Gold-medal-winning tennis player Lindsay Davenport said, “These Olympics, probably more than any before, are showing a lot of little girls it’s okay to sweat, it’s okay to play hard, it’s okay to be an athlete.”
Swimmer Amy Van Dyken said after winning four gold medals, “Growing up, we didn’t have as many role models as the boys did. Girls need to understand it’s cool to be athletic.” It’s definitely cool to be athletic. Role models surely make life easier.
Yet American women did not achieve their unprecedented success in the 1996 Olympics because little girls had big girls to look up to. They were successful because of Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in high school and college. They were successful because after athletic directors dragged their feet about enforcing the law for the first decade—and after the Supreme Court weakened the law with the Grove City decision in 1984—feminist activists lobbied Congress to pass the 1988 Civil Rights Restoration Act (opposed by the NCAA, and enacted over President Reagan’s veto), which clarified that Title IX applies to athletic programs. American Olympians were successful because, twenty-four years after the passage of Title IX, schools and universities were finally giving women a chance to compete.
Discrimination remains the norm: men receive two-thirds of all athletic scholarships; male coaches are paid more than women for coaching women’s teams; men coach more than half of all women’s teams, while women coach fewer than one percent of men’s teams. But in response to frequent lawsuits, high schools and universities are gradually (albeit begrudgingly) coming into compliance with the law.
Michelle and my other high school players had never heard of Title IX. When I talk to college students, few know who Billie Jean King was. Young women today have little sense of their own history or their legal rights. Many still believe the myth that football “makes money for the school.” (In fact, 80 percent of football programs lose money.) Or, that women “deserve” fewer opportunities because their sports are rarely revenue-producing. (In fact, courts have consistently ruled that financial considerations are irrelevant in Title IX cases.) Or, that women just aren’t as interested as men are in receiving $100,000 athletic scholarships. (Yeah, right).
