Title IX--Scapegoat?

Prior to our Women in Sport class I’m ashamed to admit that I knew very little about Title IX. Most of what I knew came from the narrow-minded ramblings of my high school peers, most of which was very negative in nature. Needless to say this class opened my eyes. So much so that when a student in another class had the balls to claim that Long Beach not having a football team was because of Title IX, I had the research to back up my disgust. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my textbook with me or I would’ve been more than happy to show him the article by Sarah Fields (“A Brief Legal History of Women in Sport”) that points out that the law itself does not require a cut in men’s sports in order to satisfy the growth of women’s sports. Title IX should not be used as a scapegoat, and it has gone a long way towards leveling the playing field for men and women in sport. I only wish that more people would realize this.

I believe that the internet has the potential for bringing around social change for women in sport, primarily because of the easy access to relevant information--much of which can be empowering. While researching the topic of female athletes in the media, I was surprised by the amount of information that came out against the idea of portraying female athletes as sexual beings. Indeed, it was very difficult for me to find educated information (meaning articles backed up with relevant research) that came out for the sexualization of these women. Even more surprising, a Google search of female athletes was more empowering than the slew of ad-heavy magazines--targeted at females--such as ‘Oxygen’ that still have the tendency to focus on the sexuality of their women rather than their athletic ability. A large part of the empowerment of the internet is due to the presence of blogs such as this one, which have become so prevalent in today’s web. The web allows for the easy access to information that people may not have had access to beforehand, much of which can be empowering.

Amelia D. T/Th 2-3:15 338i