I am honored to write a response to the inaugural Helen Pond Lecture, given by Professor Catharine Stimpson. In her talk, "The Atalanta Syndrome: Women, Sports and Cultural Values," Professor Stimpson names a cultural illness in which women are devalued and, though they are capable of becoming strong if nurtured, are often distracted like the young Atalanta such that they conform to cultural norms. Much of Professor Stimpson's remarks about her life as a feminist, scholar, and fan resonated with me in my work as a scholar of sport, former athletic director, coach, and lifelong athlete. In this essay, I will address the historical and significant impact of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (AIAW) and Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 - and their roles in the healing of the Atalanta Syndrome. I will also elaborate on the gendered images of women in sport and on how "heterosexy" constructions may be thought of as Atalantan distractions.

The passion for sport that I share with Professor Stimpson began for me in grade school. I was an excellent athlete and loved competition, but like so many other girls, I was relegated to the sidelines as a cheerleader or band member. Though many of us had skills comparable to our adolescent brothers, the liberal healing of the Atalanta syndrome (manifest in women's entry into organized sport) had not yet begun. Most of the school gymnasiums across the country were reserved for boys. In college the horizon seemed a little brighter, as intercollegiate sport opportunities became available under the guidance of visionary and competent female coaches. Additional support and encouragement came in the form of a feminist consciousness and in my mother and her friends, who were vocal in their dismay at gender-biased coverage in the local newspapers. Now, thirty years later, I continue to voice that dismay.

As an athlete, coach, and athletic administrator, I found sportswomen and their coaches treated as the "Others," the outsiders who were treading on highly privileged and protected male terrain. Though Title IX had been passed in 1972, there were many schools that were reluctant and many that refused to provide equal opportunities in sport. Boys' and men's teams remained the priority: women's teams had to fit in practice and game times around the men's schedules, their budgets and coaches' salaries were paltry compared to their male counterparts, and their game scores and athletic accomplishments seldom made the sports page. We were told that equity would take time and that we needed to exercise patience. I was impatient with these responses as I thought about the millions of girls and women who never had the opportunity to play organized sports that boys and men have enjoyed for 100-plus years. My mother, for one, would almost certainly have had her jersey number retired had she been given the chance to play.

As disparities continued, many of us forged ahead with the newly formed Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) leading the way. The AIAW was both a liberal feminist organization and a radical one. The liberal feminist response was evident in its efforts to foster the growth and development of women's athletic programs, providing opportunities similar to men's intercollegiate athletics. The AIAW also chose a radical approach by doing sport differently than men. Constitutional by-laws and an athletes' bill of rights reflected those differences by emphasizing the female student-athlete and valuing her athletic and academic accomplishments equally. The goal was athletic excellence, but not at the cost of the personal welfare of the student-athlete. These philosophical tenets fit perfectly with the educational mission of the university. Additionally, and of no small import, the AIAW was organized, developed, and administered by women. Its nurturing helped hundreds of thousands of women to become strong athletes and leaders. The AIAW grew to over 980 members, gained corporate sponsorships, and secured a $1 million television contract, making women's sports a profitable attraction. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the major governing body of men's collegiate sport, became interested as the AIAW strengthened its leadership of women's intercollegiate sport.

The course of women's intercollegiate athletics was changed when, at its annual meeting in 1981, the NCAA voted in favor of offering Division I women's championships. Ironically, this occurred at the same time that the NCAA was fighting to have intercollegiate athletics exempted from Title IX. Though the AIAW's institutional membership had been larger than the NCAA's, it did not have the resources, financial and otherwise, to prevent the "takeover." A preliminary injunction and an antitrust suit were filed against the NCAA but failed. The AIAW was forced to disband in 1983, giving power and control over women's intercollegiate sports to men.

Since 1983, NCAA leadership and the implementation of Title IX have prompted many changes, some good and others not. The number of sports has increased at almost every institution, providing thousands of college women the opportunity to compete. The number of championships has also increased, as has television revenue. The downside, though, includes the "arms race" of building multi-million-dollar stadiums and offering million-dollar coaching salaries, the exploitation of student-athletes, and a win-at-all costs mentality at odds with many of the academic goals and objectives expressed in most higher education mission statements.

