2012: The Year of the Women in Athletics

Gender and Sports

2012: The Year of the Women in Athletics

By: Emily Forloines & Alex Wenrich

On November 14th, we began to talk about Gender in sports and about how equitable the opportunities for girls and women were compared to the opportunities given to boys and men in the sports world.

NPR, Time, and CNN hailed 2012 as the year of the women athlete!

This was seen throughout the 2012 Olympics that were held in London when every country that was in attendance were represented by men and women athletes for the time time in Olympic history. And even better news, during the 2012 Olympics, the female athletes brought home more metals than the men athletes. The Olympics also had a new event, women's boxing while women's wrestling finished its third Olympic year as an official sport. Women have made great leaps through the sport industry including new records, higher standards, and bigger rewards. 

Title IX is the reason that women are just getting their athletic breaks now. Title IX is a piece of legislation that states, "No person in the US shall, on the basis of sex: be excluded form participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." Prior to this amendment, women were the under represented and were not able to participate in the sports that were popular. 

Even though schools and universities are now, under federal law, required to provide equality between the majority and the minority are able to participate in the activities they want to, some schools do not follow those requirements. So can one law change the entire spectrum of the sport industry?

According to Coakley's text on page 240, he explains that women have made huge strides in the sport industry with more participation and better opportunities, but you have to be cautious when predicting the future. Coakley goes into saying that even with tremendous progress over the last couple of decades, "past progress does not guarantee continued progress in the future" (Coakley, 240). Even though women and minorities are receiving better opportunities and succeeding in new ways, there is still inequality among the programs that are offered. But will there ever be real equality for men and women in the sport industry?