6 - Gender Equality in College Sports and Beyond

Summary

Much has changed in the fifty years since the passage of Title IX. Although opportunities for women have shifted from wholesale exclusion, full equality remains unrealized. Our findings reveal a series of institutional barriers, many of which are baked into the structure of college sports. Sex segregation, intransigent androcentric culture, and lackluster market demands impede women’s progress. This concluding chapter includes discussion of steps that could be taken to move toward improving equality, addressing the hurdles, and making inroads on the way to major policy shifts. We also consider the implications of our findings for understanding the possibilities for using policy to address the concerns of marginalized groups more generally. We discuss the ways in which addressing these concerns will also benefit inclusion for transgender and gender-diverse athletes. Institutional context and embedded hierarchies of power can constrain such groups’ possibilities in their quest toward equality and inclusion.