equity vs equality under Title IX

While we have discussed women in sports a few times in class, even addressing Title IX and the expansion of women’s participation in athletics, this negative trend of the prevalence of women coaches was not something I came across. This reiterated how there are often many ways a law affects the people, oftentimes beyond the original scope. Without consciously looking at the law's full impact, the disproportionate number of female coaches is overshadowed by the celebration of women having access to playing sports at all. 

When Title IX passed in 1972 prohibiting sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs like sports, opportunities for female athletes greatly increased in educational institutions, paving the way for many advancements in women's sports. However, becuase Title IX only discussed participation and not coaching requirements, within the very first year that institutions had to comply with Title IX, the number of collegiate women's teams headed by women dropped from the high of 90% to 58.2% and further lowered in the 80s to the current around 40%. Title IX technically opened more job opportunities in women's sports, and “From then on, men and women … had to receive equal treatment on the playing field and equal funding for their athletic programs.” The largest athletic funding gap exists in Division I sports, where athletic departments spend twice as much money to fund men's programs as they do women's programs, and discrepancies of the law's execution extend further due to lack of consideration for additional aspects of an issue.

This also points to the importance of equity and not just equality - without working to simultaneously target the system in place that supported a lack of female sports in general, as they could presumably extend this lack of regard to representation of women in sports in general through what they can control - hiring coaches. While more teams were created that would, at the time, be more likely to be coached by women, men ended up benefitting and were extensively hired to coach female sports. Women’s teams were thrust into male-dominated collegiate pools, and without consideration of societal factors and the business systems already established in sports and schools, the professionalization of women's teams pushed them into the structure already established that continues to not seek to benefit them beyond what was explicitly demanded. 

The disregard for equity in this issue further hinders access for women; I learned that with the passage of Title IX, programs that previously were offered to target and attract women to STEM fields (as women are typically underrepresented in these high-paying fields like engineering and computer science) are regarded the same as a college offering sports only for men (this being programs or awards only for women). This is a skewed perspective, as men are already the majority in sports, whereas that is not the case for women in STEM. Even further, leadership programs for women and women-only gym hours are targeted by Title IX's blatant statement against using gender as a factor for opportunities.

It is interesting that in these cases, Title IX is being exerted to attack women, but other aspects of the law, like equal financial support for women and men's opportunities, are not successfully established. The double standards for women coaches and players alike that we discussed with Ms Barcomb are deeply ingrained, proven, and upheld by many instances in our own community and beyond. Ms. Barcomb talked about how parents and faculty are increasingly judgemental toward female coaches and unreasonably lenient and justifying of male coaches' behavior. This prejudice extends to the players themselves, where women are judged on much more than just their athletic ability, whereas men can be whomever off the field as their actions on it are seen as much more important. 

Furthermore, we talked about how people hire people that look like them. This must be consciously worked against through people purposely looking to hire those who are not represented in their faculty already. This makes me think of the idea of identity blindness, which is detrimental as this mentality cuts out consideration of differences that inherently affect the way people are treated and have opportunities in society. Some use the argument of blindness to lack of diversity in hiring under the guise of apparently being fairer. As Ms. Barcomb mentioned, the woman who was recently hired as the Girls' basketball coach was the only woman who applied, and it took quite a while to find her. If a man was hired first because those were the options available, without considering further aspects affecting the team and overall school environment, a blind hiring decision would work against the clear benefits of having women in coaching positions.

Female coaches are not only important for women's teams but critical in fostering a fair and equitable team mentality and are many times more impressive and successful than their male coaching counterparts. It was interesting that in one video, they said it is important for men to see and work with alpha women on the athletic college level as they will have to do so in the workforce in the future. It is important that girls and boys are exposed to all different types of people in positions of power as they grow up, promoting equality and combating stereotypes, and while I don’t think it should take until college for teenagers to work with a dominant woman in a power, I suppose it's better late than never. Still, women currently coach under 3% of men's collegiate sports. As women present in coaching positions continues to trend downward, it is important to advocate for the importance of seeing women’s representation in leadership positions from a young age and committing to calling out, and when possible correcting, stereotypes and unequal treatment of those who do, and don't, look like you in society.