The Pros And Cons Of Title IX

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” is what Title IX says as part of the Education Amendments. Passed by the US Congress in June and signed into law on July 1, 1972, it’s most notable for advancing equity in girls and women’s sports. It was only after Title IX was passed the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and other high school administrators thought boys’ sports would suffer if girls’ sports were to be funded equally. The real battle began under presidents Reagan and Bush, when enforcement of Title IX came to a halt. In the court case Grove City v. Bell, the Supreme Court ruled that Title IX did not cover all educations institutions, only programs who were directly receiving federal funds. This meant other programs, like athletics, not being funded by federal funds, could be free to discriminate on the basis of gender. Since then there have been numerous cases in the 90s that deal with collegiate level sports and the amount of money in the women’s athletics
As Susan Griffin wrote the article Rape: The All-American Crime, “ […] in our culture male eroticism is wedded to power. No only should a man be taller and stronger than a female in the perfect love match, but he must also demonstrate superior strength in gestures of dominance which are perceived as amorous.” (Griffin 515) A deep societal desire to be superior can be seen even more in sports, where male superiority is expected, and men who aren’t “beating” their female counterparts feel embarrassed and emasculated. I have personally known men who will lift more weight than they actually can if they feel the weight a woman is lifting is close to