Title IX: Forced to Wrestle up the Backside

Abstract

Many doors of opportunity in educational endeavors opened for women following passage of Title IX (1). In 1971, year before enactment of law, women earned only one percent of dental degrees, nine percent of medical degrees and seven percent of law degrees. By 2000 number of women completing these professional programs grew to 40 percent of dental degrees, 43 percent of medical degrees, 46 percent of law degrees. Moreover, 44 percent of doctoral degrees went to women in year 2000, up from 14 percent in 1971 (Digest of Education Statistics, 2001). (2) Yet these impressive educational gains for women have not been focus of public attention regarding Title IX. Rather, impact of Title IX on scholastic athletics has dominated public discourse since passage of law. More specifically, women's success in education has met with a conservative backlash (3) focusing on Title IX and division of resources within collegiate athletics. Whereas Title IX became law thirty years ago, issue of Title IX compliance in athletics remains as hotly contested today as it was in 1972. Most recently, debate has been framed as an either/or division of resources between men's 'minor' (4) sports and women's athletics with Title IX as crux of argument. According to those who view Title IX as a threat to men's minor sports, rise in participation numbers in women's sport not only correlates to a decrease in men's 'minor' sport participation numbers, but is also cause of that decrease. In response, women's sport advocates argue that relationship between men's minor sport and women's sport is a spurious one with confounding factor being development of a big business sport model within collegiate programs. This model is reflected in escalating costs of men's football and basketball along with an 'arms' race for bigger and more elaborate facilities. skewed spending within athletic departments has not only contributed to decreases in opportunities in men's minor sport, but is also reason that women continue to receive less than their full share of athletic pie. In relation to wrestling, issue of Title IX has become more complicated in last decade, as women's grappling participation has grown. focus of this paper is a critical analysis of publicly mediated debates over issues surrounding Title IX and athletics with an attempt to understand cultural climate and far-reaching consequences for women. In this analysis, I examine public discourse surrounding Title IX and wrestling from 1972 through 2002. Sources include daily newspapers, Sports Illustrated, wrestling periodicals, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Using a critical cultural studies approach, I read media representations with an eye to deconstructing underlying intersecting lines of power relationships within broader social context. These mediated debates carry significance far beyond determining allocations of resources between men and women within athletic departments. Ultimately results and tone of debate have potential to bring changes to law that will carry far-reaching effects for gender relations starting with education and extending into professional realms women have accessed through increased opportunities in education. While mediated debates over Title IX may not dictate what people think, they do have power to determine what they think about. To put it simply: mass media have become core systems for distribution of ideology (Gitlin, 1980, p. 2). processed image, Title IX in this case, becomes the thing for a public that has few alternative sources of information, or none at all, for a perspective outside mainstream media. The media--at least in liberal capitalist society--take account of certain popular currents and pressures, symbolically incorporating them, repackaging and distributing them throughout society (Gitlin, 1980, p. …