Page 5 - Gender Inequality in Sports: From Title IX to World Titles

funded education programs. Even though sports
isn’t mentioned in the law, Title IX was a primary
driver for creating sports opportunities for women,
in both K–12 and college. In 1971, before the law,
women athletes were 7.4 percent of varsity athletes
in high schools. Thirty-five years later, in 2007, they
were 41 percent of high school varsity athletes.
Women’s amateur and professional sports have
also grown, due to Title IX, because of the increase
in female athletes and sports teams for women
and girls. Women’s sports outside of schools isn’t
governed by Title IX, but Title IX legislation caused
many more women to make their sport their career.
Because tennis legend Billie Jean King understood
the impact the law would have on professional
women’s sports, she testified before Congress in
1972, promoting its passage.
Even with Title IX and all the growth in
women’s sports, we still don’t have many women
sports decision makers at the highest levels. The
International Olympic Committee (founded in
1894) hasn’t had a woman leader. Neither has
FIFA (the International Federation of Association
Football, founded in 1904). The latter is the
international governing body for football (called
soccer in the US). Sarah Hirshland became the first
female CEO of the US Olympic and Paralympic
Committee in 2018, forty-six years after Title IX.
Despite the fights for equity and equality over
the last fifty years, men’s sports and male athletes
still have considerable advantages over women’s
sports and female athletes. This book will help you

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