Breaking the gender barrier in athletics: 35 years of Title IX at Her Active Life

Click here for the Lead Stories

Breaking the gender barrier in athletics: 35 years of Title IX

Posted July 5, 2007 at 01:30 PM by Bridget Sullivan

Section: Her Fitness, Athletics, Her Health, Her Motivation, Her News, Special Features

title-ix Active.com has put together a wonderful page devoted to celebrating 35 years of Title IX. Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is the landmark legislation that bans sex discrimination in schools, whether it be in academics or athletics. Although athletics has created the most controversy regarding Title IX, its gains in education and academics are notable. Before Title IX, many schools refused to admit women or enforced strict limits.

The following articles take a closer look at Title IX and the breaking down of gender barriers in athletics.

A Look Back at Title IX with Joan Benoit Samuelson By Skip Cleaver
Joan Benoit Samuelson is one of the all-time greatest distance runners in the world. Best known for her Olympic gold medal in the Women’s Marathon in 1984--the first women’s Olympic Marathon--she also set world and American records. She won the Boston Marathon twice, setting course records both times along with a world best in 1983. Tremendously personable, she remains one of the most popular and highly recognized distance athletes in the world.

Benoit Samuelson began running in 1972 as part of her rehabilitation after suffering a bad fall while skiing and breaking her leg. She found she loved it and became exceptionally good at it. She was passionate about athletics throughout high school, and had many pickup opportunities to play sports along with her three brothers. However, there were few organized sports available to girls in the schools of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, as with most schools throughout the country. Interscholastic running was not among them. Continue reading at Active.com.

Billie Jean King: Using sports for social change By Luke Smith

She won 39 Grand Slam tennis titles, including a record 20 titles at Wimbledon, but Billie Jean King may be better known for her landmark victory over Bobby Riggs in 1973’s “Battle of the Sexes” match. The event had great symbolic value, coming just over a year after Congress achieved a landmark of its own: passage of the “Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972” legislation, or what is commonly known today as “Title Nine.”

King, whose entire career has been focused on her stated goal—“I wanted to use sports for social change”—is uniquely qualified to comment on Title IX, and not just because of her win over the self-proclaimed “male chauvinist pig” Riggs. Continue reading at Active.com.

No easy formula By Martin Dugard
Mary Harney is not a poster child for Title IX, the groundbreaking legislation that changed the face of women’s sports 35 years ago this month. The Massachusetts high school teacher and one-time NCAA softball player has never attended the Olympic Games, let alone been a member of an Olympic squad. She has never competed at the professional level, and she certainly lacks the newfound notoriety Amanda Beard is enjoying for cashing in after a lifetime of athletics.

But Harney never wanted those things. All she wanted was to play the game. For her, that is enough. Title IX gave her the chance. Continue reading at Active.com.

Another side of the story: Title IX reveals funding cuts for men’s sport clubs By Adam Loberstein

While Title IX revolutionized women’s sports, a level playing field is a far cry from where athletics equality lies today. Although funding and the level of competition in women’s athletics are at an all-time high, there is another side to the story.

By shifting the vantage point from the astonishing success stories of the intercollegiate women’s athletics program to a focus on the status of men’s sport clubs, the end product can sometimes be far from what meets the eye on the surface.

By looking into men’s sports clubs such as volleyball, crew and lacrosse—each of which has a university-sponsored ICA women’s counterpart—a new perspective of funding cuts and competitive gaps is unveiled. Continue reading at Active.com.

Photo: www.shegotgame.com