- Emily Taylor, welcome to A Feminist Perspective. This weekly radio broadcast is sponsored by the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center. A program and information service of the Dean of women's office, 220 Strong Hall, the University of Kansas. Tonight's broadcast is on the subject of women and athletics. A feminist perspective provides a forum for women themselves to speak publicly on issues of concern to them and help inform other women and men of the movement which is remaking the shape and substance of women's and men's lives throughout the world. The Women's Resource and Career Planning Center contains large amounts of information, news clippings, government documents, magazine articles, research studies, and books pertaining to the many aspects of the women's movement. We should like to invite you to come in to browse or take advantage of the materials which can be borrowed. That's in 220 Strong Hall, at the University of Kansas. Our guests tonight are Sharon Drysdale, director of women's intercollegiate athletics at KU, or is it a coordinator of women's intercollegiate athletics at KU. Paige Carney and Joan Lundstrom who are teachers of women's physical education at the Lawrence High School. And we hope to be joined before the conclusion of tonight's program by Marianne Washington who is in graduate school in physical educations at the university. And Sharon, hasn't she had some special honors to recognition as a woman athlete.

- Yes, she has. Marianne is an All-American in basketball, has played for years with the Piperettes in Missouri and she's also very established discus thrower, and has several opportunities to make the Olympic team.

- That's so wonderful does she have an opportunity here to get any special training for that purpose, or is it just on entirely on her own

- She's been working on her own and she's also been working with coach, Bill Easton.

- I see, well, why don't we start by having you folks tell us how'd you get into this? When did you decide that you were first interested in studying physical education and in teaching in the school? So how about you, Paige?

- Well, I guess you always try to do things that you were successful at. When I was a kid and growing up through high school and through college, that's when I did best. And so you liked to go into things that you do best and that's why I did it. The good competition, I enjoy the team emphasis and a lot of other aspects about it, but that's the reason I'm in it.

- Outside of the school program, when you were a child did you play with any of the boys in your neighborhood?

- Oh, very informally. Yeah, sure, there's--

- How di you get a long?

- Fine, you can always hold your own when you're younger than when they start to grow up then they got a little better.

- Or somebody tells you you're not supposed to anymore.

- Right.

- I was curious about that because I grew up in a block where my two sisters and I were the only girls and so we played entirely with the boys. I don't recall that we got any special consideration because of being at girls, we could compete very well with them at that time. But when we were in school, somehow it was all divided up and you weren't supposed to do that anymore. How about you, Joan, how'd you decide?

- Well, I think you always try to choose something as a profession that you like to do and I've always enjoyed participating in sports and competing in different sports, even as a child. I guess I found myself playing with some boys some of the time too and engaging in maybe some unladylike activities but then through high school we did have a little bit of competition in my high school. And I guess that's what hit me in this direction.

- What kind of competition did you have?

- When I was in school, we competed in the form of sports days, which was more or less an informal type of competition. We might have one or two practices a week for a certain sport. And then we'd jump around from season to season or sport to sport where one Saturday we might be playing volleyball and another Saturday basketball or something like this. So it was really kind of informal.

- Did both of you go to Kansas School?

- Yeah.

- I went to Eudora,

- Eudora!

- There was no competitive program that was new then anyway and coming from a smaller school league kind of hard to expect them to be that up on things, but there was nothing organized and there was always talk of, you know wanting to play on the boys teams and things like that, but it was all taught, nothing really serious.

- How about you Joan, did you go to Kansas School?

- I went there just in high school. And most of our competition came with the Shawnee Mission Schools, and like I said, in sports days, things like this.

- I would have to as the only one representative here of a generation who can do this from personal experience object to the term new. And so there's nothing new about the competition among women's teams. When I was in high school and in college, both I played basketball on those were my favorite sport. But then something happened, you know, which changed all that to the point where it really does seem new at the present time, although I'm sure you knew that women's athletics is scarcely a new idea. How about you, Sharon, when did you get interested in and why?

- Well, I think I've also always been interested in doing some of the things I like. I've never been particularly extroverted and fortunately enough, I had a twin so that we could play together on our own. And although I had aspirations in other areas I came back to the thing that I enjoyed the most.

