Paper Summary:

This paper emphasizes that, despite progress made for females following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its amendment in Title IX in 1972, professional sports women do not have the same pay and benefits as men competing at the same level in the same sport. Next, the author presents a literature review covering topics of inequality in sports media, pay for women head coaches, allocated scholarship funds, allocated professional sports prize money and overall opportunity. The paper concludes that the role of mass media is very important in bridging the inequality gaps by increasing female sports coverage.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Literature Review
Gender in Sports Media
Inequality in Pay for Women Head Coaches
Inequality in Allocated Scholarship Funds
Gender Equity in Overall Opportunity
Gender Inequity in Allocated Professional Sports Prize Money
Discussion

From the Paper:

"Gender equity describes the fairness in distribution of athletic opportunities. These opportunities represent recognition of individual accomplishments as well as the benefits and resources available to those who achieve this status. In an effort to maintain a non-discriminative athletics program, ideally the athletes, coaches, and administrators should uphold these standards and refrain from barring someone from an opportunity based solely on gender. The concept is clear; the athlete (regardless of gender) would make a valuable contribution to said team with gender being a pre-requisite or contingency."

Sample of Sources Used:

• American Association of University Professors. (2003). Title IX: Gender equity in college sports. An AAUP Position Paper. Retrieved from http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/issues/women/titleIX.htm
• Bishop, R. (2003). Missing in action: Feature coverage of women's sports in Sports Illustrated. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 27, 184-194.
• Duncan, M.C. & Messner, M.A. (2000). The media image of sport and gender. In L.A. Wenner (Ed.), Mediasport (pp.170-185).
• Dworkin, S.L. & Messner, M.A. (2002). Just do...what? Sport, bodies, gender. In S. Scanton and A. Flintoff (Eds.), Gender and Sport: A Reader (pp.17-29). London: Routledge.
• Elueze, R. & Jones, R.L. (1998). A quest for equality: A gender comparison of the BBC's TV coverage of the 1995 World Athletics Championships. World of Sport & Physical Activity Journal, 7, 45-67.

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