My roommate bought me a book on knitting for Christmas. I finally got around to reading it last weekend as I was ensconced in a beautiful cabin next to a lake looking out at the snow falling on the cedar trees. The perfect place to not only read a book on knitting but to actually knit.
If you know me then you know I am the most unlikely knitter. I majored in math, I like sports, and although I come from a family of creative talented craftspeople, I have never gravitated toward making crafts. I can do a minimal amount of woodworking and in another life, I used to sew. I do love to cook but my time and energy has been devoted to what are typically seen as “men’s” pursuits… sports, outdoor activities, fixing things, etc. I have spent most of my lifetime in a world where men held power. Thus for me, activities traditionally thought of as “men’s” were seen as having more value. That is, until the knitting book…
The author of the book talks about her own resistance to knitting, which is seen as a very female gendered activity. She is a woman about my age, having grown up in the era where we watched our older sisters and mothers burn their bras in protest of unequal rights, where we have watched women struggle to get hired or compensated equally to men, and where we watched men get ostracized because they chose professions or clothing that typically belongs to “women”. So she, like me, resisted what we saw as “women’s” hobbies, or as my brothers would describe as “skirt work”. But what I realized is that to devalue certain tasks because they are typically thought of as a female activity is the very epitome of anti-feminism and smacks of the idea that only activities that traditionally belong to men have value. Hence, I started knitting.
Since I started thinking of this, I have had a couple of discussions with people that have really stuck in my psyche. Both discussions were regarding female athletes “not being as good as men” or women’s sports (for example snowboarding at the Olympics) being perceived as “boring”. It made me reflect on Title IX, which as first written, didn’t have anything to do with sports at all but that is what it became known for.
Some history (source Wikipedia): The first person to introduce Title IX in Congress was its author and chief Senate sponsor, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana. Bayh was working on the Equal Rights Amendment and abolishing discriminatory treatment based on gender however was having difficulty getting the bill out of committee. Since the Higher Education Act was on the floor of the Senate already, Bayh introduced an amendment, Title IX which said:
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 education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance…
In his remarks on the Senate floor, Bayh said, “We are all familiar with the stereotype of women as pretty things who go to college to find a husband, go on to graduate school because they want a more interesting husband, and finally marry, have children, and never work again. The desire of many schools not to waste a ‘man’s place’ on a woman stems from such stereotyped notions. But the facts absolutely contradict these myths about the ‘weaker sex’ and it is time to change our operating assumptions….an equal chance to attend the schools of their choice, to develop the skills they want, and to apply those skills with the knowledge that they will have a fair chance to secure the jobs of their choice with equal pay for equal work”.
Title IX became law on June 23, 1972. At that time, less than 2% of women participated in athletics. There were several subsequent attempts to exempt revenue sports from the impact of Title IX (Tower Amendment) and it wasn’t until 1988 when the Civil Rights Restoration Act was passed that it was fully implemented. 1988… By then I was 25 years old and had two children. 1988…this isn’t ancient history, in fact, it is barely history at all.
People still don’t get it. It isn’t about sports. When I hear the conversation that women aren’t as “athletic” or that women’s sports don’t have the same excitement, it makes my blood boil. I have actually heard someone recently say that “women have their place” and that it isn’t in sports known as “men’s sports”. When the Seattle Seahawks won the Superbowl and the press reported that it was the first national championship Seattle had won since the Sonics won the national championship for basketball, they totally disregarded the two National Championships the Seattle Storm has won. And I repeat…this isn’t about sports… it is about respect. As much as I love my Seahawks, it makes me want to never give my money or time attending or watching another Hawks game without first giving equal time and respect to the Storm.
Regardless whether you are a man or a woman, whether you stay at home or work a job, if you like or hate sports, if you are conservative or liberal, that isn’t what Title IX is about. It is about choice. It is about having the choice and freedom to participate in the activity you want to participate in, go to the school you want to attend, have the same chance to get hired for a job you are qualified for, or to stay home and take care of your family regardless of your gender. Title IX is about equal rights for all people regardless of gender. It isn’t about wanting to stay home with your family, there is nothing wrong with that and equal rights doesn’t mean losing that. It is about having a choice.
When I was in high school, women made less than 50 cents for every dollar a man did. Now, that is at 72 cents. Progress right? Wrong. That means for a man who is making $20 a hour that is $800 a week, a little over $40,000 a year… for a woman in that same job, it would be $14.40 an hour or $576 a week which is less than $30,000. That is a big difference.
It would be really easy to get complacent and say “we have come a long way” or “I am happy with my life now”. I look at my granddaughters and I want better for them. I don’t want to stop fighting until they have the opportunity to make the same pay for the same job, until they can be a NASCAR driver if they want to without being seen as a “pretty token who actually can’t drive”, until they can get Red Bull to build them their own snowboarding park and sponsor them at the same level they sponsor a male snowboarder. I want them to know a world where people give credence to their accomplishments, not because they are beautiful or because they wear the right clothes, but because of who they ARE.
So today, if you have a choice in your life to marry the person you want to marry, to go to the school you want to attend if you are qualified, or to participate fully in a sport, then take a moment to thank those of us who are in our 50-70’s who fought for you to have that freedom. Thank those of us that played sports in skirts because we weren’t allowed to wear shorts but we did it anyway. Ask us about what it was like, our generation won’t be around much longer to fight the battle for you. Take time to thank the men and women who believe the world would be better if we didn’t belittle half of our population. And by the way…you are welcome.
And then do us a favor…don’t stop fighting. Whether you are a man, woman, a career person or a stay-at-home caregiver… don’t stop fighting until we all have the right to live our best life, unrestricted by gender constraints, unbound, free and equal. That goes for the man who wants to stay home with his kids while his wife works as well as the woman who doesn’t want kids but wants to be an engineer, or a NASCAR driver, or a snowboarder… and for equity’s sake, stop disparaging women in sports or objectifying them. Treat them as equal human beings. Please. And go to a women’s sporting event, even if you are bored, just to show your support. Do it to support all those of us who came before… who have sacrificed and fought so that women can earn $0.72 for every dollar a man does. And don’t stop fighting even after we are gone.
Life Divided by Zero 