Women Are The Big Story In Sports Today.

By Karen and Erica

Many of us Lustre Ladies remember when, over fifty years ago, Title IX became law. Many of us were by then at least in our twenties, and although we had been required in high school to participate in the Presidential Fitness Test, for most of us sports never became a big part of college or career lives.

We grew up at a time when few women visualized a sports career, perhaps partly because we intuited that at least commercially successful sports were designed by and for men (which would not make sports unique). Those sports culturally excluded women, in part because they had been invented to build manly qualities.

Look no further than our nation’s most popular sport. Gridiron football came to prominence in the late 19th century during what some scholars called a “crisis of masculinity” following the Civil War and associated with the end of the frontier era. One of football’s greatest champions, Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a 1900 essay titled “Boys to Men” that sports “has beyond all question had an excellent effect in increased manliness.”

In 1925 Henry S. Curtis, who helped to bring playgrounds to American cities explained that athletics offered “the most effective method we have of teaching courage, determination, manliness, grit and all those qualities which we speak of as virile.” The sports that dominate US culture today were sports developed by men and for men more than a century ago.

Title IX was enacted in 1972. For women coming after us, Title IX had a profound effect, mandating that resources allocated to women be equal to those for men. This Sports Illustrated article describes the history that stimulated passage of the law, and the path of women’s college sports since its passage:

Though not universal, maybe it’s these shifts in how women are viewed that are the truly celebratory results of Title IX. Women can be record breakers, broadcasters and coaches. Women’s teams can make money. Women deserve respect no matter what they choose to study, teach or play, or whether they’re gay, straight, bi or trans.

Title IX has never been and never will be just about sports. But women’s sports have never been just about sports, either. As anyone who’s played or watched knows—it’s about a whole lot more. 

Much has changed since then, and Title IX’s directives still provoke debate, partly because society’s perceptions of equality, and even of sex, have evolved.

Title IX remains controversial because even as the ideal of equal opportunity and prohibiting sex discrimination are widely accepted as a general matter, what constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex has been fiercely debated. The meaning of “discrimination” and the meaning of “sex” have also become less settled over the decades, particularly as young people on campuses in each generation question what these concepts mean and breathe new and urgent meaning into the promise of Title IX.

We have learned more about the female body than we knew then. We now know that women are not little men—indeed, they are different right down to the molecular level. That has implications for healthcare, of course, but it is also playing out on the sports fields.

Just one example: anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears have devastated female soccer players, and while there are many theories as to why, there is no doubt that women’s bodies accommodate the movements required by sports diffrently from those of men.. Do women have far greater vulnerability to ACL injuries because of menstrual cycles? Is it because of anatomic factors, such as wide hips? Can neuromuscular training help? Do women’s teams need more medical support? Should specific training be mandatory for young soccer players?

Across soccer, pushes have been made to make injury prevention programs accessible. In 2006, FIFA developed the 11-Plus, a set of 15 warmup exercises that has been adapted by teams and federations around the world; the Hospital for Special Surgery developed an app that condenses essential exercises into seven-minute sessions. But implementation remains a challenge, particularly at the youth levels.

One big change that few could have imagined fifty years ago—women’s professional sports are profitable, and will become more so with investment. (One example—Clara Wu Tsai, whose husband owns part of the Brooklyn Nets, co-owns part of the NY Liberty.).

Women athletes have proven time and time again what they’re capable of both on and off the field. It’s well past time the media and major brands start paying attention. Simply put, women’s sports are good business. With proper investment, media buy-in, and quality broadcast, they have the ability to be incredibly profitable.

We have surely made progress since 1972, but sex and equality remain complicated—in sports and everywhere else. (We were excited when Kim Ng became the first MLB general manager. She just quit. We will be curious about the backstory.) Women and men were never going to compete as identical twins, but it should be the case that they compete, consistent with their different bodies, and with equal resources.

To end with a comment from a New York Times sports columnist:

The decks remain stacked in favor of guys, but women continue their fight. When it comes to the games we play and love to watch, that’s the biggest story in sports right now.

We agree!