- And then decided to pursue it and graduate education also. Are you first, Joan and Paige planning to do do further educational work in your field?

- I always plan to, I have about close to 20 hours on a master's, but it's a little hard to do while you're teaching. You have to really cram in the hours, but plan to.

- I think I'd like to go back and get my master's sometime right now I can't say when, but it's in the future I hope.

- Now, you know, that this last year the "Sports Illustrated" ran a series of three articles on the subject of athletic programs. And this was later condensed into an article by the "Reader's Digest" which is read by some 20 million people. I presume there are a lot of women who don't read the "Sports Illustrated" unless they have a particular interest in women's physical education or in a women's athletics. But I was pleased to see this summer in the "Reader's Digest," because as I said this reaches millions and millions of people. And they're heading is, the billion dollars a year that America spends on athletic programs has been overwhelmingly lavished on the male half of the population. That's the first part of it. Anybody disagree with that? No one disagree? But big changes are in view, this is the thing with which the article particularly deals. As a matter of fact in my opinion, this is one of the hottest issues of the present time which people have barely begun to even consider. And I want to ask you folks to respond to some of the things that appear in this article to say very honestly how you feel about the situation where we are, and where you think we should be going. In the first place there are the very interesting items that are usually mentioned, and I'm sure they're not news to any of you. The arguments that are used by those who want to defend the present system have a tremendous emphasis on athletics for men and a tremendous playing down of interest in athletics for women. Despite the manifest injustice as a whole system, there are still plenty of people who attempt to defend it. The first of these arguments is that athletics are physically bad for women that competition may masculinize their appearance, and affect their sexual behavior. What's your response to that?

- I think that's ridiculous.

- I'm sure the responses are ridiculous.

- I think, if they have seen present teams, well I can only speak of the high school because that's what I've seen. You watch kids play on the floor, you watch their conduct on and off the court, and there is nothing masculine about them. I have girls that play very competitively and they can still be on and off the court and I think it has anything to do with masculinity.

- Well, you do have experience beyond the high school because you were in college. I wish this program were on television, except for me. I'd like for you because I see these representatives here are far from masculinized and I certainly agree with you that the argument does more than border on that are ridiculous about masculinization of appearance. But how about if they're physically bad for women? Any truth in that?

- I think there's one more to review the research this would be contradicted to a great extent. I think certainly women, as well as men can benefit from the great, balance, coordination, flexibility and strengths, and so on and performance in inactivity and in movement allows them to develop. And I think too many researchers has shown that contrary to having any effect on sexual interest and so on maybe someone simulating to it. And as the stereotype changes, I think many of the qualities that one can develop through participation some degree of aggression, self-confidence, and so on may actually be more attractive.

- Any evidence that women are hurt more often than men in athletic competition, maybe nobody? How about in high school, did girls get hurt any often than the boys as often or what?

- I think girls expect to be baby more than boys. I hope to do something about that, but whenever they sprag all you have to do is put some ice on and you're back in the game. It's a lot of the coaching, you have to tell them that they're fit to play they're not hurt that bad.

- And what's the reason for that, I mean, why would they feel that way, any theories on that? Used to being babies than everything else I presume all their lives.

- From home, from parents.

- No if your kids hurt a little girl and tell the little boy that, you know get up and get on with it--

- Conditioning

- You're conditioning them to feel that that sprain is terribly important. I think the actual, there's been a good deal of research on this and there is no evidence that there's any higher incidents of injury than incomparable boys' programs. Now, if you're talking about context sports since they're not too many, is there any competition in football, for instance?

- Not at this university and not in high schools in this area but there is professional women's football, but women compete against women.

- And even there, there's no evidence of greater incidents of injury.

- As far as this goes, whether you're talking about men's sports or women's sports, I think a lot depends on how it's handled. For instance, like in Paige's basketball competition. Sure there can be a lot of physical contact and a lot of injuries can result from it. But if there's a good officiating and the coaches are sensible and the girls are well coached I think this is gonna kind of let it out.

- The second argument that the "Sports Illustrated" talked about was that women do not play sports well enough to deserve a athletic equality. What kind of comment do you have on that argument?

