EXAMINING THE ROOTS OF A GENDERED DIVISION OF LABOR IN INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS: INSIGHTS INTO THE GENDER EQUITY DEBATE

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine gender-based, systematic inequity in sport as reflected in the 1993 final report of the NCAA Gender Equity Task Force. Using a feminist, materialist perspective, attention is given to the identification of underlying ideological and structural frameworks within intercollegiate athletics as manifest in the report that support a gendered division of labor in which male athletes, particularly football and basketball players, are perceived as breadwinners, whereas female athletes are regarded as passive consumers. Further, an argument is advanced that these predestined economic roles for females and males in sport, when mediated by the pretense of an educational model of athletics, give rise to powerful assumptions about the profitability of intercollegiate athletic programs. Finally, a case will be made that those assumptions serve to maintain the gender order in sport while hindering a meaningful resolution to the gender equity issue.