson, one of the greatest athletes that ever lived and how she had to overcome obstacles just to do what she loved. The World-Beating Viking Girl of Texas reading shows how Babe had confidence to break records and win championships in strenuous sports that women weren’t allowed to participate in. I then thought about how Whiteside said that we need to focus on athleticism instead of femininity and made a connection to Babe. What would have happened if Babe would have focused on being a woman, like the press suggested, instead of an athlete? Although Babe did have domestic skills, like sewing, she was still a competitive and driven person who wanted to win. Without her courage and record breaking results, the world of sports would not have been the same.

I also thought about the reading All American Girls Professional Baseball League Rules of Conduct and about how the rules make the women more feminine rather than ball players. An example of this is the movie A League of Their Own. The women are shown the uniforms they have to wear and are told that either they wear the uniform or don’t play. By making them wear the girly uniforms, the owners are putting feminism above baseball because they believe that sport isn’t for women.

Another point by Whiteside that I liked is when she said that if we notice women in authority positions, that it will deconstruct the notion that sports are just for men. This statement is very true because big changes are coming for women in the world of sports. Before, it was crazy if a woman participated in sports and today we have homosexual players given the opportunity to play. I truly believe that in a couple of years we will come full circle and sports won’t just be a male activity but a male-female activity.