Let's punish women for excelling

And, as an added bonus, it happens to be absolutely correct!
Well done.

 

And then he cheats on you with a scrawny-ass girl you could bench press and wonders why you threw the ring at him instead of returning it calmly. . .

So no, guys really don't like it when a woman they're dating excells.

 

July 11, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Let the Guys Win One
By JOHN TIERNEY
Suppose you’re the head of a school whose students belong to two ethnic groups, the Alphas and the Betas. The Alphas get better grades and are more likely to graduate. They dominate the school newspaper and yearbook, the band and the choir, the debate team and the drama club — virtually all extracurricular activities except for sports.

How much time would you spend worrying about the shortage of Alpha jocks?

Not much — unless, of course, the Alphas were women, the Betas were men, and you were being sued for not complying with Title IX. Then you would be desperately trying to end this outrageous discrimination.

When Title IX was enacted in 1972, women were a minority on college campuses, and it sounded reasonable to fight any discrimination against them. But now men are the underachieving minority on campus, as a series by The Times has been documenting. So why is it so important to cling to the myth behind Title IX: that women need sports as much as men do?

It's been well documented that participation in sports helps girls and women to excel in other areas of academia and business. Girls who participate in organized sports are more likely to stay in school, less likely to do drugs, less likely to get pregnant as teens, more likely to go to college, etc. Women who participate set themselves up for lifelong fitness and health benefits. www.womenssportsfoundation.org has all the research. So yes, women need sports. It's also well documented that participation will follow opportunity.

Yes, some women are dedicated athletes, and they should be encouraged with every opportunity. But a lot of others have better things to do, like study or work on other extracurricular activities that will be more useful to their careers. For decades, athletic directors have been creating women’s sports teams and dangling scholarships and hoping to match the men’s numbers, but they’ve learned that not even the Department of Education can eradicate gender differences.

And, judging by the status of men in higher education, apparently a lot of them should be hitting the books as well. This is a weak argument in light of the others he's citing. Again, participation follows opportunity. Schools are not just "dangling scholarships" in front of uninterested females. The interest is there.

continued...

 

At the University of Maryland, the women’s lacrosse team won national championships year after year but still had a hard time getting 40 players to turn out for the team. The men’s team had no such trouble, because guys were more than willing to warm the bench even if they weren’t getting a scholarship, but the coach had to cut the extra ones to maintain the gender balance. The school satisfied Title IX, but to no one’s benefit.

Who exactly is "no one"? I doubt the football or basketball teams suffered because of the success of the women's lacrosse team. Heck, it doesn't seem like the men's lacrosse program suffered too much either. The better thing to look into here is why the women's team had a hard time filling out the roster, if that was indeed the case. Part of me doubts that at a lacrosse-crazy school such as Maryland. Is it because participation opportunities for girls in lacrosse are lacking at the feeder (high school) levels?

On or off campus, men play more team sports and watch more team sports. Besides enjoying the testosterone rushes, they have a better chance of glory — and of impressing the opposite sex. Thirty-four years after Title IX, most women’s games still attract sparse audiences. Both sexes would still rather watch men play games, especially football.

Again, paging Pat Summitt. I'm sure she'd like to comment upon the sparse audiences that watch her team play. Fact is, spectatorship among women's collegiate sports is on the rise. Basketball, softball, lacrosse, soccer. And don't women have a shot at glory through sports? And impressing the opposite sex? I think Brandi Chastain impressed a few guys back in 1999. Anecdotally, I know quite a few men and women who would rather watch the WNBA than the NBA.

College football is such a mass spectacle that it can’t really be compared with other sports. It’s more of a war rally or religious revival. But football’s unique popularity unfairly penalizes men because colleges fear flunking the “proportionality” test, which is the safest way to comply with Title IX. If the school doesn’t have enough female athletes to offset the huge football squad, it has to cut other men’s teams — or get rid of football, as some schools have done.

