Title IX was passed in 1972 as part of legislation intended to provide girls and women with the same educational opportunities received by boys and men. It took until 1978 for enforcement standards to be developed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. When these standards were applied significant changes began to occur in many U.S. schools.

Then in 1984, after six years of enforcement and progress, the U.S. Supreme Court strengthened the resistance to Title IX. It ruled that the law did not apply to school athletic programs because the schools and the students were the true recipients of federal funds, not the athletic programs (even though the programs were sponsored by the schools). Consequently, eight hundred cases of alleged discrimination under investigation at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights were dropped or narrowed. It then took Congress another four years to pass (over President Reagan’s veto in March 1988) the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which again mandated equal opportunity in all programs in any organization receiving federal money. This was helpful, but this act did not contain enough incentives for schools and other sport organizations to make positive changes; nor did it encourage people to challenge inequities in the courts.

Then, in 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if schools intentionally violated Title IX, the injured parties could sue for financial damages. This ruling was very important because it enabled many young women in schools and even women coaches to make schools and other public organizations accountable in establishing gender equity in sports. The result was been that people became much more sensitive to the need to take girls and women into account when it came to sports. People still resist the law, but they leave themselves open to lawsuits when they do. This state of affairs led a few men in Congress to suggest in 1996 that new rules are needed to protect current funding for football, the most traditional of all men’s sports. Progress has been made, but the struggle continues.

The Canadian experience has been similar to the U.S. experience in some ways. After a Royal Commission on the Status of Women was established in 1970, studies were done to document the existence of inequality, and conferences were held to identify issues and set priorities. In 1980, the Fitness and Amateur Sport Women’s Program was established. It provided a combination of government-funded programs, training, and policy development opportunities for women. This program, along with other federal and provincial programs and pressures from feminist advocacy groups, led to the 1986 publication of Women in Sport: A Sport Canada Policy, which outlined national policy on women in sport. This document not only set the official goal of equality of opportunity for women at all levels of sport, but also called for a specific action-oriented program to achieve this goal. Thus Canada became the first noncommunist country to have an official policy on women in sport.

Other countries also have established policies to promote gender equity. However, change in many countries, especially those with traditional and/or religion-based cultures, has been very slow. Official power in these countries rests in the hands of men, and they often see women’s sport participation as disruptive of the social or moral order. Women in these countries have had to be persistent and politically creative to produce even minor changes.

In most North American families, young girls are not discouraged from playing sports, but some girls may be treated differently than their brothers in at least three respects.

First, some girls are less likely to learn that physical activities and achievements in sport can or should be uniquely important sources of rewards in their lives.

Second, some fathers spend considerably less time in shared physical exercises and activities with daughters than with sons.

Third, the play time of some girls is more likely to be regulated and controlled by parents. For example, when a young girl asks one of her parents for permission to go and play, she often hears something like this: "It’s okay for you to go play as long as you ...

This "conditional permission," even when it is justified by parental fears for the safety of their daughters, is an outgrowth of a traditional definition of femininity. It can subvert opportunities and motivation to play or organize complex competitive games involving physical skills. Such games require going outside the house, leaving the family yard, playing with large groups (including some children unknown to parents), getting dirty, having arguments and fights now and then, playing rough, and sometimes getting hurt. Furthermore, it is impossible to do these things when curfews are inflexible and younger brothers or sisters have to be watched.

It is no wonder that many girls end up playing different kinds of games than those that their brothers play. Boys do not have nearly as many parental constraints limiting their activities. This is one of the things enabling many of them to move quickly beyond their sisters in the development of sport skills.

Fathers may reinforce these "femininity restrictions" when they treat their daughters as "Daddy’s little girls." This protectiveness is well-intentioned, but it often constrains the play activities of girls and focuses girls’ attention on catering to the needs of their fathers, an orientation that precludes the development of social independence. Mothers may reinforce these femininity restrictions when they treat their daughters as "Mommy’s little helpers." Of course, girls (and boys) should support and assist their parents. But when girls get locked into care-taking and nurturing roles and overly dependent relationships with either of their parents, they seldom have opportunities to develop competence in physical activities and sports. Alternative definitions of femininity have helped to alert parents and others to the problems that may continue to exist because of traditional femininity restrictions.

Do girls today continue to face "conditional permissions" when it comes to participation in certain physical activities? I think this question should still be discussed.

Physical educator Helen Lenskyj recounts a story told by a woman as she described memories of her gym class in school:

This story portrays the feelings experienced by a lesbian who was lost between mutually exclusive categories of gender as gender is defined in terms of the two-category classification system. Interestingly, her sense of herself was more "natural" than the definition of femininity that held the girls in the class on the sidelines. If girls and women are going to feel good about being involved in all types of sports, there is a need for new forms of femininity that recognize diversity as natural.

*The story appeared in H. Lenskyj. 1994. Sexuality and femininity in sport contexts: Issues and alternatives. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 18, 4, pp. 356-376.