In accepting the demise of the AIAW, many female coaches and administrators hoped that women and men would work together to transform intercollegiate sport. Instead, most women's programs were modeled after the men's, and female leadership declined. In 1972, 90 percent of women's teams were coached by women, and 90 percent of those programs were also administered by a female head athletic director. In 2002, only 44 percent of women's teams were coached by women (the lowest representation in history) and 17.9 percent were directed by a female head athletic director.[1] (In addition, the NCAA Executive Committee (its highest governance body) is currently composed of 17 men and 2 women.[2] Despite this loss of power and control of women's sport, it is critical that we continue to work for structural changes in the organization and practice of sport, changes that will lead not only to gender fairness but also fiscal and academic accountability. The Knight Foundation's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and the Drake Group[3] are leaders in the effort to transform the institution of college sport. In a "Call to Action," the Knight Foundation's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics suggests several ways to reform sport and states that "if it proves impossible to create a system of intercollegiate athletics that can live honorably within the American college and university, then responsible citizens must join with academic and public leaders to insist that the nation's colleges and universities get out of the business of big-time sports."[4] Transformation of college sport will not be an easy task, nor will it happen in any substantial way without the support and leadership of university presidents and regents.

Equally important to this transformation is the role of the media. They are significant in reflecting and shaping public perceptions of women and sport. Since Title IX was enacted, girls and women have entered sport in record numbers. This entry into sport is part of what Dr. Stimpson describes as one of the treatments in the liberal healing of the Atalanta Syndrome. She also acknowledges the cost, however: "the weakening of the Atalanta syndrome is extracting a price: the sexualization of the strong female athlete, the engineering of the 'buff bunny' or the heterosexy competitor."[5] In an effort to gain recognition, publicity, and corporate sponsorship, female athletes are offered, and accept, promotions that emphasize their femininity and sexuality and distract from their athleticism. Though coverage of women's sports has increased, the type of coverage has often marginalized the athletic accomplishments of women, sending the message that female athletes are "less than" their male counterparts. This demeaning representation is a modern-day Atalantan distraction, yet another symbolic golden apple, which cheering fans encourage the modern day Atalanta to pick up so that she might fall behind in the race. Numerous studies by sport scholars have documented that the popular press (sports magazines, newspapers, and television) have underreported, ignored, and trivialized women's athletic success.[6] In addition to mainstream public media, our longitudinal research on university-controlled athletic media guides has provided similar and interestingly new results.

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NCAA Division I media guides are representative of a powerful, highly prestigious and influential sector of organized sport. They are the primary means by which colleges and universities market their athletic teams to the press, advertisers, corporate sponsors, and prospective student athletes. They are the broader version of game programs, highlighting the teams on high-gloss, multi-colored cover photographs. A textual analysis was done on these cover photographs to investigate gender difference and hierarchy in sport. An initial study in 1990 showed that women were significantly more likely to be portrayed in traditionally feminine ways, while men were significantly more likely to be portrayed as competent athletes (on the court, in uniform and in action). Female athletes were marginalized and trivialized in these portrayals in that their femininity, rather than their athletic competence as powerful and skilled athletes, was emphasized. One university provided the perfect example: in men's basketball, an athlete is in action executing a jump shot with two defenders guarding him and a gymnasium full of spectators in the background, while the women's basketball team for the same school and the same year are shown in formal dresses with heavily made-up faces and styled hair, posed around a luxury car with a stately mansion in the background. The cover photograph for women's basketball gives no indication (either by text or photograph) that the publication is about basketball. Rather, the women's appearance suggests that they might be candidates for homecoming queen.[7]

