BRIDGING THE GENDER GAP – POSITIVE AFFECTS OF TITLE IX:

Since Title IX’s inception in 1972 women and girls have made great strides in obtaining gender equity not only in the classroom but also on the playing field.  Equal opportunity is very important to our nation and the opportunity to compete is very valuable. 

 Sports provide a wonderful foundation for the rest of our lives.  Benefits of playing sports include gaining leadership skills, higher academic performance, increased self esteem, increased health, and a more responsible social behavior that all stem from participating in sports.  Despite the great strides there is still much to be done before Title IX’s goals are achieved (Vanderslice and Litsch 1998)

Title IX is providing more opportunities for women.  When Title IX was signed in 1972 women earned just 7% of all law degrees.  By 1997 that number had risen to 44%.  As Title IX allowed more women to afford to attend University through academic and athletic scholarships, 41% of women earned medical degrees where before women only earned 9% of all medical degrees in 1972. Before Title IX’s inception only 1 in 27 girls played varsity sports, today that figure is 1 in 2.5.  There are now a total of 2.8 million girls playing high school sports with the hopes of obtaining a scholarship to University.  Before Title IX there were only 32,000 women competing at the intercollegiate level, now there are 150,000 competing women.  In addition athletic scholarships were virtually non-existent prior to Title IX, now there are over 10,000 athletic scholarships awarded to women to compete at the collegiate level each year. (Carpenter and Acosta 1992).

Today, despite theses advances, there is still a gender discrimination that still limits sporting opportunities for women at the intercollegiate level.  Despite Title IX’s success in opening doors to women and girls, the playing field is far from level for them. For example, although women in Division I colleges are 53% of the student body, they receive only 41% of the opportunities to play sports, 36% of overall athletic operating budgets, and 32% of the dollars spent to recruit new athletes.