Brief Thoughts: The Impact of Title IX and Women’s Sports

Photo by Jay Ruzicka | The Shot Magazine

For generations, girls have been told they can be anything. Now they can actually see it. They can turn on the television and watch Caitlin Clark charging up the court. They can see Megan Keller scoring the winning goal, leading Team USA to victory! These athletes and countless others in their respective sports draw in millions of viewers and become household names, and for the first time, they don’t have to wonder if they belong.

It’s easy to forget just how recently girls were given the opportunity to play organized sports. Before the passing of Title IX in 1972, girls were discouraged from playing sports because it was considered inappropriate for women to compete in strenuous activity and there were essentially no professional women’s sports comparable to men’s. When Title IX was passed, fewer than 300,000 girls participated in high school sports; today, that number is over 3 million. With the passing of Title IX, the doors opened for generations of women to not only play sports, but to earn college scholarships, compete at a high level and dare to dream about playing professionally one day.

The girls watching today are growing up in a vastly different sporting world than their mothers and grandmothers. They don’t have to look very far to find a female athlete they can admire. They can buy her jersey and follow her career as it unfolds. They can see women athletes celebrated, not just for participating, but for being some of the best athletes in their respective sports.

And those athletes can be proud of the impact they are having on the girls in the stands, dreaming of making the perfect shot. The winning goal. Landing the perfect 10.

Written by Jacqueline Bono