Nina and the Man
She Got Game, the lonely voice on the radio for women’s athletics, commissioned this one about a group of women who protested a small rule change in the 1972 NYC Marathon. Kusick, the lead protestor, believed that her efforts chipped away at an establishment unresponsive to women athletes, though it’s likely she only caused the establishment to shift its feet a little.
Undoubtedly, women in the US have elevated their profile since the 70s, but they did so at the expense of the equality they originally sought. Googling “men’s sports” reveals half as many results compared to “women’s sports” (53 million to 88). A term paper search for men’s sports turns up titles like “Sports Journalists’ Influence on Sports” and “Sports Agency Law” whereas a term paper search for women’s sports has titles like “Differences in Gender Roles” and the ubiquitous “Women in Sports” which is peppered with lines like “the realities that face athletic women today.”
The operative word in “women’s sports” is women. For most, the term “men’s sports” is redundant.
In the 70s, the plunge for gender plurality in athletics seemed to have forced the establishment to shift uncomfortably in its shoes and to politely leave a little space for women. African-Americans as a minority group, however, participate with apparently far more ease in most sports compared to women (“African-American sports” receives only 30 million Google results; a term paper search shows more general titles like “African American Families: Demographic, Socio-Economic and Cultural Characteristics”)
One wonders, though, whether all this is changing. Younger women seem more ambivalent about their gender than Kusick. The boxer Alicia Ashley, for example:
Did Kusick’s approach, minutely protesting every inequality in sports, produce more meager results than Ashley’s care-little attitude? Or, as some suggest, did Kusick blaze the trail for Ashley to even consider fighting?
Paying to Playing, and the wide gulf between
This was for She Got Game . . . a very long time ago.
The premise of women’s football is that the women play by the same rules as the NFL, the same rules as the NFL, the same rules as the NFL. If you say it enough it’ll become a rollagraph of beseeching invocations that need only the occasional dip in the ink well to retone the vigor before the same rules as the NFL, the same rules as the NFL . . . 
It’s no different than anyone wanting to compete un equal footing. To practice and work and be recognized for your efforts, that’s something NFL players won’t ever really have without the taint of commerce. Playing for pay won’t ever bring the same satisfaction as loving the game so much you’ll pay to play. Just ask Matt Birk .