Equality And Gender Discrimination

Decent Essays
In today’s society, people believe women have the same rights as men, especially after the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, which outlawed “discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin” (National Archives). The word “sex” was added at the last moment. Discrimination is still a major issue, especially in the high school and college sports level. America does not promise an equal outcome for everybody, but America was founded on the idea that everybody should have an equal opportunity to achieve their dreams. America is the home of freedom, the home of many opportunities, and the home of equality, but is it really? Citizens of America are unaware of the unequal pay, opportunity, and recognition that women receive. It’s …show more content…
Title IX law was passed in 1972, by President Richard Nixon (Wulf). President Richard Nixon passed the law to provide gender equality for male and female under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. The woman who started it all, Bunny Sandler, just wanted a “more level playing field in academics” (Wulf). According to Wulf, Sandler was a counselor at the University of Maryland when she applied for a “tenured-track position”, and she was told that she “came on too strong for a woman.”
Wulf describes how Sandler began researching about sex discrimination, and she found a law on federal contracts that banned discrimination based on gender. Sander then went on to construct a complaint based on the law she discovered. She gathered 250 complaints against schools and colleges receiving federal assistances, and she sent the complaints to congress. Edith Green was a Democratic representative, and she “was also chair of the House committee on education, and she had been waiting for a chance to introduce a bill requiring gender equality in education”. Sandler’s complaints gave Green the ambition, so Sandler was hired to work on Green’s staff, and they constructed Title IX (Wulf). According to United States Department of Labor, Title IX is a federal law that states, “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
…show more content…
Women are used to bring in money by modeling and selling merchandise. Val Hanson states, “Coverage of women 's sports lags far behind men 's and focuses on female athletes ' femininity and sexuality over their achievements on the court and field” (15). Women may be equal under Title IX, but they are not equal in the sports world. Val Hanson makes a great point in “The Inequality of sport: Womens body is, but instead is seen more as an object pleasurable to the eye when it is exposed outside of the realm of sports. When men see these objectified images, they do not look at a female athlete as an athlete; instead, they see a caretaker, a keeper of the household, a wife, mother, and most often, a sex object. The caretaker image stems from television and media-generated stereotypes that have formed over time through the presentation of women cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the household, essentially making life easier for their men and families. Female bodies are exploited through bikini photo shoots rather than through competitive action shots in uniform as men are portrayed.

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