- I'd say that it is unreasonable to expect an individual to develop skills when essentially they've been kept in the cage on the other side of the fence throughout most of their lives. And I think if given the opportunity that women will achieve levels that are very close to their potential.

- Anybody else have a comment? May I give an example from those early days? I once taught a school where I was a counselor in a high school that they played, we had interscholastic competition. And in basketball, the girls team which always was the preliminary game, of course,

- Hmm!

- Was so much better than the boys team that everybody was there to watch the girls competition and it was a source of some embarrassment to the school that there were people who left when the men's, team started to play because they really weren't very good. Actually many of those games were very exciting games and of course, we had the Olympic competition, what about that? Women do not play sports well enough to deserve athletic equality. Have they done pretty well in the Olympics?

- I think that in the beginning, women were not allowed to compete in the Olympics. And I think, again it's difficult to equate because American women are then competing with women and other parts of the country where the stereotypes maybe are not as firmly ingrained as they are here and maybe where they are more respected and given greater opportunities and more advantages. So I think we have performed very well in some sports and not as well in others as I think can certainly hope to future.

- The third argument is that girls aren't really interested in sports and therefore we shouldn't waste our money on them. What's your comment to that?

- Well, we had over a 100 people try out for basketball this year at the high school for 16 positions. I think there's a great deal of interest. I think that we have a core of people that perform most of the sports we have maybe 25 really good people that participate in most of the teams, but there's still the interest other kids that are maybe a little more than adequate, but they may not make the team and they still come out and they try. I think there's a definite interest in almost every sport.

- Any other comments on that?

- I think that little girls love to play and it's only when they begin to realize the kinds of things they should play with and play at, that they begin to try to channel themselves in other directions.

- And if a little girl is given this argument that athletics are physically bad for her may interfere with her being able to have children later in life which is one of the ones that sometimes used despite the fact that nothing seems to be better protected than reproductive organs, or that she's going to masculinize she probably takes that pretty seriously. So then when those, I presume that you people, who were in physical education do what you can do try to combat the argument to that kind of along the line. Do you know anything about this Iowa program that they talk about in some 500 Iowa schools do have have the state athletic association.

- I have gone to school at the University of Iowa, and although I have not actually participated in the Iowa High School program, I've seen some of the games on television and they do get thousands and thousands, and thousands of people out for their state tournaments, and so on. They do not use the same rules that many other high schools or even colleges do, but their program is very well organized. They have all of these small communities involved and it's the thing to do.

- In fact, the quotation from them is it all those dire warnings and the medical moral and financial disasters that would follow if girls were granted athletic parity or considered hogwash in Iowa, do you agree with that?

- I think the broadcasters are still focusing on the crying players when they lose and so on and try to point out the emotional instabilities and so on. But I think that men too IN championship competition and so on do sometimes show the strains of that competition and show the lesions of victory too.

- They say that here in Iowa the coaches are paid exactly the same as the coaches of boys teams and if the girls teams are fully equipped, has the same practice facilities, travel in the same style, and are given the same school rewards as boys teams. How is that compared with the situation here?

- Well, as far as our program in Kansas, I can say that we're given the same rewards now as a boys team, the trophies that the state use are similar, but all of the other things that you mentioned probably depend upon the individual schools. Right now, for the first time this year on women coaches at Lawrence High are being paid the same as an assistant coach for one of the boys sports. And we consider this to be making progress from what we had in the past, I think next year we'll be able to do a lot more for girls. We will be included in the regular athletic budget rather than using money that the girls have raised themselves to support our programs. And we shouldn't be able to provide say meals, and transportation for the girls where we haven't before.

- How will that be for extra money, or as a division as a total between boys and girls?

- As I understand it, I guess it will be a division of the total that they have for the athletic budget.

- If we could have crowds in Kansas, like they have in Iowa, we could probably support ourselves like they do, but we don't have those.

- What sports really do support themselves for boys, or for men in college?

- Football support most of the remainders of the sports at the college level.

- So in other words, if you were having only such athletics that supported themselves, we would have primarily then only football and perhaps basketball.

- Perhaps basketball. Basketball at that time is able to complete a season So it's variable, but next to football I think is probably the next biggest money making sport.