A similar pattern emerged in a 1997 follow-up study of the same NCAA Division I conferences and teams. The female athletes continued to be constructed differently than their male counterparts. For all sports, male athletes were represented as true athletes (on the court, in uniform and in action) 59 percent of the time, compared to 39 percent for female athletes. These results were surprising and disappointing, especially in light of the tremendous success of the U.S. women at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.[8]

In 2004, in collaboration with Professor Mary Jo Kane, Director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, we replicated the previous studies and performed analyses on three categories (uniform, court, and pose) from a longitudinal perspective. In a significant departure from the previous two studies, there were no statistically significant differences between women and men. Women were overwhelmingly presented as serious, competent athletes (on the court, in uniform and in active athletic roles) 72 percent of the time compared to 79 percent for the men. Over a 15-year span, females came to be presented as "true athletes" in ways that achieved or approximated parity with male athletes.[9]

From the initial study in 1990 to the most recent in 2004, there was a dramatic shift toward representing women as competent athletes. While there may be no empirical evidence to suggest a cause-effect relationship, we posited a few possible explanations for this change.

One possible cause of the change is the remarkable progress in women's sport in the wake of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, when U.S. women achieved gold medals in basketball, soccer, gymnastics, and softball. Since then, two new professional leagues were launched, and in 1999 the women's soccer team won the World Cup. A second involves efforts of sport scholars and the general public to critique the mainstream media. These critical reviews often appear in the same media outlets that are known to marginalize and trivialize girls and women in sport. A final possible cause, and the one that seems the most plausible, involves the efforts by sport scholars and other educators to transmit to the next generation of decision-makers the vast body of knowledge generated by sport media research. With a proliferation of sport studies, sport management, and sport marketing degree programs in higher education, future sport professionals are being exposed to media research and responsible marketing strategies that provide alternative, empowering forms of representation. It is clear that decision-makers involved in the production of intercollegiate media guides are, at this point in time, leading the way.

While university-controlled sports media have begun treating women as serious athletes in their publications, the same does not appear to be true of other media outlets. Sports Illustrated seldom features a female athlete on the cover, and when it does, she is often featured as a heterosexy female, not as a serious athlete. One recent example is the 2005 summer double issue, which features Jenny Finch, Olympic gold medalist in fastpitch. She is posed holding what appears to be a Wiffle ball and plastic bat, scantily clad in a denim miniskirt and tank top. While this may seem an improvement over her soft-core porn image in a previous Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, it does not reflect the power and strength of her 70-mph pitching, which leaves some of the best men in baseball standing helpless at the plate. I have yet to see a male athlete trivialized in this way in a sport related magazine, nor would I encourage this type of portrayal.

Further evidence of differential media treatment may be seen in televised sports. A recently published study of sports news broadcasts on local (Los Angeles) and on national (ESPN) TV found that in 2004 women's sports received 6.3 percent of the air time, compared to 91.4 percent for men's sports.[10] This indicated a 2.5 percent decrease from 1999. The investigators (one of whom is a respondent in this issue) also reported that, though there were examples of fair and respectful reporting, there continued to be examples of sexualization of women athletes.

Responsible reporting by the media means respecting the female athlete for her skills, valuing her athletic competence, and treating her as an athlete, not a "sex object" (in the seemingly dated yet sadly still relevant vernacular). The university-controlled sports media have made positive changes in the presentation of female athletes on their media guide covers.

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In recent years, they provided leadership and set a precedent for equitable and respectful representation of female athleticism. Publishing images of sportswomen accomplishing physical feats of power, agility, strength, and endurance is critical to ending sexism in sport and improving gender relations. More efforts need to be made to hold the popular media accountable for responsible and honorable reporting and representation. As fans and educators, we also have a responsibility. When we read about, listen to, or watch our favorite sports, it is our duty to raise our voices to ensure that the media treat girls and women in sport fairly and with respect for their bodies. We must continue to speak up by writing and calling on the editors and producers to increase and improve their coverage of girls and women in sports, in addition to boycotting their sponsors and advertisers. And as educators, it is our duty to continue researching and communicating the relationship between sport and gender order and to provide information and opportunities for critical reflection in our classrooms.

