In her New York Times article “Equity in Sports Has Focused on Gender, Not Race. So Gaps Persist,” Alanis Thames discusses mass gender and racial inequality in sports. Even though Black women are beneficiaries of the Title IX of the 1972 Educational Amendments, which prohibited sex-based discrimination, the door for sports participation has historically been open to White women (Thames, 2022). As a result, Black female athletes remain significantly underrepresented in most sports programs, especially such sports as swimming, tennis, and soccer. The inequalities stem from the fact that Title IX favored White women because of the lack of consideration for the intersection of race and gender.
In the article, the author discusses the experiences of Black women in sports, commenting on the issue of their race preventing them from participating. One of the sportswomen interviewed for the piece said that people saw their Blackness first and not gender, which was quite problematic, with the “essence of their race” defining their experiences (Thames, 2022). Women of color lack representation in sports because, since school and college, they were limited in their opportunities to play sports. Dominantly White schools had twice as many programs for sports training for their students compared to non-White ones, laying out a foundation for the unequal racial distribution in sports. In addition, the costs associated with engaging in sports have significantly limited Black women’s participation because their socioeconomic background, such as family income, did not allow for much flexibility. Thus, the lack of resources and limited opportunities available to Black women prevented the group’s participation in sports despite the efforts in Title IX aiming to guarantee equal opportunities.
Reference
Thames, A. (2022). Equity in sports has focused on gender, not race. So gaps persist. The New York Times. Web.