"An enlightening glimpse of recent little-known history. . . . An excellent introduction to the subject."—Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature
Description
For nearly a century, women physical educators kept an iron-fist control of women’s intercollegiate athletics within the “sex-separate” spheres of college campuses and under an educational model of competition. According to the author, Ying Wushanley, that control began to loosen significantly when Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972. Title IX meant greater opportunities for women in educational activities, including intercollegiate athletics. Ten years after the passage of the law, however, women not only gave up their educational model but also lost their power and control of women’s intercollegiate athletics.
Playing Nice and Losing looks into the evolution of women’s intercollegiate athletics from a historical perspective and examines the demise of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). Five major themes emerge: the movement from protectionism to sex-separation of women’s college sports; the ascendance of women’s sports as a result of the Cold War and power struggle within U. S. amateur sports; the challenge to the sex-separatist philosophy; the NCAA takeover and bankruptcy of the AIAW; and the defeat of the AIAW as a defender of theseparate but equaldoctrine. With Title IX and formerly men’s organizations entering the governance of women’s intercollegiate athletics, sustaining the sex-separatist AIAW became untenable in American society.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Women's Intercollegiate Athletics in a Male-Dominated Society
2. The Background of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics: 1890s- 1960s
3. Cold War, Olympic Defeat, and Women's Sport as a Pawn: The AAU-NCAA Battle
4. Growing NCAA Interest in Women's Intercollegiate Athletics: 1963-1968
5. Early NCAA Attempts at the Governance of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics: 1968-1973
6. The Kellmeyer Lawsuit: Scholarships, Equal Opportunities, and the Questions of Power and Control
7. Equality over Power: The Impact of Title IX on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women
8. The Challenge to AIAW's Solitary Control: 1975 1979
9. Margot Polivy, Legal Costs, and the AIAW's Financial Disaster
10. From NCAA "Governance Plan" to the End of AIAW Operation
11. The Final Judgment: A Tale of Two Trials
Epilogue: Reducing the Gap: Gender Equity in Intercollegiate Athletics at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Table: A Comparison of AIAW Expenses on Legal Services and Championships 118
About the Author
Ying Wushanley is an associate professor at Millersville University in Pennsylvania and a former council member of the North American Society for Sport History.
Related Interest
April 2004