Gender and Education Extension off of Luke's blog

In an article i found online it stated that Title IX "forbids sex discrimination in all university student services and academic programs including, but not limited to, admissions, financial aid, academic advising, housing, athletics, recreational services, college residential life programs, health services, counseling and psychological services, Registrar's office, classroom assignments, grading and discipline." After reading Luke's blog about Title IX in sports i can't help but to agree and disagree. I agree with him when he talked about how most of the articles talked about women and they should talk about both. That's totally understandable their should be information about both men and women. 

However being a female athlete for most of my life in middle school, high school, and now here at RIC i feel that i have a much different outlook on the subject. Even though they say that men's and women's sport are equal in reality for the most part they really aren't. For instance take a look at the NCAA college basketball tournament going on for men and women right now. I bet you that you see how many people are watching the men and how many people are watching the women, that three times more people are watching the mens games. It's just the way things are. Take the WNBA vs. the NBA. There's no comparison. You usually can't find a standard channel that even broadcast WNBA games. 

Personally I'm not shocked that most of the articles are about women because that's where there is the most inequality going on. For the most part men's sports are pretty well taken care of. If we are talking about college's most colleges have most of the typical men's sports. I'm not saying that there are never any problems for men in sports equality but for the most part they don't suffer as much as women. I do believe that for the most part college's try to equal out the women's and men's sports so that they each have the same number of sports. however men are always favored more. for instance take the basketball teams here at RIC for example. Women's sports in general, not even talking about RIC, don't get as much respect as the men's teams. At RIC i bet that if you count how many students went to a RIc Women's basketball game vs. how many people went to a Men's basketball game the numbers are not even close. For the men the stands were packed, whereas for the women not so much. But we were a good team. we had a good record. why didn't more people come? i don't know why. i don't think women's sports are taken as seriously as men's sports are. but that doesn't seem fair at all, but that's the way it is. 

Back to Luke's Blog i had a similar story to his volleyball story. Just like Luke's high school my high school only had a women's volleyball team. it was a year after i graduated that there was a boy who came over from brazil who really wanted to play. however unlike Luke's school they let him play. He was required to wear the appropriate volleyball uniform and he would be allowed to play with one restriction. this restriction was that he could only play the back row. Luke talked about how this was because men could jump higher and hit the ball harder so they didn't want to create such a big advantage. he also stated that the kid would never be able to play to his full potential. im not arguing this however i do not believe that this is a case of title IX. i think it's more of a safety issue if anything. i mean if a girl gets hit at the speed of one of the mens hit she could get really hurt. some may argue that it doesn't matter just playing you can get hurt but i believe that the way men tend to hit the ball they have a lot more force behind it and could possible hurt one of the female players. anyway the kid at my school played the whole year in the back row and the team did get. they loved him and he loved being a part of the team. 

however even though i disagree with Luke about the volleyball story i have to agree with him about the football story. If that is really the case that is unfair that just because she was a girl she got to play. She should have to earn her spot just like everyone else. there shouldn't be any favoring just because she is a girl. that's not right. That is a perfect example of Title IX.

Now i agree with Luke about the football story however i personally haven't seen anything like that in favor of women before. at my high school it was clear that the men's sports teams were favored. They were the ones always getting the new nicer equipment. there locker rooms were redone every year. also at the time for basketball players there was this rule that every player on the floor had to wear a mouth guard. now neither the men or womens team wore them. but of course the only ones who got called out on it were the women. the men never got in trouble. they always had a nicer bus and all that sort of stuff. i think just being an athlete i have seen this stuff more. i don't think that it's right. i believe that they really do try to change it to make it more equal and not exclude women or favor them but i think men will always be a little more favored than women's sports. however in the last couple of years "The enactment of Title IX has helped increase participation opportunities for girls and women in sports. Female high school athletic participation has increased by 904% and female collegiate athletic participation has increased by 456%."

lastly to touch on Luke's last point about the PC baseball team. In now way am i saying it was right for them to just cut a program like that, but it is unfair that they had more men's programs than women's, and also the women's hockey team there has been very successful. however it doesn't make what they did right. 

I believe women are being treated better due to the fact of Title IX but is it equal? will it ever be equal? one video i saw said that people like to use the fact that there is a "lesser number of female athletes playing sport than men so why should they have the equal amount of sports". Which if you were watching you would agree with, however the guy talking then says that these statistics won't change unless they start making women's contact football team, because there are some many male football players on one team and to think about how many football teams there are you can't go by the numbers. it would still be unfair. there needs to be the equality in number of sports offered for both men and women.

There was a really good article about TItle XI which explained it well :http://www2.ucsc.edu/title9-sh/titleix.htm.