Abstract
The popular press often associates Title IX with women’s sports. Yet, sports were far from the minds of early proponents. The original idea was limited to opening higher education to women students and faculty, a push that, over time, evolved into a sweeping law that has affected all levels of public and private education. This major law has lacked a thorough study of its origins. My study fills the gap by examining developments of interrelated events in the 1960s that were critical to the 1972 enactment of Title IX. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the thrust of the book and its themes of feminism, gender, power, and caste. It presents the book’s three interwoven strands that reveal both heroism and human shortcomings: the unshakable struggle to overturn a patriarchal, casteist system; issues of class, race/ethnicity, and heteronormativity that lay within the early effort; and particular advocates’ limited perspectives of gender equity.
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Notes
- 1.
Busch and Thro, Title IX; Harris, Beyond the Rapist; Melnick, The Transformation of Title IX; Brake, Getting in the Game; Suggs, A Place on the Team; Hogshead-Makar and Zimbalist, Equal Play.
- 2.
Skrentny, The Minority Rights Revolution, 242; Gelb and Palley, Women and Policies, 94; Rose, Citizens by Degree, 100, 104, quote on 100; Fishel and Pottker, National Politics and Sex Discrimination in Education. Freeman, The Politics of Women’s Liberation, 191–223, does not interconnect feminist activism and congressional action during the 1960s–1970s.
- 3.
My study drew inspiration from Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” 1067.
- 4.
An exception: Ryan, Feminism and the Women’s Movement, 71–73, discusses conflicts in 1974–1975 within NOW.
- 5.
Evans, Tidal Wave, 2; Thompson, “Multiracial Feminism,” 43, 57n7.
- 6.
Bailey and Graves, “Gender and Education,” 688; Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” 1069. See also Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity, 5–6.
- 7.
Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, 3; Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 98.
- 8.
Wilkerson, Caste, 17, 70–72; quotes from 17, 70. My definition excludes Wilkerson’s eight pillars.
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Tamura, E.H. (2022). Introduction. In: We Too! Gender Equity in Education and the Road to Title IX. Historical Studies in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-02074-2_1
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