After reading fellow PT blogger, Elizabeth Meyer's piece on women's sports, I am reminded how much things have changed since I was in school ( http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/gender-and-schooling/201002/o...). When I was in high school there was no such thing as women's sports. Aside from cheerleading and dance there really wasn't much opportunity for women to be physical. There were no women's team sports and those girls who were athletic were considered masculine. All of the attention was on boy's football in the fall, boy's basketball in the winter, and boy's baseball in the spring. The boys played and the girls watched. This all changed very dramatically when Title IX passed in 1972. Years later, by the time I became a college professor, female college students were competing in softball, soccer, and basketball. Funds, though still less than for boys, were provided for scholarships, coaches, and travel for women's teams. How did this change young women and their body images?
In making the transition from girlhood to womanhood, each young woman has to adjust to a rapidly changing body. Some of these changes are confusing. How we think about the biological changes can have a huge impact on us. For me, the message I received from friends, family, and our culture was that thin and beautiful were important. Thin and beautiful were more important than smart or competent. I remember my grandmother telling me I was putting on a few pounds. I remember idolizing models in magazines, and I remember hearing about a friend down the street who ate whatever she wanted and then put her fingers down her throat to throw up. I tried crash diets and passed out from weakness. I would do anything to be thin because thin meant I was loveable.
This thinness message taken to an extreme, led to increased rates of anorexia and bulimia in young women. Binge eating is soon to be a diagnostic category in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I remember seeing emaciated women in the college cafeteria who felt they were bad if they ate a few crumbs. But, these were not the female athletes. The female athletes were confident, strong, and they had teammates. And..it was OK to be strong. Women can be strong and feminine. These are not mutually exclusive. In my opinion, one of the best byproducts of collegiate women's sports has been increased camaraderie. The women had teammates. They had women friends to eat dinner with, to study with, and to give them emotional support. This was sorely missing at the math-science university I attended. During the 1970s, women students at math-science schools were clearly second to men and female friends were rare. It was a lonely experience.
Title IX changed things in a really good way for young women. I saw college women taking pride in their physicality. A 6 foot woman, considered an oddity in high school, became an asset on the volleyball team. And this confidence transferred to the classroom. Female athletes feel good about themselves and they are more assertive in the classroom. They ask questions, they participate, they are unafraid to compete, and they get better grades. Women's sports may never attract the money and spectators that male collegiate sports to but they sure have improved women's lives!!!
