Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] Getting emotional about Title IX
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View original article here:
http://socialistworker.org/2012/07/10/getting-emotional-about-title-IX
Column: Dave Zirin
======== GETTING EMOTIONAL ABOUT TITLE IX ====================================
The successes of Title IX in mandating equal opportunity for young women in
education and sports reveal the need for further measures to guarantee full
equality.
July 10, 2012
AFTER SERENA Williams won her fifth Wimbledon title in stunning fashion last
weekend, she was asked a familiar question on the tournament's storied Centre
Court. It's a question that seems to be posited to every female athlete at
every level of competition: "Was it difficult for you to control your
emotions?"
It's true that men are sometimes asked the "emotions" question, but this is a
question women athletes are /always/ asked. It speaks to a broader sentiment
that both predates and transcends the playing field: the idea that women are
just too emotional, too hysterical, too mercurial, to be taken seriously in
any walk of life.
This runs so deeply in the marrow of U.S. society, we rarely--unless male
politicians are lobbying for involuntary vaginal ultrasounds [1]--step back
and comment on just how destructive it is. Statistics were released in May
that show the U.S. ranks 78th on earth in female legislative representation
[2]. On questions of pay equity, health care and any semblance of
reproductive freedom, women are in a constant state of insecurity and forced
to live a precarious life.
When Serena had to field the "emotions" question on the highest possible
stage, it was for me a window into why so many women and men celebrated the
recent 40th anniversary of the passage of Title IX.
There is arguably no piece of progressive legislation that's touched more
people's lives than Title IX, which allowed young women equal opportunity in
education and sports. According to the Women's Sports Foundation [3], one in
35 high school girls played sports 40 years ago; one in three do today.
Before Title IX, fewer than 16,000 women participated in college sports;
today, that number exceeds 200,000 [4]. All stereotypes about women being too
"emotional" to handle sports were answered when the gyms were unlocked, and
they arrived in droves.
It is a reform that has improved the quality of life for tens of millions of
women around the country. Yet when it was passed, the critiques from the
world of sports were ample. Sports columnist Furman Bisher of the /Atlanta
Journal-Constitution/ expressed much of the conventional wisdom of the sports
page when he wrote, "What are we after, a race of Amazons? Do you want a
companion or a broad that chews tobacco? What do you want for the darling
daughter, a boudoir or a locker room full of cussing and bruises? A mother
for your grandchildren or a hysterectomy?"
Frightening though it was, Bisher was representing majority opinion in the
United States, but since then, public opinion has shifted dramatically. As
the 40th anniversary passed, polls showed Title IX holding an 80 percent
approval rating [5], fitting for legislation that has touched the lives of so
many.
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BUT IF we all love Title IX so much, why is it so lonely? Given its popular
and unqualified success, shouldn't we have every right to expect legislation
aimed at uprooting sexism in all kinds of institutions beyond the world of
sports? The need for this kind of intervention can be seen most plainly if we
look at the gender politics that surround who is actually coaching these
hundreds of thousands of women now free to play ball.
In 1972, women coached 90 percent of women's college athletic teams. Today,
it's only 42.9 percent. As journalist Megan Greenwell wrote [6]:
>Once universities were required to treat women's sports as serious pursuits
>and fund them accordingly, men started wanting jobs coaching women. And once
>men started wanting jobs coaching women, men started getting a
>disproportionate number of those jobs. It's one of the most obvious, yet
>least talked-about, forms of institutional sexism out there: /Coaching jobs
>are only for women when men don't want them/.
>
I spoke about this to Nancy Hogshead-Makar, the great 1984 Olympic Gold Medal
swimmer. Today, Hogshead-Makar is a law professor as well as the senior
director of advocacy for the Women's Sports Foundation. She said:
>The drop in women in coaching represents the bias against women, the sexism
>in sports. When two candidates are up, a male and a female, there is a bias
>that sports equals male, that the traits sports inculcates are male ones,
>and that the man would be better for the job. I've seen it happen too many
>times...Women in coaching is a little glimpse of what would happen if the
>decision-maker's bias about girls and boys, men and women in sports were
>allowed to go unchecked.
>
The conclusions we can draw from this state of affairs should be "radical
common sense": If we like Title IX, we should also see it as a living
breathing argument for a new Equal Rights Amendment that guarantees pay
equity, health services, and child care subsidies for all women in need. As
Title IX demonstrates, without actual regulation and intervention, the
profound biases in this "Great American Melting Pot" are all just allowed to
simmer in peace. If these biases are ever going to be uprooted and
challenged, we need real civil rights legislation with actual teeth.
As Serena Williams and Title IX show, when the broadest numbers of people
have opportunity for success, we all benefit. But if we are going to win this
kind of equality in sports and all walks of life, we all might just have to
get a little bit emotional.
/First published at TheNation.com [7]/.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Columnist: Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the coauthor, with John Carlos, of /The John Carlos Story/ [8],
and author of /Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love/ [9] and
/A People's History of Sports in the United States/ [10], as well as two
collections of his sports writings, /Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain,
Politics and Promise of Sports/ [11] and /What's My Name, Fool? Sports and
Resistance in the United States/ [12]. He is a columnist for TheNation.com
[13]; his writings are also featured at his Edge of Sports [14] Web site.
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[1] http://www.mediaite.com/online/republican-pa-gov-tom-corbett-on-ultrasound-bill-you-just-have-to-close-your-eyes/
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/30iht-letter30.html
[3] http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/home/advocate/title-ix-and-issues/
[4] http://www.good.is/post/how-title-ix-eliminated-coaching-jobs-for-women-and-how-to-fix-it/
[5] http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/en/sitecore/content/home/she-network/education/wsf-senior-director-of-advocacy-nancy-hogshead-makar-talks-title-ix-on-msnbc.aspx
[6] http://www.good.is/post/how-title-ix-eliminated-coaching-jobs-for-women-and-how-to-fix-it/
[7] http://www.thenation.com/blog/168793/serena-williams-and-getting-emotional-title-ix
[8] http://www.haymarketbooks.org/hc/The-John-Carlos-Story
[9] http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBad-Sports-Owners-Ruining-Games%2Fdp%2F1416554750%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1280122128%26sr%3D8-1&tag=socialistwork-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
[10] http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPeoples-History-Sports-United-States%2Fdp%2F1595581006%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1216142001%26sr%3D8-1&tag=socialistwork-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
[11] http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?products_id=1610
[12] http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?products_id=1612
[13] http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/dave_zirin
[14] http://edgeofsports.com
