WOMEN IN SPORT: A PROGRESS REPORT
Bil Gilbert
July 29, 1974
A year ago Sports Illustrated published a series of articles detailing discrimination against women in athletics. Since then the subject has gained national prominence. A survey now shows that political and judicial pressures—and the increasing effect of the women's liberation movement—are bringing about consequential changes in American sport
The overall
impression is of inevitability. Two years, five years from now it seems certain
there are going to be a lot of women playing games and that either the athletic
system will have voluntarily provided them with support or this support will
have been wrung from the system. The substantive matter is whether the
inevitable will be accepted with good or ill grace, whether the accommodation
will be pleasant and constructive, as it appears it can be, or bitter and
divisive, which would be regrettable.