The inaugural season for girls' flag football starts this week Clark County, Nevada. The Clark County School District earlier announced its decision to add the sport to close the gap in athletic opportunities available to girls and boys -- a gap of over 4000 opportunities, so large that the district one of the 12 targeted by complaints filed by the National Women's Law Center in 2010. To resolve the complaint, Clark County also added 400 new opportunities for girls by starting a freshman soccer program.
I haven't seen information on the total number of opportunities that flag football has provided to girls, but it seems from this article that there are many schools in the district who are fielding teams -- so many that the district's league is divided into regions, and schools will compete for regional and district-wide championships after the regular season. Flag football was chosen in a process of meetings to assess the athletic interests of female high school students. And indeed, interest appears strong -- at one school, 125 girls reportedly tried out for the teams 15 roster spots.
Title IX advocates are sometimes skeptical
of schools' decisions to add flag football, which sometimes appears to be a "quick fix" to Title IX problems, and as a substitution
for sports that are more expensive and have more opportunities to
compete. So I'm glad to see that Clark County's decision to add flag football was motivated by expressed and apparent interest in the sport from among its students. And I am glad that it appears the teams will have lots of opportunities for competition within the district -- to this end, it helps that Clark is the fifth largest school district in the nation, with almost 50 high schools. From what I can tell, Clark seems to be doing it right. I hope they have a great season.
Showing posts with label flag football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flag football. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Monday, May 24, 2010
Are Flag Football Opportunities Equal Opportunities?
Recently, the New York Times profiled the increasing popularity of flag football as a high school sport for girls, particularly in Florida. In trying to examine this trend, the article managed to add controversy by sensationalizing the positions of some women's sports advocates and casting them as the mean, feminist foils to good wholesome fun.
Flag football for girls is controversial in Florida for the same reason competitive cheer is controversial. When schools count activities like sideline cheer or flag football as athletic opportunities, it reduces resources and legal incentive to add other athletic opportunities for girls, opportunities that would give girls who want it similar access to college or life-long play. Nobody is knocking flag football (or cheer for that matter) as a valid and valuable activity. But it is relevant to ask what responsibilities sports organizations have to act in a coordinated fashion when deciding to adopt an undeveloped sport. Women' sports advocates are only questioning the sports organization’s obligations to provide boys and girls with the same types of experiences, particularly when both boys’ and girls’ opportunities are so constricted.
In a letter printed in yesterday's Times, the Women's Sports Foundation's Director of Advocacy, Nancy Hogshead-Makar, tries to set the record straight. I say "tries" because the paper edited her letter to obscure its main point: Hogshead-Makar doesn't object to flag football itself, but to the Florida High School Athletic Association's strategy of discouraging more traditional, competitive, (and perhaps tellingly, more expensive) sports for girls like crew, water polo, lacrosse, and archery by offering them easier, cheaper, but less comparable alternatives in the form of flag football (and cheer). The fact that the FHSAA is promoting flag football (as opposed to other emerging sports on NCAA's horizons) without putting in the work to support the sport's infrastructure -- governance and promotion outside of Florida's high schools -- further suggests that the association cares more about helping schools find a quick fix to major Title IX compliance problems than trying to truly equalize opportunities for Florida's girls.
Flag football for girls is controversial in Florida for the same reason competitive cheer is controversial. When schools count activities like sideline cheer or flag football as athletic opportunities, it reduces resources and legal incentive to add other athletic opportunities for girls, opportunities that would give girls who want it similar access to college or life-long play. Nobody is knocking flag football (or cheer for that matter) as a valid and valuable activity. But it is relevant to ask what responsibilities sports organizations have to act in a coordinated fashion when deciding to adopt an undeveloped sport. Women' sports advocates are only questioning the sports organization’s obligations to provide boys and girls with the same types of experiences, particularly when both boys’ and girls’ opportunities are so constricted.
In a letter printed in yesterday's Times, the Women's Sports Foundation's Director of Advocacy, Nancy Hogshead-Makar, tries to set the record straight. I say "tries" because the paper edited her letter to obscure its main point: Hogshead-Makar doesn't object to flag football itself, but to the Florida High School Athletic Association's strategy of discouraging more traditional, competitive, (and perhaps tellingly, more expensive) sports for girls like crew, water polo, lacrosse, and archery by offering them easier, cheaper, but less comparable alternatives in the form of flag football (and cheer). The fact that the FHSAA is promoting flag football (as opposed to other emerging sports on NCAA's horizons) without putting in the work to support the sport's infrastructure -- governance and promotion outside of Florida's high schools -- further suggests that the association cares more about helping schools find a quick fix to major Title IX compliance problems than trying to truly equalize opportunities for Florida's girls.
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