Proportionality is the safeset test, but not the only one. Under the law, the numbers don't have to match up if schools prove they have a history of providing equal opportunities or that local interest has been met. This is the cop-out argument used by football supporters who like to complain that Title IX has ruined their programs. In reality, the only thing it's ruined is the endless line of credit the programs were used to operating with. And if the "huge football squad" is the problem, reduce the roster size or cut operating costs. Football coaches have also convinced the wrestling/swimming/etc. coaches that women are to blame for the demise of Olympic sport programs. This is not true. Administrators who ignored the law for the better part of two decades are to blame.

continued...

 

Lately, though, as colleges have struggled with the declining number of men on campus, a few small schools have dared to start football teams. They argue that even if they end up with more male athletes, they’re still being fair because more men want to play sports. It’s not clear if this approach could survive a Title IX lawsuit; advocates for women’s sports complain it’s still discrimination. But the results on campus are already impressive, as Bill Pennington described in The Times yesterday.

The new football teams have helped attract a lot of male and also some female students, boosting enrollment and tuition revenues. The teams have provided publicity and excitement, bringing in donations from businesses and alumni. Most important, the chance to play football has attracted boys who otherwise wouldn’t have gone to college.

Yes, under the law, this would be discrimination if the numbers get skewed and no other test is met. Not because opportunities are being provided to men, which proponents of Title IX have no problem with. But the logic here is flawed: it relies on the assumption that all men want to play sports and women aren't interested so they shouldn't have as many opportunities. And if a male student goes to Small Time U. simply because they added a football program that he can watch on Saturdays, that's one very misguided student. Also, this article does not address the financial impact to the university for adding a football program. The cost of scholarships, staff, travel, equipment, playing and practice fields, food, etc. outweighs any increase the school will see in tuition or ticket sales. It's also well documented that almost all collegiate football programs operate in the red.

“We kind of trick them into seeing that getting an education is the real benefit,” said Mike Kemp, the coach of the football team started five years ago at Utica College in upstate New York.

Besides attracting boys to campus, football and other sports help them stay in school. Provided they’re not at a school that lets jocks get away with anything, a good coach can provide them with the discipline — mandatory class attendance, supervised study periods, required grade-point average — that male students seem to need more than female students.

I’m not suggesting that sports are a panacea for male education problems. Men are lagging behind women on campus for lots of reasons: less motivation and self-control, poorer academic skills. No matter what happens with Title IX, women will deservedly continue to outnumber men on campus and dominate the honor rolls.

But because they’re now so dominant, they don’t need special federal protection in the one area that men excel. This playing field doesn’t need to be leveled.


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

This column reeks of what has been discussed in the minorities thread over on the journalism board: white men (or in this case, men in general) are having a smidgen of their priviledge taken away and crying foul. Men were not prepared for the potential that women had and were able to achieve when given equal protection and opportunities under the law. While the status of women in education and athletics is much improved, there is still a long way to go. It may not seem so when you look at the major colleges across the country, but it's evident at the small college and Podunk High level. And if we as a society are committed to having more female CEOs and politicians and leaders, those women need the opportunity to play sports. It has been well documented, again, that there is a direct correlation between female sports participation and success in the "real world".

 

Threw the ring at him or threw him out of the ring?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

I could have thrown him out of the ring I'm betting (another of the underweight, overly tattooed guys), but I just threw the damned engagement ring at him. I might have derived more pleasure out of throwing him out of the ring though. Dammit, another missed opportunity

And Cadet again says exactly what I would have said, only in far less vulgar terms.

 

Agree with Cadet on every point except the WNBA. Who are these men who prefer that over the NBA? Point them out please.

 

My last boyfriend. Hated basketball in general, massive crush on Sue Bird. He claimed WNBA was the only basketball he'd watch.

I'm relatively sure he was lying to impress me though. :

 

I may watch me some WNBA All-Star game to see some Lauren Jackson and Sue Bird.

 

One of them was my ex. I'd point to him but I don't want to throw up. :-\

I believe one of the most famous supporters of the women's-hoops-as-pure-sport over men's-hoops-as-MTV-video was the Wizard of Westwood himself.

 

Well-reasoned and thought out replies, Cadet.

Now, can you serve us some snacks?