Recently, Gretchen Reynolds of the New York Times reported some exciting news for the ladies: new scientific evidence is debunking the myth that a woman’s menstrual cycle negatively affects her athletic performance.

Female athletes, especially those involved in collegiate and professional-level sports, have long struggled to be taken seriously and treated as equals to their male counterparts. Many positive advances have been made, but with several universities still finding ways around Title IX – the law that banned sex discrimination in all federally funded education programs – it’s clear that the fight isn’t over.

The “mystery” of menstruation has been an integral part of the argument against women in sports. Many coaches, and even athletes, still believe that women are unable to perform to the best of their abilities at certain points in their cycle due to hormone fluctuations. However, there is disagreement about exactly what time of the month a woman will experience her athletic low, and past scientific studies on the issue have been contradictory and inconclusive. Female athletes are also often told to either begin using birth control pills or stop using them in order to alter their hormone levels.

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I think we can all agree that college sports are a big deal. Whether it be March Madness or school rivalries or outstanding athletes, college sports are definitely worth commending. (And that includes women’s sports!) But even the best institutions have their issues and like many institutions before them some of the largest issues surrounding college sports right now are surrounding gender equality and Title IX.

Title IX is a federal gender equality law which seeks to ensure that equal opportunities exist for both men and women in college athletics. It requires that the number of sports available for men and women on a team are in proportion with the number of men and women on campus.

But in recent years, as the number of women attending college has begun to overtake the number of men  (women are now 56% of enrollment), the issues have begun to get more complicated. Unwilling to lose male athletes because of an increase in women attending college, athletic departments have begun searching for loopholes which would allow it to appear as though women and men are equally represented without actually increasing the number of female players. Whether that meant counting men who practiced with women as women, or putting women on the team, but never allowing them to play, schools like Duke, Marshall University, and Texas A & M have begun to get creative when creating the roster for their teams. Read More »

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like porn! ) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

There’s been big to-do recently over whether or not cheerleading counts as a sport and it all started when Quinnipiac decided to cut women’s volleyball in favor of a competitive cheerleading squad. Some of the volleyball players are suing the school saying that competitive cheerleading is “as much a sport as chess”… which is kinda a non-sequiter of an argument, but whatever. Whether you hated cheerleaders with a fiery vengeance or dedicated your life to being one, it’s time to cast your vote – cheerleading, sport or not?

On the pro-sport side, cheerleading isn’t easy; there’s lot’s of physical training involved, it requires both special skills and a major time commitment just like any other sport. What cheerleaders, at least the ones on competitive squads like the ones we’re talking about, do physically involves years of work with gymnastics plus strength and flexibility training – I mean heck, they lift girls up and throw each other around and do all kinds of impressive flippy things, it’s hard not to take that seriously. And in terms of the dedication it takes to be on a competitive college cheer squad, it’s easily on par with what, say, football or basketball players go through, so why shouldn’t it be a sport? Read More »

Today was an unfortunate day. While perusing the internet, I ran across a teaser of Levi Johnston’s Playgirl magazine photo shoot. My curiosity got the best of me, and to say it killed the cat is an understatement. I think “made the cat look at a whole lot of nasty testicles…and then killed it” is more accurate.

I followed the link to Playgirl.com and was immediately overwhelmed by peen. (Note: I am not including the link here to spare your eyes.) Never have I ever seen so many schlongs in my entire life. All shapes, sizes and pube lengths; it was like my eyes were under attack by penis-shaped daggers.

This experience did more than force me to fight my natural gag reflex/delete the browsing history on the university computer I was using in the computer lab; it got me thinking about the presence of Playgirl at all. Read More »