Title IX at 50: Legitimating State Domination of Women's Sport

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: (De)Constructing: An Exploration of Gender Issues in Education

Abstract

June 23, 2022 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Title-IX, an amendment to the 1964 US Civil Rights Act. If properly framed, anniversaries generate public reflection and recommitments to action (Whiteside and Roessner, 2018). While Title-IX is often credited with revolutionizing girls and women’s athletic access, we trace how the state stymied greater transformation efforts. Using poststructuralist and Black feminist state critiques, we show how Title-IX utilized an assimilation approach to equity by inviting state domination into women’s sports. This invitation expanded state power across four domains—definitional, protective, surveillance, and economic—which retained rather than disrupted heteropatriarchal, white, capitalist, dominance. We conclude with research suggestions to reimagine gender equitable sports for the forthcoming 50 years.

Authors

• Kirsten Hextrum, The University of Oklahoma

• Simran Sethi, University of Oklahoma