Anne Mahle lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two daughters, the oldest of whom is already an avid US Women’s Soccer team fan at the age of 3
This week we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX. As a woman who will turn 42 later this year and who grew up wearing pins on my overalls in elementary school that said “ERA YES!” or “59¢” (because at that time a woman earned 59¢ for every dollar a man earned; today it’s 77¢ for every dollar a man earns), I probably took Title IX for granted, all while reaping many of its benefits throughout my educational journey.
Photo by Dakota County Technical College (via WikiCommons).
As Title IX hits the 40-year mark, it feels right to reflect on what it did for women’s equality and the role it still must play in ensuring equal access. When Congress passed the massive 1972 omnibus education bill and President Nixon signed it into law, I think that few recognized the importance of these 37 words nestled within the bill’s many provisions:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
As Steve Wulf points out over at ESPN, the language says nothing about sports. And yet, it is in the field of athletics—sports—that this legislation seems to have made it most recognized mark (heck, there is even a women’s athletic clothing store named Title Nine). The impact on girls’ and women’s participation in sports cannot be understated. Wulf's article notes: "The number of girls playing high school sports jumped from 294,015 in 1971-72 to 3,172,637 in 2009-10, an increase of 1079 percent. (The number of male high school athletes grew from 3,666,917 to 4,455,740 during that same period, an increase of 22 percent.) The number of women playing varsity sports in college rose from 29,972 in 1971-72 to 186,460 in 2009-10, a 622 percent increase that still leaves them behind the total of NCAA male athletes, whose population grew from 170,384 to 249,307 (46 percent) in that time frame."
But the most important opportunities opened by Title IX go far beyond sports. Title IX was critical in opening the doors to institutions of higher learning, to key professional schools at those institutions. It provided access to women, access that over the last 40 years has changed the face of key professions and tracks of leadership in this country. For example, in 1972, only 7% of law degrees were earned by women; in 2010, 47% were. Medicine showed similar gains, with the number of degrees increasing from 9% in 1972 to 48% in 2010. Similar, albeit smaller, gains were made in the all-important STEM fields.
Despite the gains of the last 40 years, there is still tremendous work to do. Significant questions of access remain. As an article in Education Week noted, Title IX hasn’t lived up to its promise for pregnant students. I was struck by this article—not because I was surprised that young, pregnant women are treated unfairly in our educational system but more by the fact that I didn’t consider Title IX to be a key tool in fighting this inequity. We still have miles to go before there is equality of educational access for girls and women. Luckily, we have 40 years of history and the power of Title IX to help us in this fight.
Anne Mahle, ’92 RGV, is the SVP of Recruitment at Teach For America. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two daughters, the oldest of whom is already an avid US Women’s Soccer team fan at the age of 3. She spends her weekends gardening, watching the English Premier League, and chasing her girls around the backyard.
