The majority of sports fans can tell you who won the
national championship for both football and basketball last year, Alabama and
Kentucky. Naturally with that being said if someone were to ask you the
question, who won the basketball national championship last year? Your
immediate thought is most likely the men’s national championship. This is
because men’s college basketball gets way more coverage than women’s, just as
it does for the majority of all male and female sports at the college level.
However, female sports have made great strides within college athletics and it
is nothing short of spectacular what has been done in such little time.
Unfortunately, title IX, the main rule that has led to these advances and
prevented sexual discrimination is now the cause of it.
For as long as I can remember there has always been the
debate and cultural issues of the lack of equality in sport. Men receive way
more advantages, opportunities, coverage and everything else than women do.
This is because culturally many sports are seen as masculine and women do not
belong. This cultural norm is very outdated and unjust, which is why equal
opportunity should be granted. This is exactly what Title IX has been
successfully doing since its enactment in 1972. Title IX is a law that forces
all federally funded colleges to provide equal opportunity to both male and
female athletes based upon their ratio of enrollment as undergraduates. Equal
opportunity consists of participation as well as benefits, facilities,
scholarships, etc. Overall this has been extremely effective and truly given
women way more of an opportunity in the world of college athletics. According
to the national coalition for Girls and Women in Education, there are
approximately 163,255 more female college athletes than in 1972 and the
difference between the number of male and female athletes has gone from 140,407
down to 63,112. Now obviously this is not a perfectly even ratio but the
differences that have been made are substantial. Because of Title IX there are
now hundreds to thousands of stories of girls who may not have even been able
to attend college due to the expenses, but were offered scholarships and help
because of Title IX and their sports. This is how it should be, if you are
skilled in a sport and have the ability to compete at the upper level you
should be given the opportunity being male or female.
With all this being said, Title IX is definitely not perfect
and is at the point where it needs reforming. The current problem is that now
the males have become the subject of sexual discrimination within college
athletic programs. This is because in order to meet the quotas required by
Title IX, according to college sports scholarships, many schools are just
cutting back men’s programs rather than expanding women’s. Often times numerous
males are turned away from JV teams because the corresponding women’s program
has just enough to fill the varsity. Also, the main problem here is the
popularity of women’s sport as a whole. I am all for males and females having
equal opportunity but the issue is the cost compared to the revenue of men’s
versus women’s sport. As a current college student at a Big Ten university
there is numerous male and female college sports here on campus. I personally
however have only been to one women’s sporting event compared to the dozens of
male sporting events I have attended and I can confidently say this ratio is
consistent with the majority of my friends and peers here on this campus. This
is because culturally women’s sports are not followed or given nearly as much
attention as male sports. Therefore, as a college student I completely
understand why they would rather cut back a male program, rather then add
another female program that is most likely just going to cost them money. What really needs to be addressed is the
problem with football and the Title IX rules. Football is a huge revenue
generator for most college athletic programs, however, its problem is that the
number of male athletes is huge and there is no counter female football team to
equal the numbers. This forces college athletic programs to add numerous other
female sports to equal out the numbers from football and often times cut other
male programs. Which is why football should not be factored into the Title IX
equation.
Overall, the number of opportunities for females at the
college level has increased substantially over the past 40 years. Unfortunately,
the main problem they still have is the coverage they receive as well as their
popularity. Until this changes culturally and women sports can start to bring
in more revenue, the less popular male sports are going to pay the price. Which
is why the current rules of Title IX need to be reformed. It has accomplished
huge amounts for women in college sports thus far and that will not change, but
it currently is detrimental to college athletics.
Note: The references came from
-
The National Coalition for Women and Girl in
Education
-
College Sports Scholarhips
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