Prof: Society values female sexuality over athleticism
By CECILIA OLECK
News Writer
Women in sports are still valued more for their sexuality than their skill according to a lecture at Saint Mary's Tuesday.
Leslie Heaphy, from Kent State University, presented a lecture Tuesday entitled "Women in Sports: Creating a New Playing Field," which delved into many different sports-related gender issues.
Heaphy pointed to recent Sports Illustrated cover stories involving women as examples of gender biased sports coverage. A cover of tennis star Anna Kournikova, known more for her incredible looks rather than her incredible game and the annual swimsuit issue send mixed messages about ability and sexuality, Heaphy said.
Heaphy concentrated also on the history of women in sports and on the effect of Title IX on sports. Title IX is the law passed in 1972 to ensure gender equity in all programs or activities benefiting from federal financial assistance. She said many people believe this ruling to apply to sports, but in reality the decision was based on other programs, not sports.
One of the downfalls of Title IX, Heaphy suggested, is the widely held idea that in order to create more opportunities for one gender, something must be taken away from another. In this case, it has pitted men against women and made them enemies on the issue. Many schools have cut male programs believing that it was the only way to make room for women's programs.
Heaphy challenged this by saying that at most Division I schools, male sport programs dominate the scholarship field. Many say that it is because these programs bring the most revenue into the school. In reality, she argued, there are very few schools who make money off of these teams, and most actually end up losing capital. Heaphy suggests that by evening out scholarship money between different programs, all sport programs could be funded.
"In some places the football team stays in a hotel the night before a home game," she said. "This is the kind of thing I mean. Some people have brought up how men's teams will get new uniforms every year, while the women's team is lucky to get them every three years."
She also cautioned against treating women's sports the same way as men's.
"They shouldn't look like the exact same structure and often times it does. If you are creating a men's lacrosse team, there doesn't have to be a women's lacrosse team," said Heaphy. "What is important is meeting unmet interest equally to both men and women."
Overall, Title IX has had a great effect on women's programs.
"Twenty years ago, you would not have seen women in football, women in extreme sports and women in basketball," Heaphy said.
While progress is encouraging, Heaphy also warned that these examples show how far women have come and how far they still are capable of going.
All News Stories for Wednesday, March 28, 2001
