Life After Title IX: Have We Truly Overcome?

For years, the female population in our country has always been faced with various societal struggles. Gaining the right to vote and having the ability to obtain a valuable education were served as pivotal points for the women in our society. Even beyond receiving an education, the job opportunities that women had were very limited until the birth of Title IX. Title IX was signed into law by former President Richard Nixon and it served as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Its purpose is to insure that women are given equal opportunity when it comes to intercollegiate athletics as athletes and as administrators.

So How Did Title IX Come About? We took a stand.

Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink was instrumental in introduction and drafting of Title IX. Her desire to become heavily involved with informing others about Title IX stemmed from her own personal situation. Like many other women pursuing degrees at higher institutions, Patsy T. Mink also faced discrimination because of her gender. Now every government funded academic institution is required to have a Title IX officer and be in full compliance with Title IX itself. Title IX covers many things from education, employment, testing and situations involving sexual harassment.

Looking back on where we started and where we are today, Have our opportunities really increased that much since the implementation of Title IX?

Some of us would agree that it has. We see more African American women holding positions with athletic departments at educational institutions; positions that once were strictly held by men and more of them participating on sports teams. Although this number still remains small, our progression continues towards better job opportunities. Without the help of Title IX, we as women would not have gotten the chance to let our voices be heard and really prove to society that a woman is capable of performing the same job duties as her male counterpart.

Source: TitleIXinfo.org