What specific policies or attitudes made Title IX necessary?

<p>I watched the HS volleyball playoffs last night. The young women on both teams displayed tremendous athleticism, endurance, determination and focus. It’s sad to think that if they had grown up “back in the day”, their experience would have been limited to gym class.</p>

<p>What were the specific attitudes that made Title IX necessary? Did school districts…</p>

<p>…think girls didn’t *want *to play sports?
…think girls couldn’t compete at a high level?
…know that girls wanted to compete but made a conscious decision to spend their limited resources on boys?
…not think about it at all and just maintainted the status quo?</p>

<p>I don’t really want to start a sports gender equality argument here. I am just wondering, historically, why there weren’t women’s sports in most public schools until the government mandated gender equity.</p>

<p>For some people it was all of those you listed and for some people it was certain specific issues.
Title IX was great legislation. And yes I know about wrestling. I wrestled in HS and my brother wrestled in HS and college and coached wrestling for years.</p>

<p>Girls were raised to be the audience for boys. The supporters, the nurturers, the listeners.
Hard to think out of the box to imagine that they might be something else.
For some people it is still that way.</p>

<p>At least for this subject the “Title IX” information on wikipedia seems accurate and fairly complete. </p>

<p>Seems the short answer is probably sports were not really a major motivation for Title IX. It is interesting to recall the attempted (John) Tower amendment to exclude revenue producing college sports programs.</p>

<p>You do realize that Title IX covers all sex discrimination in educational programs and activities? Athletics is only one small part of Title IX coverage. For a description see this: [Title</a> IX and Sex Discrimination](<a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/tix_dis.html]Title”>Title IX and Sex Discrimination).</p>

<p>As to why it was necessary in athletics, see below:</p>

<p>From a discussion by OCR in 1979 when issuing their Title IX Athletics Policy Interpretation, which is the basic enforcement guidance. This has been re-interpreted, but nor re-written, depending which party is in power. [Title</a> IX 1979 Policy Interpretation on Intercollegiate Athletics](<a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/t9interp.html]Title”>Title IX 1979 Policy Interpretation on Intercollegiate Athletics)</p>

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<p>Also see this from OCR’s 1997 archived pamphlet on the 25th anniversary of Title IX. [Archived:</a> Achieving Success Under Title IX (continued)](<a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/TitleIX/part5.html#scholarships]Archived:”>http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/TitleIX/part5.html#scholarships)</p>

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<p>Here is another take on the issues and events concerning sports and Title IX</p>

<p>[A</a> History of Women in Sport Prior to Title IX | The Sport Journal](<a href=“http://thesportjournal.org/article/history-women-sport-prior-title-ix]A”>http://thesportjournal.org/article/history-women-sport-prior-title-ix)</p>

<p>For a bigger-picture perspective, I recommend “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present” by Gail Collins. </p>

<p>From Amazon:<br>

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<p>Also see the testimony in 1995 of former Assistant Secretary for OCR Norman Cantu: [Untitled</a> Document](<a href=“http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/ge/canttestRE.html]Untitled”>Untitled Document).</p>

<p>I started high school in 1963. My recollection is that a large part of why there were no girls sports was that it was thought to be unhealthy for girls and young women to exert themselves to the level required by competitive sports, particularly as it might affect future child bearing ability. Rosy the Riveter in WWII not withstanding, women were just thought to be too frail. It also just wasn’t lady-like. Archaic yes, but that’s the way it was, June Cleaver was the ideal woman until the mid-60s. It was still the time when women largely got married and stayed home while men worked.</p>

<p>Iowa and a few other states had a long history of 6 on 6 girl’s basketball. 3 offensive players and 3 defensive players who couldn’t cross mid-court to lessen the exertion.</p>

<p>When I was a kid in Iowa, the rural school districts all had girls athletic programs, and the big city school school districts all had girls athletic programs, but the districts that fell between didn’t. The Iowa girls basketball finals was the second most important athletic event in the state, only dwarfed by the annual Drake University relays. I grew up hearing about all of this on the news, and reading all about it in the Des Moines Register, and wondering why on earth a smaller city like mine didn’t have girls sports other than tennis (and that was just because of the rich kids who had learned at the country club).</p>

<p>My high school did not field a single girls team (other than tennis) until my senior year, after Title IX had passed.</p>

<p>Just some back-in-the-day observations. My younger brothers both played soccer for the “Myhometown Boys Club,” which has since been renamed the “Myhometown Youth Club.” There was no club soccer for girls. And this was in a thriving DC suburb.</p>

<p>My mother was incredulous when she first walked through the high school we all went to. The boys gym had a nice wood floor. The girls gym was much smaller and had a linoleum tile floor. She could not conceive of having different quality facilities for boys and girls, but then she grew up in Sweden.</p>

