Inkwell: Authors and Artists

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I have  aquestion. My mother-in-law used to be a women's PE teacher at a
university and for a while ran the athletic department. She was involved
wiht Titke IX when it started. I was trying to decide whether she would like
your book or find it aggravating (or both). I know that before Title IX she
took all the women's field hockey uniforms home and washed them herself.)
Have you gotten any particular reacions from people who were involved in
women's collegiate sports back in the 60s and 70s?
(I may get it for her as a gift anyway.)
  

    
<<Plus, we've really got to look at Title IX. We're heading into BCS
football season. How does this system -- with the millions of dollars
flowing to participants and the ad hoc manner in which teams are
selected to play -- how does this fall under Title IX? How does
lopsided promotion of male so-called revenue-producing sports (they
may bring in cash, but most lose money because they spend more than
they make) fit in with Title IX?>> 


As a whole, college football and, to a lesser extent, men's college
basketball are irrefutably huge "business" and the place where many
universities gain enormous, if not the most, exposure for their
institutions.  University presidents are hired foremost for their
fundraising acumen and connections, and most cozy up to those big
money donors who give because of an enthusiasm for men's football or
basketball. When you suggest that "most" men's football programs lose
money, does this assertion factor into it the fundraising benefits
accrued, or the potential that if the team does go to a bowl, the
program may be very profitable that year? 

I've always been under the impression that, in most institutions, the
revenues from these two sports subsidize the entire athletic
departments. If so, then the implication of using Title IX and
across-the-board equality between the genders to make all sports equal
would, in the American system as it exists, kill this golden goose. 
Without such revenues, then athletic departments will be at the mercy
of discretionary funding out of a school's highly competitive
operating budget.  All sports programs, male/female/co-ed would, in
most cases, suffer.  

There is a purist argument that having institutions of higher learning
involved in the crass big business of such money-making pursuits runs
counter to the goals of academia.  This, however, is a different
argument than one that insists on equality of the sexes in sports.  

Title IX was enacted to create parity between male and
female sports programs.  Specifically, if a college or high school
is to offer men's wrestling, then a woman's sport had to be offered,
as well.  Title IX was never intended to undermine the "profitable"
aspects of collegiate sports, and, as you point out, this legislation
helped make advances, but did not change many core societal attitudes
towards males and females in sports.  
 
The BCS system, though flawed, is most certainly not "ad hoc."  This
gets back to the inherent INEQUALITY in sports as determined on an
EQUAL playing field. No Div I football team with a sub .500 season is
ever allowed to play in a bowl. Without a football playoff system there
will always be fine-tuned arguments as to which are the two best teams
to play in the national championship.  However, even Notre Dame, with
its 3-9 record this season, enormous following, profitability, and an
independent TV contract, cannot leverage its way into the BCS or any
bowl. The BCS system has its flaws, but is largely fair, and has
nothing to do with gender inequality, except that it is a component of
MEN's Div I, college football.    

You make many very strong points about how girls and boys are treated
differently from a young age, and how opportunities in sports still
differ unfairly.  This, to me, is where your arguments and activism
are much better focused than by attacking the "marketplace" of big
money sports.   
  
Where your argument can exact the most realistic change for good is by
continuing to insist that girls have more
as-equal-as-possible-opportunities to experience the social and
personal benefits of the athletic experience.  Such experiences often
benefit participant athletes, male and female, in a lifelong array of
activities.  

The vast majority of athletes who directly benefit from sports
participation are not at an elite level, so why attack this elite realm
that is so oddly influenced by market phenomena?  Likewise, using
competitive sports to change the existing competitiveness of our
society is inherently problematic. 

However, when you look at sports as an equal opportunity experience
for the positive development of BOTH boys and our girls who must live
in an inherently competitive society, then I believe the positive
aspect of your message will continue to prevail.
  

    
Wow -- Lots here!!

Steve, thanks for the posting. Individuals may have different
preferences for co-ed play in different sports (or, if we're honest)
with different individuals. I play co-ed tennis and love the tone of
that play, UNLESS I get paired with this one guys who is just a jerk to
play with. I like good competition and when I play with women who are
excellent -- that's great too -- but HATE the culture of "Ladies
Tennis." That's not the sport, that's not abilities, it's the culture
that's grown up around the sports.

This gets to Marty's question about his mom's involvement in
collegiate sports in the 1960s and 1970s -- Good for her!! The women
who staked out that ground did it at a time when female athletes had
their femininity questioned, when their very participation was mediated
so they would appear socially acceptable and not deviant (eg sports
for women were about obtaining and improving social skills and health;
sports for men were about competing and being star athletes).

I credit the pioneers who pushed ahead in this system & understand how
some today cannot imagine mixed sex play. The female sports were
"pure" the male sports tainted by competition. Some aspects of the
values embedded in women's sports of that era should be given space in
today's more competitive (even cut throat) landscape.

Still -- I don't think telling women that the messages women got about
their femininity, the need to check aggression, keep "star" players
from getting too much attention did women any good.


Lastly -- Thanks, Scott for your post. You bring up many things, among
them the fairness of the BCS system, which is a debate in and of
itself.

