A feminist journalist and author came to campus this weekend demanding gender equity in athletics.
"It's time for equal opportunity," said Mariah Nelson, who specifically writes about gender issues and sports. "If women had 70 percent of the athletic opportunities and men had 30 percent [of the athletic opportunities] for the next 100 years, that would be justice."
Nelson headlined a conference titled "Gender and Sports: Setting a Course for College Athletics." The conference was presented by the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy in the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy on Friday and Saturday. While Nelson played varsity basketball at Stanford in the late 1970s and later played professional basketball in Europe, her career since then has focused on sports and feminism; she has written for several newspapers and periodicals and has also published two books on the same subjects. Her current book, "The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football," looks at the unique situation of football as a sport in American culture and how this affects women.
Nelson said that the history of women's sports includes a long list of reasons why men believed women should not play sports. She also stressed that the phenomenon continues to the present day, citing the fact that 1984 was the first year in which women were allowed to run the marathon in the Olympics.
While Nelson acknowledged some progress, she said many changes still need to be made. Although more females participate in sports than ever before, there are still moves to limit the involvement of female athletes.
"The media is a place where we're not winning yet, especially in sports," Nelson said. "There are subtle ways of not acknowledging men's failures and instead blaming these failures on `too much strength.' The media also ignores women's sports. Men's sports take up 95 percent of the sports section in the newspapers. We should notice what's going on in women's sports."
Nelson brought up the coaching disparities of sports in the United States. More than 80 percent of high school coaches are male.
Another key contributor to the lack of equity in sports is what she termed "internalized sexism." With eating disorders rampant among college women, Nelson lamented the stereotypes of the weak, frail, skinny woman.
"It's not okay [for women] to have big muscles," Nelson said. "It's not okay to win. Women are using sports now to be thin, to be smaller, to take up less space. Women should use sports to empower themselves rather than to become smaller."
She also suggested ways in which women -- and men who are interested -- can work together to solve the problems she pointed out. Nelson said she would like to see more teamwork and cooperation in the female community to protest the injustices that women face.
"Society tells us it's unfeminine to be loud," Nelson said. "We need to protest the assassination on Title IX [a federal regulation against sex-based discrimination] and protest the media. Coach women's sports. We need to think of ourselves as coaches and teammates with other women. There should be female bonding off the court."
Nelson acknowledged that these initiatives will not be easy for anyone to accomplish. She suggested that women take a courageous, proud attitude and not expect widespread approval.
"Feminism is about having power over ourselves and choosing for ourselves," Nelson said. "Sports are empowering women, and it's changing society."
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