- Now, when one listens to coaches talking. Talking now, I mean, not acting but talking. I always get the impression at least that they are saying that the athletics are for purposes other than simply competition, simply winning. Do those same arguments apply to women's sports. The argument that it's an educational activity, that is has educational value. Just the question I'm asking is if it has educational value for the men does it have equal educational value for the women?

- I think at the high school level, it definitely does. In several ways, not only did the girls learn a lot from just the experience of participating and competing but from the standpoint of their grades in school, I think although we're occupying quite a bit of their time with practices and things like this, parents will agree that during the quarters that they're involved in the sport their grades are better, their interest in school is good, and they're all around performance, and there educational endevours is a lot better too.

- If competition then is suppose to have values other than just entertaining... Entertaining the people who come to watch, you know, when you're talking about getting out crowds to see it in a sense it sounds as if the main value the athletics lies in and entertaining spectators rather than him what it does to the competitors, and I suspect you don't really mean that do you?

- When I say crowds I'm talking about financing yourself. I'm not talking about education values.

- But coaches do say, don't they, that athletics develops character, and good citizenship, and a good attitudes. Now, whether it does or not, of course, I'm not in a position to say but it's certainly contradictory to say that the girls shouldn't play because they're not good enough, or because none of people wanna come and watch them to make it to self-supporting. And at the same time argue that athletic for men is good because it develops a character and good citizenship and all those other fine things. There will be in February, I believe on February the 25th, a special program on the implications of Title IX, which says, that no person shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation, and be denied the benefits, or be treated differently from another person, or otherwise be discriminated against in any physical education, or non-competitive athletics operated by a recipient. That means any school at any level, college, high school, junior high school, grade school and no recipient shall provide any athletics separately on such basis. In complying with this regulation a recipient shall not discriminate on the basis of sex in selection of sports in which we'll offer instruction or other activities. Now, this has not, the Title IX of course, was passed last year as Title IX of the education amendments of 1972. And this is carried out as the law now says it must be it should provide a tremendous difference, in the programs in which all of you are involved, would it not? What would you do with all that money if you had half of it? Aren't there as many women as there are girls, as there are boys in the high school and!

- I'll built a gym so we could have a place to practice. We're practicing right now in a grade school gym because there is not enough room in the high school and enough time and we have to get pushed into a grade school gym, which is just fine now, but if we had money, that's what we built these facilities, I think.

- But in the mean time I presume you'd have to share the facilities of the high school. What do you mean that's not enough room or enough time? It's a question of who uses it, isn't it?

- The boys use it from three to six, and then the junior varsity has it, and then the sophomores have it, and then sometimes there's intramurals, adult education, wrestling meets, wrestling practice, and there's no time in the big gym, if we only have one facility it's gotta be shared only since we're just practicing everybody else's a big established program, we get what's left over and we go to grade school which is just fine with us for right now but if we had a choice.

- Well, obviously it won't be fine under the requirements of Title IX and so this is something to which everybody will have to give a considerable amount of attention. I would call your attention those of you who were in Lawrence to the article "Young Ideas" in the Journal World in Paige 14, last of date was it the January 16th, where a number of high school students were asked the question of what is your opinion of the girls' athletic program at Lawrence High School? And the most common response from both the boys and the girls that were asked dealt with inadequate facilities, and not enough time, and not enough equipment. Which was very interesting to me, especially since we did not have all the boys saying all girls shouldn't be competing anyway. So maybe the younger generation coming along have had hope if we're reading this at least that some of the members of the high school generation are beginning to recognize that perhaps the state of equality does not exist. And certainly there are college women aren't they Sharon, who feel very strongly about this subject. The topic tonight has been women in athletics. I wanna thank our guests, Sharon Drysdale, the coordinator of women's intercollegiate athletics at KU, Paige Carney and Joan Lundstrom, who are teachers of physical education and I take it that you're doing some coaching too from what you said at the Lawrence High School. For joining us and what we'll probably by no means be the last program on this subject, because as I said when the Title IX guidelines become known and the law is already available certainly great changes are going to take place in this very important matter of athletic opportunities for girls and women. Thank you for joining us. I hope you'll join us again next Monday at 7:30, for A Feminine Perspective.