While universities continue to come up with sub-standard representations of their female student athletes, a recent study shows that women are making progress on the coaching and administrative sides.
However, the progress translates to less than one percentage point of improvement in each case, and the 2004 figures are lower than those from the late 1990s.
The study, called "Women in Intercollegiate Sport," released by Brooklyn College Professors Emeriti R. Vivian Acosta and Linda Jean Carpenter, found that there are more women coaching and directing female college teams in 2004 than in 2002, but with two caveats: the number of women's teams per college has decreased, and the numbers of female coaches and administrators have actually plummeted significantly since Title IX was enacted in 1972.
Penn Associate Athletic Director Mary DiStanislao said that "budget concerns" are probably a more important factor in the recent slide of women's teams per college, which went down by two teams per 100 from 2002.
"It's completely understandable that women's programs get swept up in that same budget cut," she said.
Female head coaches of women's teams are up to 44.1 percent of all women's coaches from 44.0 percent in 2002, but both numbers are down from 2000's figure of 45.6 percent and 1998's 47.4.
The increase of .1 percent translates to 127 new head coaching jobs for women, but men filled 143 head coaching vacancies in the same two-year period.
In fact, the 2004 percentage is close to the lowest representation of female coaches of women's teams in recent history.
When Title IX was enacted in 1972, more than 90 percent of women's teams were coached by women.
This large decrease is a result of Title IX's inadvertent assistance to male coaches -- gender equity also applies to men, who now have legislation that forces them to be considered for coaching positions on women's teams.
However, the same change has not occurred on men's teams -- the percentage of women at head coaching posts on men's teams has been under 2 percent for the last three decades.
"I think [this bias] is a huge problem," Penn Women's Studies Director Janice Madden said. "There is more social acceptance around men coaching women than women coaching men."
While DiStanislao offered the explanation that many women simply choose not to apply for these positions, Madden does not see this choice as "self-selection."
"If you don't see any women ever being hired, I'm not sure it's self-selecting," she said. "If you're not getting any applications, you have to ask yourself why that's happening. ... They may not apply because they think there's no hope.
"You have to make a few bold moves to signal that you're open to these applications."
Though this aspect was not included in the study, Carpenter said the number of women who applied for head coaching positions in men's sports was surprisingly high, given that virtually none of them were accepted.
On the administrative side, 18.5 percent of college athletic directors are female, up from 2002, but down from 1998.
There are currently more Division I-A schools with female college presidents than with female athletic directors, indicating a prevalent stereotype that men inherently have better knowledge of athletics, as well as a difference in the sex composition of applicant pools.
"College presidents are taken from faculty and administrators, and athletic administrators are taken from athletic side of campus," Madden said. "Given men's teams being coached by men and women's teams being equal opportunity, we now have many more men in athletics than in the general [school] faculty."
Carpenter cited the football program as a reason why women are not hired as athletic directors.
"When there is football involved, the notion that a female athletic director can't administer a program and have football in it is still in the mindset of those who are doing the hiring, especially in Division I programs," she said.
Despite percentage increases that seem small, most were optimistic, at least to some degree, that gender equity of college sports staffs nationwide is continuing to improve.
"The feeling is definitely in the air that there is every year more equal opportunity," DiStanislao said. "All credit to Penn for working hard at all levels to uncover the best possible candidates and to remove any personal biases that people might have."
Not everyone, however, was satisfied over the current availability of gender equity opportunities.
"We can still have imbalances and no discrimination, but it's still not a record we're proud of," Madden said.
