The History Of Females In Sport Began Long Before Title IX, Which Created New Opportunities But Failed To Completely Close The Equality Gap 

By Elizabeth Carey for DyeStat

Girls’ and women’s sports have grown tremendously since Title IX of the Education Amendments passed Congress in June 1972. Many attribute such explosive growth to this legislation, which prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program that receives federal financial aid.

As we approach Title IX’s 50th anniversary, let’s take a closer look at its role in girls’ and women’s athletics.

Even as the anniversary is celebrated, it's fair to ask: Is it doing its intended job?

Title IX was applied to athletics in 1975 at elementary, high school, and collegiate levels. Today, Title IX requires equal porportional participation, scholarships, and a “laundry list” of components — including equipment, scheduling, facilities, and more — when comparing entire girls’ and boys’ and women’s and men’s programs. 

“Most estimates are that 80 to 90 percent of all educational institutions are not in compliance with Title IX as it applies to athletics,” states the Women’s Sports Foundation, founded by tennis star Billie Jean King in 1974. 

Technically, non-compliance means schools lose funding. Technically, every educational institution should have a Title IX compliance coordinator who can oversee and magage complaints. But both enforcement mechanisms are lacking. That’s no surprise, considering decades of political backlash and attempts to de-legitimize the equality-focused law. 

The NCAA, an organization initially formed to oversee men’s collegiate football rules, opposed Title IX in the beginning and sued to have it overturned in 1975. That lawsuit was dismissed in 1978. Eventually, in 1981, the NCAA began hosting Division I women’s national championships for women. They weren’t the first, though.  

To be clear, girls and women have been “sporting” since well before Title IX, all around the world, whether they had permission from rule-makers. 

Running, for one, holds a historically important role in many indigenous cultures, including as part of coming of age ceremonies for women. 

In ancient Greece, girls raced each other in regularly held festivals to honor the goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus, whom boys and men honored with their own athletic competitions. (Of course, according to the Penn Museum, the girls had to be unmarried in order to participate.)

By the time the first modern Olympics in 1896 came about, organizers barred women from competing. But historians reveal that at least one woman raced the then 40-kilometer distance anyway. According to the Penn Museum and other accounts, she finished about 90 minutes after first place, despite stops for water and an orange and lapping the exterior of the stadium she wasn’t allowed to enter. 

Fast forward to the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Team Trials in Atlanta: a 511-strong field qualified to race the full, now 42.2-km, marathon. The monumental race included the future bronze medalist, a high schooler, an openly trans woman, and at least two pregnant runners.

What changed in that century-plus? A lot — including Title IX — as Melody Fairchild and I quickly learned while researching our book, Girls Running (See page 103 for a brief history of women’s running). 

As Victoria Jackson, sports historian and professor at Arizona State University, said in an interview in 2019, historically “It’s not that we had a sex-segregated sport. It’s that sport was for men only. Women started organizing sporting events on their own for themselves…Then the men brought the women in.”

This “parallel history” unfolded in both the Olympic Games and collegiate athletics. 

One exception? Historically Black colleges, some of which fully supported women in sport, and had a scholarship model preceding Title IX. Even though they were not covered or acclaimed equally as white athletes by the media, these Black athletes were wildly successful. See, for example, the Tennessee State Tigerbelles and Wyomia Tyus, the first repeat Olympic champion in the 100 meters. 

In the South, under racist Jim Crow laws, segregated lower-level schools hosted girls’ sports. High school girls’ sports actually began as early as 1905 across the U.S., said Jack Pfeifer, a track and field historian. Most were shut down eventually due to to the prevailing male point of view that sports, and especially competition, was “unladylike.” 

Throughout the 1960s and 70s across the U.S., women ran their own collegiate athletic organizations—including national championships (starting in 1969 for track and field) and even TV deals. The Assonociation for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) fought against an NCAA takeover, and also held national championships in 1982. But the NCAA had taken over by 1983. 

Participation numbers and record books don’t tell the whole picture. (See: Julia Chase, whose road race results weren’t recorded because the AAU prohibited women from racing, and that first modern marathon woman.) However, they do show growth. 

Girls’ high school participation has increased more than 1000 percent since 1972. It has yet to reach boys’ participation levels from 1972, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. 

Girls’ attrition rates increase through secondary school. Girls’ sports dropout rates vary by socioeconomics, with higher attrition of girls of color in urban and rural areas, when compared to white suburban girls. Across the board, boys still get 1.13 million more sport opportunities than girls, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. 

NCAA opportunities have increased, with record numbers of both women and men participating in championship sports. Yet, in 2019, nearly 90 percent of colleges did not offer athletic opportunities to female athletes proportional to their enrollment, according to the US Department of Education. About 100,000 more men than women participate in post-secondary varsity sports, according to the Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Data Analysis. 

What’s more, collegiate funding of sports scholarships, plus recruiting dollars, for women falls behind men’s. Athletically-related student aid is higher for men’s teams than women’s by $392 million.  

Woof. 

The playing field is not equal. And here we’re just talking about sports basics—not sexual assault, abuse, or other egregious issues. Grave inequities persist, despite the letter of the 50-year-old law. Despite work by advocacy groups like the National Women’s Law Center, if we still care about equality in sports, Title IX’s teeth need sharpening. 

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Elizabeth Carey (https://elizabethwcarey.com/) is a writer and running coach based in Seattle, Washington. Her first book, GIRLS RUNNING, co-authored with Melody Fairchild, is available at your local bookstore and here: https://shop.aer.io/GirlsRunning/p/Girls_Running_All_You_Need_to_Strive_Thrive_and_Run_Your_Best/9781948007184-9934.