John Riordan: Securing the rights of every future Taylor and Serrano
Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano participate in a lighting ceremony at the Empire State Building leading up to their World Lightweight Title fight in Madison Square Garden this weekend.Â
At Tuesdayâs Empire State Building Lighting Ceremony for tomorrowâs Katie Taylor Amanda Serrano fight, promoters held up a stack of tickets that would be given away to young girls around New York City.
The recipients would not only be experiencing their first evening of top ranking professional boxing at the famed Madison Square Garden, they would be among thousands watching two female boxers headline at the venueâs main arena for the first time in 140 years.
Invited along to meet the fighters the other day were officials from the Womenâs Sports Foundation, founded in 1974 by Billie Jean King, the tennis champion who believed fervently in equality and social change. Their presence spoke to the bigger significance of this weekendâs title showdown.
Taylor and Serrano have reached their pinnacles and tomorrow is their well earned payday. But like all good legacies, it is to the next chapter and the next generation towards which everyone seems to be looking.
And whether it be token, inexpensive gestures of a block of tickets or - as has been stated over and over again - the expressed desire of the Garden to force the hand of this fightâs promoters to host a bout of this magnitude while also giving it top billing, there is real and true impact happening here.
The timing is kind of perfect too. In the US, we are headed into the 50th anniversary of the passing of a nation-changing law which saw to it that female students in high school and college would have equal access to funding for all educational activities.
I was always under the slightly misguided assumption that there was a solely sports focus to the 37 words that landed on then President Nixonâs desk and which made up the now iconically named âTitle IXâ. But thatâs because the newly enshrined equality would end up being exemplified in sport where the most impressive levelling out of the pitch is best evident.
Neither Taylor nor Serrano can look to Title IX as catalysts for their own successes. There was no government underwriting of their hopes and dreams when they positioned themselves at their respective starting blocks. But itâs also true that the very people celebrating Title IX this summer will be transfixed by Saturday nightâs fight.
It doesnât matter how much you read it this week because it will never lose its glow; young athlete of promise Katie Taylor pretending to be a boy simply for the chance to enter the ring on equal terms is shockingly impressive (and tragic for the Irish girls not here this weekend). And neither Amanda Serrano nor her older sister and fellow world champion Cindy could look to their government in Washington DC for proper support while growing up in Brooklynâs Puerto Rican neighbourhood, the Bushwick pocket surrounding Knickerbocker Avenue.
Yes, Title XI has put the US Womenâs Soccer Team at the top of the tree. And the Olympic Games, both summer and winter, generally produce a procession of medal winning US female athletes.
And yes, the overall statistics tell a story of evolution on an impressive scale: in the early 70s, there were just 300,000 girls participating in high school, and less than 30,000 women playing sports in college. The 2020 numbers show an exponential rise to 3.5 million girls performing at the highest level in high school with at least 215,000 advancing to enjoy full access to college sports through the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the main body overseeing that sector.
And undeniably yes, that endeavour to normalise equal access to sport almost 50 years ago paved the way for an executive somewhere at the top of the tree at the Garden to countenance that their coveted space, their oft nicknamed Mecca of boxing and basketball, music and stand-up comedy, should be set aside properly for female boxers, headlining in their own right, no half-stepping.
But the biggest proponents of Title IX know they have a long way to go on their journey. A lot of inequities still persist. Girls of colour have yet to surpass the number of opportunities that all boys had in 1972; girls just like Amanda and Cindy Serrano. American boys currently have a million more opportunities than girls at the high school level. Thereâs always more to accomplish.
Bernice Sandler also spent her childhood in Brooklyn but a decidedly different Brooklyn to the Nuyorican section of Bushwick. The would-be activist came of age surrounded by Jewish immigrants in and around Flatbush just prior to the onset of the second world war, only a couple of districts away from Bushwick but demographically an ocean away.
One of the Founding Mothers of Title IX, Sandler told ESPN on the occasion of the lawâs 40th anniversary that she and her co-conspirtaors had no idea how bad their situation truly was: âWe didn't even use the word sex discrimination back then -- and we certainly had no sense of the revolution we were about to start."
The introduction to her 2019 New York Times obituary is masterful: âWhen Bernice Sandler was a schoolgirl in the 1930s and â40s, she was annoyed that she was not allowed to do things that boys could do, like be a crossing guard, fill the inkwells or operate the slide projector.âÂ
The stakes were much higher by the late 1960s. The prohibitive quotas in higher education - both official and unofficial - saw to it that the representation of females in medical schools, law schools was often in and around 5%. The scope was wider than just sport but because of the unique way in which the US ties education to sport - for good and for ill - it meant that the most glaring examples of the journey toward equality came about through increased representation in athletics.
Sandler and her crew lobbied in DC just as effectively as Taylorâs parents subsequently did a quarter century later in their bid to overturn the prohibition of female boxing by the Irish Amateur Boxing Association.
I often forget, also, that unlike in Ireland or the UK, there is no governmental department that actively oversees sport in this country. Not at the federal level and nowhere down the ladder. Itâs all driven through educational institutions, the kinds of places that seem unattainable to girls growing up in Bushwickâs Puerto Rican section.
As different as their backgrounds are on the surface of it, the warmth Taylor and Serrano have displayed towards each other publicly this week speaks to a deep commonality. They are cut from the same cloth and they are inspiring the same type of young person. They are both equally aware of the magnitude of what they are doing and I hope they can exhale on Sunday and fully appreciate that achievement, no matter the result.
âAll the sacrifices that I have made along the years are worth just for this moment alone,â Taylor told Sports Illustrated this week. âBut this isnât just for myself and Amanda. This is for the next generation of fighters. We are bringing the whole sport up with us. This is exactly the legacy that I want to leave.â As much as Serrano is a local hero in a borough that is my home now and as much as I hope she can inspire the girls who are growing up in this wildly divided country, itâs more than appropriate and necessary to get a lot more parochial and partisan with just over 24 hours to go to when AmhrĂĄn na bhFiann circles around that iconic venue.
Because whatever outcome Taylor ends up with, whether or not she can hit that 21st victory and maintain her flawless professional record, I hope Ireland knows that the most fervent American advocates of equality for females in sport are looking to an Irish hero this weekend for inspiration to keep fighting.
