Does Title IX cover all aspects of gender equality?

Does Title IX cover all aspects of gender equality? Many who hear this question would answer yes because it has been proven that Title IX has greatly enhanced equal opportunity for men and women in school and sports. However, looking at recent news articles there is one aspect, which Title IX does not help enhance gender equality. It has been 40 years since Title IX was first implemented, and there has been a large growth of women participating in sport. However, at the recent 2012 Sports and Entertainment Law Conference held at the University of Oregon, it was found that gender equality has not reached the television market.

Allan Brettman, a journalist for The Oregonian newspaper, covered the Conference and wrote an article based on the conference’s main discussion. Peg Brand, an academic professor at the university asked the question, “What percentage of TV sports coverage is devoted to women’s athletics?” (Brettman, 2012). No one in the audience stated the correct answer. In 1989 the answer was 5% and rose as high as 8.7% in 1999, but in 2009 the number dropped to 1.6%.  Brand stated that the fall of TV coverage could have happened because ESPN executives are “too old school” to start broadcasting women’s sports more often. However, Brand believes that the numbers are low because woman’s sports do not generate as much revenue as men’s sports. She found this to be true even if a women’s program is more popular than the men’s, for example the University of Portland women’s soccer team won the NCAA Championship in 2002 and 2005 and has generated more revenue than the men’s program. Another speaker as the audience if they watched this summer’s Women’s World Cup of soccer and nearly every hand was raised in the building.

There are many questions that this article brings to light on the subject; does Title IX cover all aspects of gender equality? One questions is, why has the percentage of women’s TV coverage in sports decreased drastically over the past 10 years? Another questions to ask is would viewers begin to watch more women’s sports if coverage was increased? The last question that could be asked is, if the Women’s World Cup was one of the largest events viewed over the past year, is women’s TV coverage on the rise again? 

The Oregonian

Can women play men's sports?

Can women play men’s sports? This is the question people should bring up when we hear of stories about girls wanting to play boys sports because can girls physically maintain playing contact men’s sports. I would agree women should be separate from men’s sports such as, football, basketball and soccer, which men seem to be faster and stronger than females. But when women want to play sports such as baseball, tennis, and golf, women should have the right to attempt to play on the same field with men because the gap between talent and gender isn’t far off, at least on the high school level.

In 2009, the New York Times wrote a story about a female athlete who growing up played baseball rather than softball and played at a level for her dad to decide to give her a chance at a high school where they would allow girls to play baseball (Hyman, 2009). This story is one example of how if a female is brought up in a boys sport they do have a chance to compete against the boys. There comes a price for these girls who want to play in a sport like baseball instead of softball. These girls will likely not have any way of challenging for a college athletic scholarship because most likely University baseball teams will not even look the way of the girl playing baseball whether she has the ability to play or not because the upside of a male player will be higher than that of a female player.

Some questions or scenarios to consider when commenting on this blog are; if you were a coach of a college baseball team would you consider giving her a scholarship? Another thought to think about is looking down the road in sports is it possible to think about more and more women participating in boys sports such as baseball, tennis and golf. 

New York Times Article

Introduction

This is the first introduction blog. The group members for this Blog are: Dane Windisch, Allison Schiffer, and Trevor Selby.

My sport background consisted of only a couple organized sports in high school and those were football and basketball. Growing up in middle school and junior high I had a passion for soccer but when it came to junior high my home school didn't have a soccer team so I had to switch to football. I have a wide variety of interests when it comes to sports, I tend to watch any sports when they're on television and I'm athletic enough to play a wide range of sports.

The male and female athletes I chose to watch were primarily based on the excitement factor they have when they are performing their respective sport. The male athlete I chose was professional boxer Floyd Mayweather. I'm a fan of boxing but more than that I'm a fan of how boxing is promoted and there's no better promoter of fights then Floyd Mayweather. He hypes up the fights he's in so much it's hard not to want to watch him perform the night of his fight and when he is fighting he shows he'll go down as one of the best boxers of all time. The female athlete I decided to pick was tough because I don't watch a lot of women's sports on TV. But whenever professional tennis player Serena Williams is on I usually watch and am interested in how she does so for that reason I picked her. Williams is also one of the top women's tennis players of all-time so it's always an added bonus when she's on TV.

I believe this course will be challenging but easy enough to learn the material. When I first learned about taking this course I felt that there will be plenty of discussions and debates about different gender issues in the media especially. There isn't that many concerns I have about taking this course is the possibility of a heated debate with an individual or another gender about an issue that is split between the class which could result in people clashing.