Are Girls' Sports Getting a Fair Shake?
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The year is 2019 and outside a school in Bennington, Nebraska over 300 students and parents march around in Title IX shirts. They are fed up with what they claim is the district’s long-standing and clear preferential treatment of boys’ sports over girls’. Three parents, on behalf of their daughters who played basketball and softball for the high school, file a Title IX suit, claiming among other disparities:
Girls having to report to summer weights and conditioning at 6AM, while the boys sessions didn’t start until 8AM.
The boys wearing name-brand uniforms while the girls had to wear a knock off brand.
The softball complex being inferior to the baseball complex including inadequate lighting and bad netting, resulting in an in unsafe environment for softball players.
Within the suit’s verbiage lies this basic tenet of Title IX:
All sports shall be funded on a gender-neutral basis regardless of the source of funding, whether school funds, contributions from boosters, or other third party donations Lowther et al v. Bennington Public School District Board of Education et al, 2021
Title IX was passed in 1972 to protect citizens from discrimination based on gender in education programs or any program that receives federal funding. Last week the Biden Administration revised Title IX to include protections for L.G.B.T.Q. students. Violations are most often manifest within athletic programs, like Bennington’s.
At first, the Bennington School Board denied the claim but soon after settled with the families and agreed to make several concrete improvements to equalize the athletic experience.
Bennington is far from an outlier. Lee High School in Huntsville, Alabama settled a 2018 case alleging that its girls softball players received inferior treatment in many areas including travel per diem allowance and practice times. In fact, Title IX violations are so commonplace that Sam Schiller, a Tennessee-based attorney has dedicated his practice to protecting Title IX rights. He has filed suits against school districts in 30 states over the past 25 years and has never lost a case. “We’re now at the point where women who were high school athletes are raising families, and they definitely know their daughters are supposed to have what the men have had all along. It’s Title IX 2.0,” Schiller told the New York Times in 2022.
At the collegiate level, accusations of Title IX violations are also common. A suit was filed against The University of Oregon last December alleging inequalities in NIL resources offered to beach volleyball and women’s rowing athletes. And speaking of the Ducks, it was just three years ago that then Oregon center Sedona Price called out the NCAA for the stark disparity in the women’s and men’s weight rooms during the NCAA Tournament in a video that went viral.
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General Awareness of Title IX has increased in its 52-year history yet watchdogs over inequalities are apparently needed at even the youngest levels. In fact, this entire piece was inspired by a couple of friends expressing frustration about the threat of attrition of their young daughters’ softball leagues (one U6, one U12) given the limitations on fields and institutional support for softball versus baseball. These friends live in different parts of the country, by the way.
As the mom of any kid playing sports in a somewhat urban area, field availability is sparse and field conditions are not exactly pristine like you see in so many suburbs. But the issues are more rooted in proper levels of competition and not having the basic structure for which to operate a fun, meaningful league full of growth My softball friends both had similar complaints in which they felt like softball was an afterthought within their community. One is in a joint league with baseball, the other a standalone softball league.
Hearing this is troublesome especially as we enter a new frontier where Caitlin Clark may be the second most recognized basketball player in the world (basketball player, not female basketball player). Ratings and interest for women’s sports, including softball is growing. With the Olympics on deck, I’d expect that trend to continue. Thus the the importance of a strong nucleus for our youngest female athletes cannot be overstated. When a girl sees her newest female sports idol crush it in Paris this summer, is there a foundation to follow in her footsteps?
All this being said, I only intimately know youth sports through the lens of my two sons. I was and am curious. Is this disparity really prevalent throughout the country? To find out, I put on my pollster cap and headed to one of my favorite sports mom groups on Facebook. The question: Do you feel like boys sports get preferential over girls sports? If so, how?
Most of the responses were a resounding yes but a few were neutral and a couple flipped the question on its head. A few of examples, and again these are sports mamas from around the country:
100%. A lot of time in our area, boys get the nicer fields over the girls or the better time slots. Also, that happens with different sports as well, where we will have reserved fields for our sport and then something like football will want the field so we are not allowed to use the field during that time (even though it is a soccer field).
Not the same but drives me crazy when volleyball girls get kicked out of the gym so the football team can have the gym.
Where I live every school has one softball field and one baseball field. They are equally supported sports.
Where I am, softball has 1 dedicated field, but there are 4 baseball fields. It seems unfair, but registration numbers line up with the distribution of fields.
At our school it's quite the opposite. The baseball field is falling apart, the tiny batting cages are leaking in the PNW rain, the dugout and concession stand are molding, but the softball teams have turf fields, great dugout, perfect batting cages, great equipment, always have busses, etc.
Field and school not a problem here...but walk into a Dicks Sporting Goods- softball has 25% of the inventory of baseball (gear, pants, cleats) "oh just order it online" yup...so much fun to order multiple sizes and return what doesn't work, when boys have 5x as many choices in stock
Yup. In my town, there are three baseball fields and one softball field. The boys have a scoreboard and a snack shack and stands. The girls have a patch of dirt with nothing else. Shameful
Soccer & basketball are the two sports that compete for time. Soccer, in my experience, is nearly equal. They rotate mornings vs evenings preseason. Once school starts, varsity splits the turf & all JV teams get the grass out back.
Basketball, OTOH...
My daughter, a '23 grad, constantly complained about the boys players having keys to the gym, not attending advisory, and having access to the gym over lunch. The girls players don't. That being said, I asked her what she was being told when she asked for access. I tried telling her that they would have to say yes, because any version of no is grounds for a lawsuit. She never did ask.
I found these responses fascinating, particularly the mention of Dick’s and lack of availability for softball gear. If my male sons need any type of sports equipment, I know Dick’s will have it in stock.
So ok maybe we’re not in the 1950’s when organized girls sports weren’t really a robust option for kids but clearly there are still widespread disadvantages. It’s no wonder the attrition rate for girls is double that of boys before we hit 14. Maybe some of it is rooted in straight up sexism but I’d be willing to bet that like much progress you have to take a crack at the system. A system that didn’t start out supporting girls, that often has more cultural discussion and numbers and just a stronger infrastructure for boys.
It’s easy to look at field complaints and peg that to registration numbers/revenue as one of the responders from my crowd sourcing suggested. But in communities where the disparity is real, there’s needs to be some intentionality. By that, I don’t mean give girls’ sports an unfair advantage when it comes to resources. I’m talking communities that build pipelines and school teams and all-star teams representing their town and give equal attention on social media. Let’s keep hosting Play Like a Girl days and encourage girls to try a multitude of sports at a young age. But when they get to be 10-11-12 let’s encourage them to try out sports just like we do with boys. And please make sure all coaches get a little puberty ed. so they can be supportive and empathetic of their female athletes going through changes.
My town’s middle school launched a baseball team this year. Our community is heavily invested in baseball and felt it had the talent to compete against bigger schools. There was no concurrent softball team launched, the main reason given was there weren’t numbers and you would have too many first-time players. But the thing is many of the opponents our middle school baseball team has faced also have players who had never picked up a bat before. That’s the beauty of middle school sports (well, no cut sports anyhow). You try out the sport, maybe it’s a natural fit, maybe not, but at least you’re given the infrastructure to find out. With a middle school softball team, the softball pipeline becomes, clearer for the youngest participants and hopefully, eventually leads to more robust registration.
There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution as each community and rec department is different. Not all communities have a disparity. But if you feel like there is one, call it out and do some troubleshooting. Join the local board. Have a shoirt-term and long-term plan for growth. Yeah yeah, all easier said than done. But it truly is a strength in numbers and brain power situation and too often it appears many girls sports are operating an institutional disadvantage.
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