<p>(And to the Iowa folks–we all played six-girl basketball back then.)</p>

<p>The reason for Title IX was simply to get rid of the lingering effects of ‘traditional’ attitudes where girls were supposed to prepare themselves for a life as housewife and mother and this was prevalent long after women started entering the work force and such. The natural assumption was that sports were a ‘boys’ thing and also that resources be put into boys/mens sports because they were going to be the providers (it is not surprising that there is a faction within the so called “conservative” community that want to abolish Title IX because it ‘hurts men’s sports and hurts traditional values’ <em>gag</em>). It is funny, I have heard complaining and moaning that Title IX meant that men’s ‘lesser’ sports programs were cut or reduced to make way for the expansion of women’s programs, but the groaners don’t seem to contemplate that denying girls/women access to sports programs was just as unfair. I think a line from the movie “A League of Their Own” sums it up, when Jimmie Dugan, managing an all women’s pro baseball team, says “women don’t belong in baseball, women are for being with the night after a game, not playing it” (I changed the language a bit)…</p>

<p>Thanks for the history lesson, everyone!</p>

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<p>Same here. I think tennis came the year before Title IX went into effect.</p>

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<p>I have read that, but do you think anyone really believed it? Pretty much “forever,” women have been working at very physically taxing jobs - cotton fields, rice paddies, etc etc, - often in extreme conditions, and bearing children at the same time (often on the same day!) Did people whose grandmothers may have basically walked from Kentucky to California really think that women all the sudden became delicate?</p>

<p>My MIL had girls’ sports at her tiny rural HS - it was through the “Girls’ Athletic Auxiliary”. She was even on a traveling women’s baseball team (she says like* A League of Their Own*, only they didn’t get paid.) Do you think it was because they were farm girls who worked alongside their dads and brothers, so everyone knew that they weren’t delicate little things?</p>

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<p>These were the ‘modern’ 50s and 60s for the middle class and up. ‘Modern’ like women being knocked out for childbirth, waking up and the doc saying here’s your baby. That was the ‘modern’ way. My MIL, now near end of life and having a great deal of pain, was recently asked by her younger doctor how her pain compared to childbirth. She replied she didn’t remember childbirth. The doc took it to mean it was so long ago and she had blocked it out. No, she really didn’t remember it, having been knocked out. ‘Modern’ like formula is much healthier for babies than mother’s milk. While many women were and are still doing the things you mention, it was deemed obviously better not to if you had the choice. It was progress. Yes, I believe people really believed it.</p>

<p>I agree that women are hardly delicate lil’ thangs. If men has to give birth, we would probably still be in the days of giving morphine for delivery! ( jk- but I bet birthing stories would be a much larger part of general conversation):wink: Genetically women are stronger- more males are conceived, more females reach the age of one year.</p>

<p>Some men like to put women on a pedestal, for whatever reason- power most likely, and it was more common than not back in the day.
They don’t want to be reminded that women sweat, that they are as competitive as a man, as smart and as persistent.
Much better to keep them to their own domestic purview, where they aren’t a threat.</p>

<p>But times changed in some ways & for some people, thank goodness, women are athletes, politicians , CEOs & judges, which leaves room for men to be stay at home dads, nurses and kindergarten teachers.
A few religions have even also expanded the roles of women to include ordination, although in others women claim " they aren’t interested in that". I remember being quite surprised when my LDS nephew was christened/baptized and my sister just watched from the pews.
Segregation by sex just rubs me the wrong way.
We’ve come a long way from first grade classrooms like my own where teachers told little girls who said they wanted to be doctors, that they could be " nurses or secretaries".
Although from a schoolwork sheet that a friends daughter received, telling her to assign activities to boys/ girls/ both, some of us apparently didnt get the memo.
How can you assign cooking to girls and not to both? What about soccer? Taking care of children? Being a pilot? :confused:</p>

<p>I have a friend that played a D1 sport in the late 70’s/early 80’s. She did get a scholarship but before Title IX they used hand me down equipment from the men’s team and didn’t have a locker room.</p>

<p>I went to an all-girls high school (where we all played sports) and then went to a mostly-men college (MIT, when the ratio was 8-to-1). I was honestly shocked to discover that people thought women couldn’t do things. That said, when Title IX passed and I got to get the same coaching the men did in my sport (swimming), I was happily stunned to discover that having a real coach and a real trainer was a real pleasure.</p>

<p>Why was Title IX necessary? Because people were realizing that women weren’t frail or stupid. You could also blame it on the ready availability of birth control, which meant that women could count on not having children unless they chose to. There’s a liberating concept.</p>

<p>Women were thought to be, what… too weak? too frail to compete at a high level? Does it blow your mind that long after Title IX in the U.S. women competed in their first Olympic marathon… in 1984! I still remember watching Joan Benoit run by at around mile 18… all by herself… she had a huge lead at that point. It was amazing. :D</p>

<p>My wife ran against Benoit in college- sort of. Benoit was allowed to enter the race for training purposes but was not an official competitor. My wife “won” the race. She says it was the most hollow victory she ever had since Benoit was 200 yards ahead of her.</p>

<p>I was the first girl in my high school to play on a guy’s team :slight_smile: the next year there were 2 and then 3 and then a girl’s team and Title IX. And in some ways I think Title IX was a good thing, but I personally think Title IX has been stretched about as far as it can. I think they could have tied it to revenue in terms of the definition of “equal” since sometimes it feels 'tit for tat" to use an old expression, but perhaps that was just too bold in the 1970s and it took time to get where we are today.</p>