ne served to view women as morally superior but physically inferior to men, a distinction that would pervade society for more than 150 years and significantly reduce the participation by women in sports.
During the Progressive Era upper-class women began to influence participation by women in sports, by belonging to social clubs, country clubs, and sport-specific clubs. The entrance of more women to colleges also increased female participation in sports. By 1900, the first women were competing in the Olympics but their involvement was limited to sports that were considered those that did not defeminize them. As Pfister explains in her history of women and the Olympic Games, ôWomen were not allowed to compete in those sports that involved physical exertion, physical strength or bodily contact. The femininity of women was to be safeguarded as far as possibleö (5). By the 1960s the participation by women in sports was significantly influenced by the womenÆs movement. Such social movements helped increase opportunities for women and resulted in the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. This federal law applied to educational institutions receiving federal funding. It states that:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance (Lopiano 1174).
The media is another social institution that has greatly impacted women participation in sports. The sports industry and the media developed simultaneously in the U.S. As more and more females participated in sports, they were necessarily incorporated into an already established model of sports based on males and perpetuated by the media. However, women were faced with a dilemma because they not only had to work within the established male model of sports, but according t...