Obviously colleges value the exposure football brings them. A mention
on Sports Center is considered almost priceless. That's why lower and
middle tier schools have been moving up from Division II to Division I.
Middle Tennessee State, for example, wanted the exposure that Division
I brought -- even though the school's average attendance for 2000-2004
was 13,000 -- below the 17,000 required to be in the division. Why?
The president said: "Athletics really is the front porch of he
university. It's not something I'm particularly happy about, but it's
the reality."

If we decide that athletics do, can, and should occupy this role then
we should
consider what the implications are for gender equity. (THe NFL should
not use colleges as a farm team; neither should the NBA.) Right now
things have just slowly veered down this road without a recognition of
what this means -- both to men's non-revenue producing sports and for
women's athletics.

 I would argue that cable and internet coverage of all college sports
has offered a window into the possibility that other sports could be
revenue producing (IF they are supported, marketed and promoted that
way). Women's softball playoffs -- and of course women's b-ball -- are
building a greater and greater following.

Football garners the most attention and investment in infrastructure
(new stadiums, sometimes paid for privately, but sometimes the focus of
fundraising efforts or budgetary allotments) -- but the programs are
not cash cows. As John R. Thelin (Games Colleges Play: Scandal and
Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics) points out about half the athletic
programs in the College Football Association show an annual deficit.
Other figures show that only about 100 football programs in the country
make money. When you pay your coach several million dollars, that's a
big dent on the bottom line of a university.

I love football (I mean really, really love it), BUT it's like the
wild west. Remember: These are public and private institutions which
receive federal funds (and other governmental benefits like tax
relief). Why should Americans subsidize a system that allows,
encourages, and institutionalizes gender inequality?
  

    
As the bowl games heat up, there's much college football on which the fan
may feast. And here in the Inkwell, we've turned the "Featured" light to a
newly started conversation.

This one remains open, and everyone is welcome to continue the discussion,
but we wanted to break in for a moment to thank Laura and Eileen for joining
us on the Well. It's gone so quickly! Thanks, too, to Janet for her role.
  

    
Thanks Bruce, Janet -- and all those who posted. This is a terrific
forum and was great for me to hear about the concerns, experiences,
observations and insights of all those who took time to check in and
share. Sports can -- and should -- be a tool for gender equality.
  

    
>Sports can -- and should -- be a tool for gender equality.<

This appears to require the equal use of steriods if current
"excellence" in sports is any indication.  
  

    
Today's Denver Post had a front-page takeout on girl wrestlers. Wrestling 
is a big high school sport in Colorado, and it's a sport in which a lot of 
the arguments against female participation are irrelevant -- a 140-pound 
girl can wrestle against a 140-pound person of either gender.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7789118

I did notice that the wrestler boy who loses to the wrestler girl in the 
lede is NOT identified, which I think buys into the premise that (as the 
story says) "if you lose to a girl, your life is over."
  

    
"a 140-pound girl can wrestle against a 140-pound person of either
gender"

I would disagree.  Body composition is different, even when they are
both in top shape.  The boy, will, on average, be stronger.
  

    
I would suggest that a girl who chooses to wrestle is not likely to be
considered 'average' and that while I'm not a wrestler, I assume it's
more than just a matter of strength.
  

    
"The boy, will, on average, be stronger."

And in a match, "on average" may not count for much.
  

    
Over the long haul it would matter, though.
  

    
And the reason they do weight classes is to try to keep physical
characteristics as a factor as close to even as possible.  David gets
Goliath once in awhile but usually he doesn't.  I think that for girls
to wrestle boys they would have to do a trial and error for awhile to
see how weight matches up.
  

    
>Over the long haul it would matter, though.<

To those organizing sports and perhaps to spectators.  This is one of
the examples of values differing substantially at difference scales and
perspectives.  One of the legacies of freedom and individualism is the
idea that the state should be protecting and advancing the rights of
the individual over and against the values of larger systems and
scales. The subject book draws from this, in my mind, recent and
estimable turn in human affairs. 

It is understandable that those responsible for organizing society on
larger scales tend to do so to enhance values at related scales.  I'm
sure that we all can point to many examples where these large scale
values have been pursued at the expense of the individual.

BTW, I understand from some past exposure to amateur wrestling that
brains are a significant factor and that men have wrestled
competitively at advanced ages even as their upper body strength
declined somewhat.  
  

    
The girl who's featured in the Post story is on her way to State if she 
keeps wrestling as well as she has been. JADP.
  

    
Girls play in hockey with the boys up to and through the pee wee and
bantam levels where checking is allowed and it can get quite rough out 
on the ice. The girls in general give as well as they get and it is
usually quite equal as skating skill and size are the determining
factor in checking for the most part. The ability to accelerate into
your target to give a solid check or by speed or speed and direction
change mitigate or avoid a check is the whole game, so the girls really
aren't at a disadvantage unless they let themselves be so; meaning if
they try to avoid contact or act timid they become targets -- as do the
boys should they shy away from the physical aspect of the game.

Girls do have the option of playing in girl leagues which don't have
checking if they wish so it really is an inclusive sport, as players at
any level can find their comfort zone.