Don't tamper with success of Title IX

Ever since Department of Education Secretary Rod Paige announced the formation of the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics last June, the debate on Title IX has involved the circulation of a great deal of misinformation.

The commission's report released last month endorses the opinion that Title IX has resulted in reverse discrimination, and that its enforcement has caused many lost sports opportunities for boys. It also endorses an old gender stereotype that says girls don't like to play sports.

Tell that to Lisa Leslie or Brandi Chastain. Tell that to the millions of women participating in collegiate and high school sports today. Tell that to the millions of girls participating in youth sports and Olympic sports.

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, young women accounted for 42 percent of all high school athletes in 2000-01, up from 7 percent in the pre-Title IX era (1971), which means that the number of female athletes increased by 847 percent.

The issue is really much simpler than the rhetoric has made it sound. Title IX was an extraordinarily effective piece of legislation that has helped improve the public standing of female athletes and get more girls involved in sports. But equality of opportunity in athletics is still far from being achieved, and the proposed changes would negatively affect the number of opportunities and scholarship dollars for female athletes, the proverbial "two steps back."

Perhaps just as important as lost opportunities is the message the proposed changes will send. Female athletes have suffered stigmatization for years due to old gender stereotypes that define men as active and aggressive and women as passive and nurturing. Since athletes are by definition active and aggressive, and those qualities were at one time not valued in women, it took much of the 20th century for the public to recognize that their daughters can be aggressive and love to play sports as much as their sons, and that their sons can be caring toward others -- all desirable traits.

The fact is, we all have the capacity for aggression and nurturing. These are human traits, not traits belonging to one gender or the other.

Negative stereotypes about female athletes tend to surface in economic periods when there are injunctions against women being part of the paid labor force, such as the period immediately following World War II. There is a connection between sports and careers: 80 percent of the female executives in the Fortune 500 companies identified themselves as sport participants.

Today, the fact is that in America and elsewhere, most women cannot afford to stay home. The working family is the norm, and success in any career relies on exactly those qualities learned in athletics: self-esteem, assertiveness, drive, ambition and teamwork.

Sports participation addresses a host of social problems. Female athletes have higher graduation rates, and higher levels of self-esteem. In a nation where 14 percent of young people suffer from obesity, and as many as one in 33 children and one in eight adolescents suffer from depression, sports participation serves as a much more cost-efficient preventative and curative than does long-term medical care.

The rhetoric of the proposed changes to Title IX sends the message that "normal" girls don't like to play sports, a message that could endanger their health and well-being. Sports participation is a public health issue, not a gender issue.

In a world that has so many negative messages for children, sports are one of the few places where girls are applauded for their dedication and strength.

I belong to the generation of women immediately following the passage of Title IX. I competed in sports from junior high through college, and an athletic scholarship enabled me to attend the university of my choice. Had I not had that opportunity or those experiences, my life would have been completely different. I can't imagine my daughter not having the same chances I did.

The proposed changes to Title IX send all the wrong messages. Love of movement, competition and the need to feel a sense of value and recognition are in no way the province of one gender. They are profoundly human needs.