Women can benefit from sports activities across the entire continuum from play to professional. Women have been catapulted into serious sports training and have been able to contend for more sports opportunities due to the evolution of clothing reforms, more acceptable sports, the right to vote, and the right to control pregnancy. Women have…

In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, an era of narrowly circumscribed female roles, basketball created tension by expanding women's opportunities for competitive athletic activity. The characteristics which made it popular with women--spontaneity, freedom of movement, and vigorous team play--contradicted prevailing ideals of…

The Gender Equity in Recreation Services Policy for the City of London (Ontario, Canada, November 1996) was the first municipal policy of its kind in Canada. It followed the development of the Sport Canada Policy on Women in Sport and the Ontario Policy on Full and Fair Access for Women and Girls in Sport and Physical Activity. It resulted from…

An overview is presented of the political struggle for equal rights for women athletes. Discussed is the role of the National Collegiate Association for Athletics (NCAA), which has been against increased intercollegiate and interscholastic athletic opportunities for women. The genesis of the Fourteenth Amendment (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act…