Today, women represent forty-one percent of high school athletes and thirty-seven percent of college athletes. Increasing numbers of women are participating in sports at the professional level as well. The passage of Title IX sparked the increase in women participating in sports throughout high school and college in the United States. Title IX of the 1972 Educational Amendments Act prohibits discrimination based on gender to any educational program receiving federal funding. Since the passage of Title IX, women in collegiate sports has increased dramatically. In 1981 the number of women participating in collegiate sports was 74,329, and by 2001, that number increased to 150,916. In addition, the number of female participants have increased from about twenty-five percent of the student athlete population to forty-two percent. Before 1972 and the passage of Title IX, women were, for the most part, absent from sports in high school. In 1972 only one in twenty-seven women participated in high school sports, but by 1998 that statistic became one in three. Following the passage of Title IX, the number of girls participating in athletics rose from 294,015 to 817,073. After only six years that number increased even more to over two million girls getting involved in high school sports. Prior to 1972 girls only made up seven percent of student athletes and that number rose to thirty-two percent in 1978. This was a momentous time for women in sports because there was finally more representation across the board. Compared to women, one in two males participate in high school sports.
