- Home
- Women's Issues
- Women In Sports See Progress and Possibility in 2010
Women In Sports See Progress and Possibility in 2010
- By Nancy D. O'Reilly
- Published 4 February 2010
- Women's Issues
- Unrated
I love smart amazing women, women who do not their age define them under any circumstance. And I love women who love sports like I do. Some women think we have it made and all the hard work is done. Others of us know we are still climbing that mountain and that we need women in more decision-making roles, in management roles, and making sure "equal" really means equal. You all do it for yourselves but also for those who are watching and ready to follow and who are coming right up behind you.
We understand that winning in sports is not only a momentary rush of accomplishment. More importantly it involves a race toward combating social stereotyping and reaching goals of gender equality for all women. Women athletes are working hard to change cultural norms. We know that advancement in sports can be a springboard for further advancement in our society as a whole, and helps create equal status in the working world.
Like many girls, I was a tomboy. For me, this meant growing up not happy about being a girl. I didn't like dolls or staying clean or being quiet. I wanted to shout and jump and run free as a child and sports gave me that opportunity. I was the girl next door, not for a kiss but to play ball. They wanted me on the kickball team or the baseball team and I was a great cave digger, too! I loved it and felt bliss when I was smack in the middle of it all.
My older sister, Stephany, was not a tomboy. In fact she was often upset with my behavior. She would say, "Nancy, when are you ever going to be a girl?" I remember thinking, Huh? What did she mean, "Be a girl?" I was a girl, so what's the big deal?"
My encyclopedia says a tomboy is a girl who exhibits some characteristics of the gender role of a boy. These include:
1. The wearing of typically masculine-oriented types of clothing.
2. The practice of games and activities (often physical in nature) that are typically in the domain of boys.
3. Heterosexuality, the preference to befriend boys versus other girls.
If wearing pants, playing sports and being friends with boys define being a tomboy, there are a lot of us out there! Sometimes in our impatience we forget how far we've come, so let's take a quick look back at our progress.
In the early 1960s, sports opportunities for women were minimal. I participated in JFK's Get Physically Fit program and received a badge, which I was proud of. Later I went to a girls' school and played a lot of sports, basketball, hockey, volleyball and tennis. We had to do the Army exercises each week in PE class. I became a darn good pool player, too, and beat a lot of the townies, as we called the local boys.
Looking at a list of legendary women athletes that includes the likes of Babe Didrikson, Anne Donovan, Cheryl Miller, Swin Cash, Ruth Riley, and Candace Parker, it's astounding to learn that women were regarded as too fragile to handle the stress of competition. For most of history some people actually that physical exertion would damage a woman's reproductive organs. So running was off limits.
In 1892, female students at Smith College, in Massachusetts, wanted to play that new game that had been invented just the year before: basketball. The girls' gymnastics instructor, Senda Berenson Abbott, adapted the rules for the women. The rules protected their delicate constitutions, by requiring them to stay within one of the court's three sections, and forbidding them from snatching the ball. Nor could they dribble more than three times. The two-handed throw was declared a foul because it caused the shoulders to move forward and flattened the chest. Ac
tually, with their corsets and long gowns, moving around on the court probably was a pretty risky activity.
Just four years later, the first divided skirts, "bloomers," were introduced as novel athletic wear for women. It's worth noting that divided skirts, which is really all pants are, were first invented by ancient women in the Far East. Men had never worn them until Persian traders brought the idea back to the west. But I digress.
As late as 1971, women were still not considered strong enough to play full court. In the 1950s and '60s we played with two stationary guards, two stationary forwards and two "rovers." I was a rover, and I loved to run up and down the court. Guess I was strong enough, wasn't I? And actually my reproductive parts did not appear to be harmed by the activity. In fact, I married young, and three daughters later, I finally sent my husband to visit his doc, or we would have grown our own female basketball team.
The Olympics, too, were off limits for most of history.
* In 1896, at the first Olympic Games held in the modern era, no women competed. Too "unfeminine."
* The early 1900s views had changed somewhat and 11 women competed in the Olympics.
* In 2004, 44 percent of the Olympians were women.
* The US Open tennis competition has offered equal prize money to men and women winners for 30 years, and was joined by Australia in 2000 and France in 2005. Billie Jean King is jumping for joy.
But it's not over. This year Scotland's 250-year-old Royal and Ancient Golf Club fought hard against admitting women, showing that golf is still a four-letter word.
What helped to change some of the views and actions?
Affirmative action, quotas and tokenism represent the good, the bad, and the ugly. In 1964, Kennedy signed a proclamation that leveled the playing field: all Americans, including minorities, should have equal opportunity in education and employment. Title IX applied that principle to women's sports and added some teeth in 1972. Any school that receives federal funds must treat women equally in the allocation of funds for teams, recruitment, scholarships and media coverage.
Myths and Facts of Title IX
Myth: Title IX requires quotas.
Fact: Funding must be proportionate to participation at college.
Myth: Title IX requires cutting men's programs.
Fact: The US General Accounting Office reported in 2001 that although more women's teams than men's have been added every year, many men's teams are still being added to compensate for the programs that have been dropped.
Myth: Women are less interested in sports than men.
Fact: Before Title IX 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. Athletic scholarships for women 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.
Myth: Women are no longer the victims of discrimination in sports.
Fact: A recent report stated that although women in Division I colleges made up 53% of the student body, they received only 41% of the opportunities to play sports, 36% of overall athletic operating budgets, and 32% of the dollars spent to recruit new athletes.
Have we come a long way in the past 100 years? Obviously. Our daughters can barely comprehend the barriers that existed in our youth. Do we have a long way to go to full equality? Absolutely.
