It’s been 40 years since Congress signed the legislation, Title IX (nine, for those of you that are Roman Numeral challenged), which broke the gender barrier in sports. In fact, according to www.titlenine.com, in 1972 there were 30,000 girls participating in high school sports, and today there are over 3,000,000.
Those numbers were nowhere more evident in this year’s recent Olympic games. The U.S. Women athletes won over half of the total medals, and 66% of gold medals. Without the contribution of these fierce young ladies, our country might not have garnered the most medals at the games.
However, while there are significantly more girls and women participating in sports, all things are not equal. Besides the WNBA, there are no other professional sports leagues for women. And even with the WNBA, there have been challenges filling seats at the games. Additionally, women are not paid equally in other sport’s jobs.
Which is all very interesting when you consider how high ratings were for the Olympics, especially for women’s events. Women’s gymnastics, volleyball, basketball and soccer were must see events during. Not to mention women’s tennis and swimming. There’s an interest in watching talented female athlete’s excel, therefore hope does exist for spectators of women’s sporting events.
At one point, women athletes were happy just to have their own uniforms, but those days are long gone. Women will continue to fight for equality in sports as they do in other areas. But, as we ladies continue on this journey of equality in life and sports, let’s bask in the glow of the U.S. women’s athletes’ performance at the 2012 games!