They Play Like Girls: Gender Equity in NCAA Sports

Abstract

Based on our review of several literatures—the general sociology literature, the sport sociology literature, and the gender literature—we find that there exists an important literature that demonstrates that great strides have been made in opportunities for participation for women at all stages of the athletic pipeline. However, there are few if any studies of gender equity in resource allocation in competitive intercollegiate sports. Framed through the lens provided by feminist theory, this paper analyzes data collected from the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) to examine the issue of gender equity in resource allocation in intercollegiate (NCAA) Division 1 sports. We find that there is significantly more gender equity in resource allocation in nonrevenue, gender neutral sports, particularly soccer, than in the high profile, revenue generating, masculinized sport of basketball. The use of this data as well as our analysis—which make "head to head" comparisons in resource allocations to men's and women's basketball and soccer—makes this paper unique. Theoretically we argue that the closer women get to encroaching on men's domain, specifically in basketball, the more gender differences are highlighted and gender boundaries are enforced. This paper makes a significant contribution and advancement in the sociological study of sport literature as well as in the gender studies literature.