Title IX The Effect this Law has had on American Culture

Title IX A law passed in 1972 that requires gender equity for boys and girls in every educational program that receives federal funding.

Access to Higher Education

Colleges & Universities didn’t admit women because women were to be concerned about marriage and children rather than higher education.

Athletics

The main athletic opportunities for girls were cheerleading and square dancing. Inly 1 in 27 girls played high school sports. The budget for college girls athletics was about 2 of the overall budget for athletics.

Career Education

Some schools didn’t allow girls to take some vocational classes like woodworking, metal working, electrical or plumbing courses. Instead they were only allowed access to home economics courses like child-care and sewing. The results were that women were only trained for low-wage jobs that were traditional for women such as jobs in health care and cosmetology.

Education for Pregnant and Parenting Students

Girls were often expelled from school if they became pregnant.

Employment at Universities

Few women taught at the college/university level and those that did primarily taught women’s colleges. Often they were not granted tenure and earned much less than the male teachers. Only a few women were hired as administrators.

Learning Environment

Gender stereotypes were commonly used by teachers and educational resources, including textbooks. These stereotypes portrayed women as nurturing, best suited to be wives, mothers, secretaries, nurses, and elementary school teachers and men as active, inventive, and independent. In the classroom, boys received the majority of the teacher’s attention and it was generally believed that math and science were for boys and the arts and literature were for girls.

Math and Science

Girls were sometimes steered away from higher-level classes in math and science, discouraged from joining math and science clubs because the prevalent stereotype was the girls weren’t good at and didn’t like math and science.

Sexual Harassment

Making sexual innuendos, calling people sexually charged names, spreading rumors about sexual activity, or touching someone inappropriately used to be dismissed as “boys will be boys” type of behavior.

Standardized Testing

Girls consistently scored lower than boys on standardized tests. Gender bias was occurring due to the kinds of questions asked and how they were asked.

Technology

Computer programming was considered a male profession and computer games were designed as boys’ toys. When women used a computer it was for data entry.