Last week, I listened in on a conversation with author Sherry Boschert about her new Title IX book, 37 Words: 50 Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination. She threw out a name I hadn’t yet heard: Margaret Dunkle.
Too often, we simplify great movements by choosing one name to ascribe success to and ignore all the others whose hard work brought results. I think this has happened to Dunkle.
From 1972 to 1979, Dunkle worked with Bernice Sandler on research for Title IX for the Association of American Colleges and then in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the government agency that became responsible for enforcing Title IX.
Dunkle and Sandler, “The Godmother of Title IX,” worked to identify areas of sex discrimination in educational settings. At first, the focus was on women being barred from graduate and professional schools — medical, law, business schools. It was perfectly legal for schools to use quotas, limits, even marital status, to block women from education and careers.
Unearthing the athletic identity
Very quickly, though, Dunkle found that discrimination was most visible in the realm of athletics. There, discrimination was easy to identify — women’s sports were almost nonexistent. And athletics had a strong, emotional pull on the national psyche.
“Athletics was becoming a metaphor for strong, able women on the playing field and in life,” Dunkle said.*
In those days, there wasn’t any data to unearth and analyze. To make the case for Title IX, researchers had to compile their information one anecdote, one campus news clipping, one phone call at a time. “We had to rely on a story or an example that rang true,” Dunkle said.**
The discrimination Dunkle’s team unearthed is well known today. Paltry to nonexistent budgets for women’s athletics meant that female athletes had to hold bake sales and sell candy or Christmas trees to fund their teams. They rode on rickety buses, while men’s teams rode cushy chartered buses. They practiced in the early morning or late at night, when men weren’t using facilities. They had no scholarships, no training facilities, no medical attention, no uniforms, no nothing.
Some of the cases of discrimination are jaw dropping today. In one case, Boschert said, researchers found that women had to use athletic tape that the men had used and discarded. In another, Dunkle found that a college didn’t allow a woman to use their handball courts unless a man signed her in. Universities routinely barred women from taking coaching courses, so that on graduation, they were considered not qualified to coach, and therefore, had no path for professional advancement.
Killing off those myths
Before addressing these blatant issues, Dunkle and her research team had to first battle centuries-old myths about women participating in sports.
“Women have not been encouraged to participate in athletics at least partly because the traits associated with athletic excellence — achievement, self-confidence, aggressiveness, leadership, strength, swiftness — are often seen as being in contradiction with the role of women,” she wrote in a seminal report. “Myths die slowly.”***
It was hard to convince even women themselves that they deserved the same opportunities as men.
“The inequities have been so great, women have gotten so little in the past, that many women will fear a backlash from the men if they push too hard,” Dunkle said. “Once they [women] get crumbs, they’ll feel like they’re gorging themselves. It takes a while to get rid of double standards.”****
The injustice seems so blatant, doesn’t it? But this was all new thinking at the time. Dunkle was a Title IX trailblazer, just as Bernice Sandler was. Just as Reps. Edith Green and Patsy Mink were. Just as Sen. Birch Bayh was.
Thank you, Sherry, for introducing me to this remarkable woman! My copy of your book is on its way now. I can’t wait to read it!
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* “Margaret Dunkle: Writing Title IX’s Playbook on Sports.” Sherry Boschert’s 2016 interview with Margaret Dunkle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyBGZ3oPyr8
** Kristine Cornils’s 2012 “Top of the Morning” interview. A local show highlighting the achievements of remarkable Maryland natives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pYWq9m3mUs&t=382s
*** Sandler and Dunkle, “What Constitutes Equality for Women in Sports: Federal Law Puts Women in the Running” (Association of American Colleges, Project on the Status and Education of Women, 1974). Prepared for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
**** Jay Searcy, “Foe of Men’s Myth Braces for Battle,” New York Times (July 14, 1974), p. 25.
NOTE: Sherry Boschert’s website and blog can be found at http://www.sherryboschert.com/