“The reason Billie Jean was so pissed was that despite the incontrovertible evidence of its benefits for women (and, we would assume for our country in general), Title IX remains under attack. Its ‘proportionality’ dictum says a school’s sports participation in terms of gender has to be an equal ratio to its overall student body, because while generally the female populations of schools are at least equal with men, if not greater, women still play sports in much smaller numbers than men. Critics say this helps women to the detriment of men, because by being forced to comply with such statutes, schools respond by cutting men’s teams.
I, er, cry foul with this line of thinking–if my experience at a NCAA Division I school is any indication, this is more of an athletic department budgeting issue than a Title IX tug-of-war. At most big schools, if just a fraction of the as yet untouchable football or basketball budgets was doled out more judiciously, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
Not to mention that schools can also be in compliance with Title IX by upgrading women’s sports from, for example, ‘club’ level to varsity, or also by demonstrating a willingness to improve opportunities for women.
The warped nature of the whole argument dawned on me as I sat reading a stack of articles about Title IX, all of which passionately encompassed a different viewpoint. They all had one thing in common: an origination in the boy/male perspective. The girls involved are merely the by-product, the offal, of this contentious debate. Collectively, we–even feminists and staunch Title IX advocates and agitators–are socialized to believe that males have the inherent right to get everything, and get it first. Call it male-fest destiny.”
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