Title IX

In the United States there is a law that states "No person in the United States shall on the basis of sex, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." This is known as Title IX. It was originally made for high school and collegiate athletics stating that a female can play on a team of males or a males can play on a team full of females. For example, if a high school wanted to she could go ahead and tryout for her teams high school football team and no be denied. Although, this has only happened once (to the best of my knowledge) and that girl went on to be a place kicker.

What I am trying to get at is, in America we have this Title IX but there has only been one noteable instance in which a person of the a different sex has played with a team full of the opposite sex. This can be due to many things. First of all, some girls may not be able to take the punishing hits that occur in the average football game, especially at a high level of play. That is why most females that attempt to play football tend to be on the special teams unit which only gets a very limited amount of playing time and almost no contact. On the other hand, there has only been one male in the United States to play on a high school field hockey team and he was from Europe where males dominate the sport, unlike in the states. Maybe males don't play field hockey because of the stress on the lower back and they can not handle that stress during a 40 minute time period.

Next, males will not be swayed to play female sports because of the way pop culture portrays high school football players in such movies as, "Friday Night Lights" and "Varsity Blues". In these movies the players are idolized for their aggressiveness and desire to do anything to win. Same goes with females. In these movies the females are always depicted as cheerleaders or girls trying to sleep with the star athletes who plan on continuing their athletic career in college. Furthermore, pop culture has a huge influence on how males and females display theirselves beacuse they want to "fit in" just like everyone else.

Finally, I can understand Title IX for job applications, credit scores, and even loans or buying houses, but was it originally designed for athletic sports in high school and college and I can only think of two instances in which Title IX was used. In the end, pop culture and the meida have a huge impact on the decisions made by young people everywhere, even if it stops them from going out for a sport that isn't traditionally dominated by their sex.