Female Gladiators is the first book to examine legal and social battles over the right of women to participate with men in contact sports. The impetus to begin legal proceedings was the 1972 enactment of Title IX, which prohibited discrimination in educational settings, but it was the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the equal rights amendments of state constitutions that ultimately opened doors. Despite court rulings, however, many in American society resisted--and continue to resist--allowing girls in dugouts and other spaces traditionally defined as male territories.