"You've Come Part of the Way, Baby": The Status of Women and Women's Sports in Intercollegiate Athletics 28 Years after Title IX

• Other Authors: La Croix, Rachel M. (authoraut)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; English
• Published: Florida State University
• Subjects: Sociology
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_etd-0964

Despite improved athletic opportunities for girls and women since passage of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, collegiate athletic budgets dedicated to women's sports are smaller than the percentage of women athletes, and women's representation as athletic administrators and coaches for women's sports has declined. Title IX resulted in the majority of colleges merging their men's and women's athletic departments under the leadership of a single head athletic director, who is nearly universally a man. Despite an increase in women's athletic programs and the number of coaching positions available over women's sports, more men than women filled these new positions, shifting the occupation of coach for women's sports from one dominated by women in the early 1970s (when over 90 percent of coaches of women's sports were women) to one dominated by men in 2004 (when 44 percent of coaches of women's sports were women). My study uses the 1998-2000 population of NCAA Division I schools to analyze the status of women in sports administration and coaching, and women's access to athletic resources. The study has five dependent concepts--women's representation as head coaches of women's sports; the compensation/salary budgets for coaches of women's sports; the proportion of athletic operating budgets dedicated to women's sports; the proportion of recruiting budgets allocated to women's sports; and the proportion of athletic scholarship budgets dedicated to women's sports--and seven predictors--women's representation as athletic administrators; athletic department profits; women's representation as athletes; women's representation as head coaches; women's difference in participation as athletes vs. undergraduates; the percent of gender-specific revenues from women's athletics; and the presence (or not) of a football team and football profits. Results support 10 of 14 hypotheses, although some relationships are relatively weak, and in many cases, an institution's Division Status and Enrollment have a stronger effect than do the predictors. Key findings are as follows. Women's Representation as Coaches. Schools with proportionally more women athletic administrators and schools with proportionally more women athletes have relatively more women as head coaches of women's sports, net of Enrollment, Division Status, and Public vs. Private Status. Compensation/Salaries for Coaches of Women's Sports. Schools with proportionally more women head coaches pay lower average salaries to head coaches of women's sports (after controlling for Total Coaching Salary Budget, Enrollment, Division Status, and Public vs. Private Status). Operating Budgets for Women's Athletics. Schools with proportionally more women athletic administrators dedicate relatively more of their operating budgets to women's sports, although the relationship is weak. When women's sports bring in a higher proportion of gender-specific revenues at a school, women's athletics receive a larger proportion of schools' operating budgets. Women's sports receive a smaller portion of operating budgets at schools with football programs compared to schools without, and schools with relatively higher football profits dedicate smaller portions of their operating budgets to women's sports. Recruiting Budgets for Women. Schools with proportionally more women athletic administrators dedicate more of their recruiting budgets to women's sports, controlling for other factors. Athletic Scholarship Budgets for Women. Schools with proportionally more women athletic administrators dedicate relatively more of their athletic scholarship budgets to women's sports, although the effect is weak. These results extend gender theories regarding shifts in the gender composition of occupations and sports as a masculine/masculinist institution. Although Reskin and Roos (1990) found women entering occupations men had fled as the jobs' status, autonomy, and salary declined, the reverse seems to have occurred for the occupation of coach of women's sports. After Title IX and the merging of men's and women's athletic departments, women's sports became more attractive to men due to higher salaries and elevated status. Men rushed into these new coaching positions and the occupation is now dominated by men. Ironically, Title IX seems to have had an "affirmative action for men" effect . Results also show that the sports institution remains, culturally and structurally, masculinist. Men's sports, compared to women's, receive the lion's share of college athletic budgets. While Title IX helped many more young women become athletes and while women now receive a proportional number of athletic scholarships, the expanded opportunities to coach and administer women's athletics primarily benefited men. The entry of many thousands of women athletes into college athletics failed to challenge collegiate sports' masculinist bias and practice of marginalizing women , thus confirming Messner (1992; 2002), Burstyn (1999), and Cahn (1994). My conclusions call for further research into how practices associated with the gender institution (Martin 2003) pervasively shape the sports institution to men's advantage and how football, in particular, casts a long shadow over women's sports. === A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. === Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2007. === Date of Defense: June 26, 2007. === Gender And Coaching, Gender And Sports, College Sports === Includes bibliographical references. === Patricia Yancey Martin, Professor Directing Dissertation; Marie Cowart, Outside Committee Member; Irene Padavic, Committee Member; Jill Quadagno, Committee Member.