Excelling in Sports & Women

Excelling in sports has long been seen as a male prerogative, and in this area women remain far behind because of the structure of both amateur and professional sports in America. Newspaper coverage shows a prejudice for male teams over female teams, and many Americans may have only a vague idea of the extent of women's sports. The 1994 women's tournament of basketball was cited recently as a milestone for sexual equality in spite of the fact that it was largely ignored by the press:

Even so the 1994 women's tournament (which the University of North Carolina won in the final second of the final game on April 3rd) has been a milestone for sexual equality. For the first time, 64 women's teamsthe same number as there were for the menwere granted tournament berths. Full equality in college sports has not yet arrived in the United States but it is coming closer, thanks to a dogged legal campaign by sportswomen angered by fewer choices and smaller budgets ("Sports Lib" 98).

One reason for this has been legal action, since Congress in 1972 passed a measure called "Title IX" as part of a legislative package that prohibited sexual discrimination in federallyfunded college programs. Still, full equality has proven elusive.

Institutions of higher education are obligated by law and by ideas of fairness to provide equal educational opportunity for both men and women, and meeting these legal and philosophical obligations in intercollegiate athletics requires a distribution of

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woman because it left her free to find private funds to carry out her wish, though lack of private funds was the precise reason for the woman's application for government aid (Kirk, Yudof and Franks 109). In a second case, the Court refused to overturn a Congressional amendment to Medicaid legislation withholding funding not merely for elective abortions but for those held to be medically necessary as well. Abortion has been found to be a constitutionally protected right, but it is also one that can be limited in various ways. Merchant relates the issues facing women to economics and discusses some of the history of women to show how women's economic roles have much to do with the way society treats them in terms of issues such as abortion. She is in effect comparing women's productive roles with women's reproductive roles. Woman is often equated with nature, and the fact that male-dominated society has undertaken a long-term program of dominion over nature has been accompanied by dominion over woman. Merchant cites Sir Francis Bacon to the effect that nature is a woman to be exploited, a concept that is part and parcel with the new emphasis on science (Merchant 87-96). Merchant's conception can be applied to the debate

Category: Psychology - E