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Thirty Years Later: TitleIX Still Controversial
by Matt Sedensky

Equal Opportunity Coaching
by Allison Steele

The New Female Athlete
by Margarita Bertsos

Overtraining and Undereating
by Falasten Abdeljabbar

Playing Like a Girl
by Sasha Stumacher

Women's Tennis: The Marketing Model
by Daniel Mitha

Who Gets the Ball?
by Anne-Marie Harold

Selling Skin
by Suzanne Rozdeba

SlamJam and the Future
by Mike Gorman

Playing Out Identity
by Maya Jex



Progress comes slowly
A brief look at the history of women in sports


Bicycles were called the greatest emancipator of women when they were introduced in the 1890s.

776 B.C. - The first Olympics are held in ancient Greece. Women are excluded, so they compete every four years in their own Games of Hera, to honor the Greek goddess who ruled over women and the earth.

1865 - Matthew Vassar opens Vassar College with a special School of Physical Training with classes in riding, gardening, swimming, boating, skating and "other physical accomplishments suitable for ladies to acquire ... bodily strength and grace."

1876 - Nell Saunders defeated Rose Harland in the first United States women's boxing match, receiving a silver butter dish as a prize.

1882 - At the YWCA in Boston, the first athletic games for women are held.

1884 - Women's singles tennis competition is added to Wimbledon. Maud Watson wins in both 1884 and '85.

1887 - A women's field hockey club is started in Surrey, England.

1890's - More than a million American women will own and ride bicycles during the next decade. It is the first time in American history that an athletic activity for women will become widely popular.

1896 - Susan B. Anthony says that "the bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world."

1896 - At the first modern Olympics in Athens, a woman, Melpomene, barred from the official race, runs the same course as the men, finishing in 4 hours 30 minutes. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, says, "It is indecent that the spectators should be exposed to the risk of seeing the body of a women being smashed before their very eyes. Besides, no matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks."

1900 - The first 19 women to compete in the modern Olympics Games in Paris, France, play in just three sports: tennis, golf, and croquet. Margaret I. Abbott is the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal. An art student in Paris, she won the nine-hole golf tournament by shooting a 47.

1914 - The American Olympic Committee formally opposes women's athletic competition in the Olympics. The only exception is the floor exercise, where women are allowed to only wear long skirts.

1917 - The American Physical Education Association forms a committee on women's athletics to draft standardized, separate rules for women's collegiate field hockey, swimming, track and field, and soccer.




PAGE 2:
1921 to 2000: Title IX legislation gets 1.6 million American girls involved in high school sports by 1978. >>


History of women's sports teams
Here's a page of links to information on the history of women in a variety of sports.

Milestones for women in sports
Interested in more historical tidbits? Check out this page for more facts.

History of women at the Olympics
As the most watched international event, the Olympics can be seen as a gauge of progress.









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