Entry #6

I was interested in the topic because I had always heard little surface pieces about Title IX when I was playing sports in High School. A mom of one of my old teammates was adamant about Title IX and I remember it being brought up sometimes. It triggered other thoughts about Title IX and I started to think about what sports were like when I was growing up, and how I played on the boys' baseball teams because there weren't any girls teams that were competitive enough and available for me. My topic started out being a lot about how it helped girls athletics improve. I kind of had this vision that everything was so much better than it was. When I read some of the research and started learning about how Title IX still needs to be worked on and implemented better into athletics it got a little bit more interesting. 

I really liked researching for my counter-argument paper, because this is when I read about things that I had no idea before. I found some racial issues with Title IX that were a little unexpected but that made them interesting to me. Also, how women had to assimilate to a "man's" game was a new fact that I found. I also didn't realize the impact it had on men's sports teams. The research I found at first was different than my assumptions that I started with. I had this very false assumption that Title IX did no harm and helped give money to girls programs in some magical way that did not affect other people as much as it did.

My topic matters because gender equality is important and in athletics it is not achieved. The opportunities should be fair for men and women, so they both have the great opportunity to compete in something they love doing.

Entry #5

It was good to see some fresh research about Title IX. I read a lot about the history of Title IX so that I could found some periodicals, and newspapers that show a good perspective of Title IX. There were some good experiences and examples of how Title IX has affected different communities. The New York Times had a few articles from the 70's and 80's that were interesting. 

The interview I had with Corinna helped focus on aspects particular to college women's basketball. I'm not sure how much of the interview I'll include in my final research paper, but even if I don't use it, I enjoyed learning about how schools in our state treated women's athletics. The interview went well and it was useful to learn about certain players that received scholarships and what the program was like. 

I read an article about Brittney Griner, a current WNBA player, recruited from Baylor. In the article the authors (who were male) talked of Brittney Griner's skill and how she is built "like a man". It was also brought up that she could possibly play in the NBA. Because she is 6' 8" tall, she is comparable in size to most male players. The funny thing is that the way they discussed it was like they were thinking "if she's that big and that good, then she should play with the boys" as to assume that no female athlete could be the best in the WNBA.