Posted on February 02, 2012 |
Reading over Leila’s blog on her life growing up in sports, I had very mixed feelings. First, I felt anger. Anger that I had missed out. Anger that it never even occurred to me when I was a kid that it was unfair that the girls only did aerobics during gym class and boys got to do everything else. That was the standard, and no one questioned it. I’m angry that I didn’t get the opportunity to play sports and be part of a team, and that I didn’t question the status quo.
You see, when I was growing up, there was no Title IX. There was no requirement that boys' and girls' sports be treated the same, and so they weren't. This isn't a "when I was your age, I walked to school in 8 feet of snow" story, but it is a story of how much of a positive force Title IX has been in so many girls' lives and how the lack of it during my time really meant that I missed out.
What’s more is that young women today don't even know that sports weren’t always accessible to girls. When I told Leila that I wasn't given any of the opportunities she had had, she was completely surprised. To her it was no big deal that she was so active in sports, that she had so many opportunities.
But to me, it is a big deal. I had none of those opportunities. All they gave us girls in school were some aerobics. That's it. No school girls' basketball team, no soccer, no golf, none of it. To say that being involved in sports – and all of the awesome benefits sports give to a growing child – would have been nice is an understatement.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that things have changed. I just feel sorry that Title IX wasn't born earlier...
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Growing Up with No Title IX
I also grew up in the era of no Title IX. In gym, we did calesthenics and doge ball. Outdoors, we played softball. We got to learn how to play basketball but there were no teams that we could play on. It was un-ladylike to "sweat" -- we said that we "glowed."
I have joked, all of my adult life, that I was a member of the only varsity letter sport team that a girl COULD be on -- the rifle team -- the most un-athletic "sport" one could imagine. Our job, for the hour preceding our turn to shot in a match, was to go off by ourselves, not talk with anyone, and keep our mind and body and heart rate as calm as possible, because a rapidly beating heart would make your gun jump up and down while you were trying to site in on your target. I was the team's the Co-Captain my junior year and Captain my senior year in high school. My high school team (in the north east) has vied for the state championship, often winning the title, since I was on that team 40 years ago! I have never owned a gun but learned target shooting at a girls' summer camp where girls got to do anything and everything that interested them. It turned out that I was really good at riflery. I would never have discovered this talent had it not been for my summer camp which did not view girls as different from boys in capabilities. As a teenager, I took part in summer national rifle competitions, against adults of every age, and took a second, third, and fourth place nationally. I was good at basketball and softball. Think what I might have done, had I had a chance to pursue those interests through Title IX sports. My daughter competed on varsity swimming and soccer teams and her daughter is enjoying all kinds of sports. I am so grateful that Title IX exists, for our girls' health and confidence and enjoyment. Don't ever let anything destroy our girls' Title IX rights.
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