Let's raise a toast to the pioneers who have fought so hard to level the playing field for women. But most important of all, let's get out there on the field and play!
We understand that winning in sports is not only a momentary rush of accomplishment. More importantly it involves a race toward combating social stereotyping and reaching goals of gender equality for all women. Women athletes are working hard to change cultural norms. We know that advancement in sports can be a springboard for further advancement in our society as a whole, and helps create equal status in the working world.
Like many girls, I was a tomboy. For me, this meant growing up not happy about being a girl. I didn't like dolls or staying clean or being quiet. I wanted to shout and jump and run free as a child and sports gave me that opportunity. I was the girl next door, not for a kiss but to play ball. They wanted me on the kickball team or the baseball team and I was a great cave digger, too! I loved it and felt bliss when I was smack in the middle of it all.
My older sister, Stephany, was not a tomboy. In fact she was often upset with my behavior. She would say, "Nancy, when are you ever going to be a girl?" I remember thinking, Huh? What did she mean, "Be a girl?" I was a girl, so what's the big deal?"
My encyclopedia says a tomboy is a girl who exhibits some characteristics of the gender role of a boy. These include:
1. The wearing of typically masculine-oriented types of clothing.
2. The practice of games and activities (often physical in nature) that are typically in the domain of boys.
3. Heterosexuality, the preference to befriend boys versus other girls.
If wearing pants, playing sports and being friends with boys define being a tomboy, there are a lot of us out there! Sometimes in our impatience we forget how far we've come, so let's take a quick look back at our progress.
In the early 1960s, sports opportunities for women were minimal. I participated in JFK's Get Physically Fit program and received a badge, which I was proud of. Later I went to a girls' school and played a lot of sports, basketball, hockey, volleyball and tennis. We had to do the Army exercises each week in PE class. I became a darn good pool player, too, and beat a lot of the townies, as we called the local boys.
Looking at a list of legendary women athletes that includes the likes of Babe Didrikson, Anne Donovan, Cheryl Miller, Swin Cash, Ruth Riley, and Candace Parker, it's astounding to learn that women were regarded as too fragile to handle the stress of competition. For most of history some people actually that physical exertion would damage a woman's reproductive organs. So running was off limits.
In 1892, female students at Smith College, in Massachusetts, wanted to play that new game that had been invented just the year before: basketball. The girls' gymnastics instructor, Senda Berenson Abbott, adapted the rules for the women. The rules protected their delicate constitutions, by requiring them to stay within one of the court's three sections, and forbidding them from snatching the ball. Nor could they dribble more than three times. The two-handed throw was declared a foul because it caused the shoulders to move forward and flattened the chest. Ac
Just four years later, the first divided skirts, "bloomers," were introduced as novel athletic wear for women. It's worth noting that divided skirts, which is really all pants are, were first invented by ancient women in the Far East. Men had never worn them until Persian traders brought the idea back to the west. But I digress.
As late as 1971, women were still not considered strong enough to play full court. In the 1950s and '60s we played with two stationary guards, two stationary forwards and two "rovers." I was a rover, and I loved to run up and down the court. Guess I was strong enough, wasn't I? And actually my reproductive parts did not appear to be harmed by the activity. In fact, I married young, and three daughters later, I finally sent my husband to visit his doc, or we would have grown our own female basketball team.
The Olympics, too, were off limits for most of history.
* In 1896, at the first Olympic Games held in the modern era, no women competed. Too "unfeminine."
* The early 1900s views had changed somewhat and 11 women competed in the Olympics.
* In 2004, 44 percent of the Olympians were women.
* The US Open tennis competition has offered equal prize money to men and women winners for 30 years, and was joined by Australia in 2000 and France in 2005. Billie Jean King is jumping for joy.
But it's not over. This year Scotland's 250-year-old Royal and Ancient Golf Club fought hard against admitting women, showing that golf is still a four-letter word.
What helped to change some of the views and actions?
Affirmative action, quotas and tokenism represent the good, the bad, and the ugly. In 1964, Kennedy signed a proclamation that leveled the playing field: all Americans, including minorities, should have equal opportunity in education and employment. Title IX applied that principle to women's sports and added some teeth in 1972. Any school that receives federal funds must treat women equally in the allocation of funds for teams, recruitment, scholarships and media coverage.
Myths and Facts of Title IX
Myth: Title IX requires quotas.
Fact: Funding must be proportionate to participation at college.
Myth: Title IX requires cutting men's programs.
Fact: The US General Accounting Office reported in 2001 that although more women's teams than men's have been added every year, many men's teams are still being added to compensate for the programs that have been dropped.
Myth: Women are less interested in sports than men.
Fact: Before Title IX 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. Athletic scholarships for women 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.
Myth: Women are no longer the victims of discrimination in sports.
Fact: A recent report stated that although women in Division I colleges made up 53% of the student body, they received only 41% of the opportunities to play sports, 36% of overall athletic operating budgets, and 32% of the dollars spent to recruit new athletes.
Have we come a long way in the past 100 years? Obviously. Our daughters can barely comprehend the barriers that existed in our youth. Do we have a long way to go to full equality? Absolutely.
Let's raise a toast to the pioneers who have fought so hard to level the playing field for women. But most important of all, let's get out there on the field and play!
Nancy D. O'Reilly
Nancy D. O'Reilly, PsyD, is a sportswoman and clinical psychologist who founded WomenSpeak.com, based on a decade of research about women's issues and concerns. A member of the American Psychological Association, she wrote "Timeless Women Speak" to focus on ways to increase self esteem, fulfillment, and health at every age, now downloadable by age-specific chapters.
View all articles by Nancy D. O'Reilly