When then-President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law in 1972, the door seemed to open for women’s sports. Women’s athletic programs began to form at colleges and universities that previously only sponsored men’s sports teams. Women’s college programs gained funding and began playing competitive sports against other women’s college teams.
The federal civil rights law Title IX states: “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 in connection with an educational program or activity receiving federal funding. assistance.”
But in the nearly 50 years since Title IX took effect, women in sports have consistently faced gender inequality. In recent years, the United States women’s national soccer team has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, alleging gender discrimination. And in professional tennis, female players have demanded rewards equal to those given to male players. More recently, college basketball has been the subject of a very public evaluation.
Inequalities in the NCAA tournament
The disparities between the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball programs were highlighted during the 2021 NCAA basketball tournaments. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA followed the model of the NBA consisting of creating a “bubble,” holding the men’s and women’s tournaments each in a single city and assigning players to designated hotels and training facilities. (Discover the history of basketball, from peach hoops in Springfield to a worldwide phenomenon.)
When the teams arrived at the facilities in San Antonio, Texas, where the women’s tournament was held this year, photos on social media immediately caused an uproar. Ali Kershner, a Stanford University strength coach (who would ultimately win the tournament crown) posted a photo on Instagram compare the men’s weight room to the women’s. The men had professional squat racks and plenty of space while the women only had yoga mats and dumbbells.
Sedona Prince, a player on the Oregon Ducks women’s basketball team, also posted a video from the weight room on TikTok, in a message that reached millions of people. Prince turned his camera toward the women’s facility, showing the large amount of empty space where weight racks could have been, and told his followers, “If you’re not upset about this issue, then you be part of it.”
Marissa Banfield, senior guard for the Stephen F. Austin University Lady Jacks, says at first she was excited to play in her first NCAA national tournament, but that changed when the tumult started.
“The next day you see all this on social media, literally the difference,” Banfield says. “And it’s disappointing. It hurts a little bit because both the men’s and women’s teams are working toward the same goal: (winning) a championship or winning that first game.
Banfield added that not only are the weight rooms different, but so are the goody bags each team receives for getting to the state tournament. Social media also released images showing significant disparities between the food provided for the men’s and women’s tournaments. Banfield noted that she and her teammates I didn’t think some of the meals were adequatealthough it is vital for players to be fed for a sporting event like the NCAA national tournament.
“We were getting food that we couldn’t eat and didn’t want to eat,” Banfield says. “We probably didn’t have breakfast for three or four days, and then you see men’s teams eating steak and shrimp and stuff. So it was quite disappointing and confusing. “
But the controversy was not new. Women have been fighting for fairness in sports for years.
A long battle
The disparity between NCAA men’s and women’s basketball facilities was all too familiar to Jasmine Williams, a recent Texas A&M women’s basketball alumna. While she played for the school, the women’s program received no upgrades to its facilities, not even during a season where they reached the “sweet 16” of the tournament. Meanwhile, the men’s basketball team didn’t even make it to the tournament and benefited from recently renovated facilities.
“As soon as the men’s coach was hired, all of a sudden the whole facility got a facelift on the men’s side.” Williams noted. “They got a brand new weight room, they renovated their offices, they renovated their training room, they updated everything.”
Williams added that it was difficult to get a new locker room for the women’s team.
“We had to bring in outside sponsors to get a new locker room,” she said. “Our locker rooms are in the same facilities as the men’s and ours looked like (they’re from) 2002.”
College and professional women’s basketball players have been fighting for equality and respect for years.
In the 1970s, schools were slow to implement the changes required by Title IX. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign did not have a women’s athletics department or competitive sports teams when Title IX was passed – and when it started one in 1974, it did not initially did not award scholarships to female athletes. The following year, Illini female athletes became eligible for a three-year tuition waiver, but were required to hold a higher GPA than male athletes. The school also gave about $80,000 to the women’s athletic department, compared to more than $2 million given to the men’s athletic department.
In 1977, two Illini athletes filed a complaint against the University of Illinois Athletic Association to force respect for gender equity. In 1978, the lawsuit was settled out of court and the women’s athletic department’s budget tripled.
But funding disparities persist into the modern era. Earlier this year, ESPN reported that the NCAA budgeted nearly twice as much for the 2019 men’s basketball tournament as it did for the women’s basketball tournament, a gap of $13.5 million.
Inequalities extend beyond the collegiate ranks. Women’s basketball was not recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a medal event until 1976, 40 years after men’s basketball was recognized in 1936. Meanwhile, WNBA players fought to that the league recognizes their value, both as teams and individual players. since his early years.
The Houston Comets, one of the original WNBA franchises, are a great example of this. The Comets won the league’s first four consecutive championships from 1997 to 2000, immediately creating a dynasty. Yet the team disbanded in 2008 after being sold twice in the space of two years. Other founding teams have also been sold.
Although the WNBA has remained resilient as a league, players have also long had to compensate for their sport’s inequities by playing two seasons. To make ends meet, they would play a season in the United States with their WNBA team and, once that was over, they would play in another country for the rest of the year. (In Cambodia, wheelchair basketball has changed the lives of these women.)
In June 2020, however, major changes came when the WNBA reached a new collective bargaining agreement that amounted to a 53 percent salary increase. The deal increased a player’s base salary to $130,000 and created additional bonuses and prize pools. Top players can now earn more than $500,000 in cash per year, more than triple the previous maximum cash compensation for the league.
While this new deal is nowhere near the NBA’s average of $7 million per player, it is a step in the right direction for women’s soccer and women’s sports in general as they continue to fight for fairness in the half century since Title IX. became a law.
A calculation
Following social media outcry over the weight room at the women’s college basketball tournament, NCAA vice president of women’s basketball Lynn Holzman released a statement explaining that the lack of equipment was due to lack of space inside the NCAA bubble.
“The original plan was to expand the practice area once additional space was available later in the tournament,” Holzman said.
Holzman, who was captain of the Kansas State women’s basketball team in 1994, said in a later interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe that the error was unacceptable. The NCAA “immediately began working to resolve the issue” once it realized the difference in training facilities, she said, ultimately offering players an improved weight room with more equipment in a bigger space.
“We’ve been fighting uphill battles for years, in sports and in many other aspects of our lives,” Holzman told Rowe. “We have to be diligent and we have a responsibility as leaders to ensure that there are equitable opportunities for our student-athletes so that they truly have the best experience possible.” In this year’s case, it was a failure.
