On the 40th anniversary of Title IX

I've been reading a lot of these commemorative articles about the 40th anniversary of the passage of Title IX. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Title IX rather broadly "prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving any type of federal financial aid." Who knew that the upshot would be that women played a lot more sports? (Fascinating history here.)

I'm not an athlete. I've never been an athlete. So what Title IX means to me is that it was all right to play sports badly as a girl. I tried softball, basketball, tennis, and swimming. I was lame at them all. But I never felt I shouldn't play them. I never felt it was because I was a girl that I was no good at them. I was no good at them because...well, mostly because I wasn't interested enough to make the effort to become good at them.