Professor Stimpson asked: "Is the female athlete who is both 'strong' and 'sexy' a self-empowered, self-willed new definition of beauty? Or, in spite of all her hard work has she been ultimately passive and exploited?" Stimpson suggests that both positions are plausible and that "changes in gender tend to combine change with its containment, which insures that evolution is neither easy nor revolutionary." Yes, changes in gender are complex. As women's opportunities in sports increased substantially (primarily with the help of AIAW and Title IX) they were also contained as the male-dominated NCAA gained control of women's intercollegiate athletic programs. And as women have shown their power and excellence as athletes, they have also been exploited. Sexually suggestive and heterosexy images serve to contain women, creating a fundamental barrier to any significant change with respect to how our culture views the female athlete and her body. Atalantan distractions, such as the "enticement" of being a Sports Illustrated cover girl, have not only contained the female athlete; they have also served to contain women's leadership in sport.

Whether the "apples" that distract modern-day Atalantas be as green as money or as gold as ancient Atalanta's wedding band, they continue to be symbolic reminders of male hegemony in sport and society. The Atalanta syndrome continues. The healing involves radical measures in the organization and practice of sport, some of which have already been addressed. Individuals who value equity need also to advocate for all-inclusive language and a "no tolerance" stance for disrespectful comments to or from any athlete, administrator, or fan. This would necessitate new parenting, teaching, and coaching strategies that emphasize behaviors that are respectful of all human beings. Our work must also be toward transforming the masculinized management style of sport to one that takes into account women's values and ideas and allows women reasonable access and accommodation to coaching and administrative positions. Finally, we must continue our efforts toward interdisciplinary work between sport scholars and feminist scholars from all disciplines. Sport is an important site where dominant ideas of gender are shared and nurtured. Feminist scholars of every discipline must attend to the culture created and fostered on playgrounds and playing fields.

Endnotes

1. R. V. Acosta and L.J. Carpenter, Women in Intercollegiate Sport: A Longitudinal, National Study. Twenty Seven Year Update, 1977-2004 (West Brookfield, MA: Brooklyn College and Smith College, 2004), 1. [Return to text]

2. A full list of these members is provided at http:// web1.ncaa.org/committees/. [Return to text]

3. The Drake Group is a network of college faculty devoted to quality education for college athletes and support for faculty who are threatened for defending academic standards. See www.thedrakegroup.org. [Return to text]

4. Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, A Call to Action: Reconnecting College Sports and Higher Education (Miami: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 2001), 31. [Return to text]

5. Catherine Stimpson, "The Atalanta Syndrome: Women, Sport, and Cultural Values," Inaugural Helen Pond Lecture, The Scholar and Feminist Online, vol. 4, no. 3 (Summer 2006). [Return to text]

6. For more information related to studies with respect to underrepresentation include but are not limited to Eastman and Billings (2001), Fink and Kensicki (2002), Kane (1996), Duncan and Messner (2005). For studies related to type of coverage, the following works are cited, but not limited to Duncan (1990), Daddario (1997), Kane and Lenskj (1998). [Return to text]

7. To view copies of these photographs, Jo Ann Buysse, "Constructions of Gender and Hierarchy in Sport: An Analysis of NCAA Division I Intercollegiate Media Guide Cover Photographs" (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1992), 89-90. [Return to text]

8. The first two studies and their results are available in J. Buysse and M. Embser-Herbert, "Constructions of Gender in Sport: An analysis of intercollegiate media guide cover photographs," Gender and Society 18, no. 1 (1994): 66-81. [Return to text]

9. For complete results of this study see M. J. Kane and J. M. Buysse, "Intercollegiate Media Guides as Contested Terrain: A Longitudinal Analysis," Sociology of Sport Journal 22 (2005): 214-238. [Return to text]

10. Margaret Carlisle Duncan and Michael Messner, "Gender in Televised Sports: News and Highlights Shows, 1989-2004." (Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, 2005). [Return to text]