Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 3:03PM | Amy C Happy National Girls & Women in Sports Day!
Title IX turns 40 today. For those of you unaware, Title IX of the Education Amendments to the 1964 Civil Rights Act which was signed into law on June 23, 1972 by President Richard Nixon, declares that:
women in sports
- In 1971, 294,015 high school girls took part in interscholastic sports. By 2008, that figure would balloon to 3,057,266.
- In 1971, there were 29,972 women NCAA athletes. By 2005, there were 166,728.
- In 1971, one out of 27 school-age girls played sports. In 2000, that ratio was one in three.
We’ve come a long way (there’s still a long way to go), but today, let’s celebrate shall we?
Today, get outside. Go play. Teach a young girl. Or your mom. Feel your body move and appreciate it for what it can do and how it makes you feel good and powerful and confident.
If you’re interested in some of the health and behavioral benefits of physical activity and participation opportunities for women in sport, check these out (source: aauw.org).
- Girls who participate in some kind of sport experience higher than average levels of self-esteem and lower levels of depression.
- Sports participation is associated with reduced rates of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders.
- Athletic participation can teach valuable life skills such as collaboration, dedication and perseverance.
- Female athletes have better grades and higher graduation rates that non-athlete females.
- Teenage female athletes are more likely to have positive body images than female non-athletes.
what title ix means to me
mountain biking | Hurricane, UTOn a personal level, I know Title IX has made a positive impact on my life.
There’s a universal phenomenon that happens when you see someone that looks like you doing something you didn't think was possible for you: it becomes possible.
For me, that something was seeing women in sport. I didn't grow up an athlete. I dabbled in sports here and there, but I was convinced I wasn’t cut out for field hockey or lacrosse (even though I envied the girls that played). I hated running and was quite happy focusing on singing and playing the violin.
But it was my choice. And as I watched the girls play from the sidelines as I walked home from school, it never occurred to me that girls couldn’t—or shouldn’t—play.
I talked with my mom this morning about her experiences in the 50s and for her, sports “just wasn’t something we did,” she told me. We being girls.
It didn’t cross her, or her friends, minds to feel one way or another about it. Girls were expected to wear dresses and be ladylike. There was no opportunity to choose. No organized teams to inspire or offer the possibility that she could join in and participate. And as she put it, “if you’re wearing a dress, you can’t go charging down the monkey bars or think about hitting a ball.”
running | Manitou Springs, COMaybe that’s just my mom’s thinking, but I don’t believe so. Lynne (the late-blooming athlete that climbed Kilimanjaro at 63) believed that to be feminine meant you had to be “meek, docile, pretty and slim.”
There was no room for sport or athleticism. I’ve heard women tell stories of when being athletic was “too masculine” and frowned upon. That women were considered too weak and fragile to put that kind of demand on the body.
I am so grateful for Title IX and the opportunities and sense of possibility it gives not only me, but generations of girls behind me.
And, actually, generations of women ahead of me, too. Late-bloomers are more and more prevalent as more women learn that what they were taught growing up pre-Title IX was completely untrue.
Our bodies are physical and are designed to move. When we get to know our bodies and learn how physical movement can empower and instill a sense of confidence and peace with ourselves, we take that power into the rest of our lives—our careers, relationships, families and passions.
I didn’t get into sports until my mid-twenties, but once I felt the power my body contained, my life transformed in every area.
So thank you, Title IX. And thank you to all the women who fought for the legislation, the women who continue to fight for our equality, and to all the women out there proving that athletics and sport make a hugely positive impact on all of us.
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