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A Field Without Women
In past years when I've played hardball with the boys, I have tried to encourage and recruit other women to come out and play. It is one of my favorite times in Congress and such a great experience. Unfortunately, I've had no takers. So this year -- because I have temporarily hung up my cleats to focus on my son (who already has a grip for a Louisville slugger), the Democratic team was all male. I was reminded of the importance of representation both on and off the field for women, who comprise largest percentage of our population.
Today, we commemorate the 37th anniversary of one of our country's most important civil rights laws. The enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 banned gender discrimination from all education programs and extracurricular activities in federally funded schools. It was one very simple -- yet profoundly effective -- sentence that gave American women a new opportunity to aspire and succeed. The great legacy of Title IX is most often talked about in the context of sports. Before the law passed in 1972, girls made up only 7 percent of high school sports participants. Now, more than 40 percent of high school athletes are female. But its impact reached far beyond sports, from the academic to the arts and sciences, and even to the boardrooms of the Nation's top enterprises.
As a Member of Congress, I'm often reminded that in baseball as in diplomacy, you have to know when to hit, when to run, and when to show grace. I've used my experience from playing sports in almost every aspect of my life. Playing soccer is where I found my voice and playing softball was where I learned precision, and in every game I learned to play as a member of a team -- to work not for my own glory, but for a shared goal.
Despite Title IX's success in advancing equality for women, it continues to come under attack and has been frequently challenged in court. As our economy trembles and colleges and universities deal with budget cuts and shrinking athletic budgets, Title IX's achievements are in grave danger of being scaled back.
Gender equality cannot be achieved by cutting programs that allow girls to get the same chance to compete, learn, and play. The United States has had a solid history of commitment to its female athletes and expanding opportunity for women and it is imperative that we continue on this path.
The most telling effect of Title IX is the fact that today, more women than men are attending college. Today, well over half of all undergraduate college students are women -- and women outnumber men in graduate school enrollment, including high-paying, high-powered professional programs like law. Title IX deserves its place in the law so that no field will be missing its female athletes.
Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez represents the 39th Congressional District of California. For the past 3 years, she has been the only woman to get a hit in the Congressional Baseball Game.
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Happy Anniversary Title IX. This was one of the more important milestones on the road to: And justice for all. Still more battles to be won. People sure don't like to give up their advantages even when they know they're undeserved..
Does Title IX also cover trade schools? I've noticed a huge disparity between male and femle students at welding schools and automotive maintenance schools. Something needs to be done to ensure women have the same opportunities to enter trades as well as professions.
Representative Sanchez,
I whole heartedly agree with you regarding the value of Title IX. I think that Affirmative Action needs be addressed as well whenever the topic has to do with creating even playing fields. For at least one more generation both of these programs need to remain and be defended because the gains realized over the last two generations need be be so strongly embedded in our collective conscience that measures like these never need to be created again.
Strictly speaking on college sports, it is my belief that boys ARE being shortchanged. It's true that title IX has allowed women to gain in participation and opportunity, but at what cost? The current language of the law is such that a percentage must be reached on the athletic rosters that mirrors (or is extremely close to) the actual academic rosters. Rep. Sanchez says that women make up more than half of those graduating from university, which means that women must make up more than half of the student athletes as well. Not a problem until you consider that most women are just not that interested in sports And, considering none of the women she asked wanted to play on the softball team she was there to support, this is the problem with title IX: boys are being told they can't play so schools can add teams that require large numbers of women in order to keep their funding. Even in the recession things aren't equal, a university was taken to court because they were cutting mens teams and the women's vollyball team and the court said cut the men leave the women. How in the hck is that equal?
Oh please, STOP YOUR WHINING.
Boys and men have been ahead of the game for years(!) compared to girls, women.
To deny that, is just a matter of convenience for YOU and not a matter of fact.
Do you have a link to this 'court case' you cite?
Because according to the law, the court can only make the school comply with title 9, it can not cut men's programs.
"Title IX is designed to create parity in athletic opportunity and quality of experience for men and women. It is a school's choice to cut men's programs in an effort to comply with the law or to meet budget constraints."
http://www.sadker.org/TitleIX.html
Anyone who wants to play sports at the high school or college level should be allowed to do so irrespective of gender. If you have the desire, the talent and the willingness to engage in individual or team sports, then by all means, have at it!
Women comprise 51% of this country's population and should not be denied an opportunity to gain the skills and experience and joy that sports brings. Not to mention the recognition and maybe even a very good paycheck. Since most high schools, colleges and universities are tax supported, then favoritism is just not acceptable. Up till the passage of Title IX, women's sports was a rare endeavor.
I know from experience, that denying girls and women the opportunity to compete is wrong and shortchanges everyone. Not to mention unAmerican, given all the talk about competition this and competition that! Going to school in the late 1960's and early 1970's, I was not allowed to play sports in the public schools [as opposed to having parents and teachers demand that I play sports in the Catholic school system]. Then to be told that it wasn't "feminine" for girls to play sports; when you mentioned that the Catholic girls played sports and no one could say they weren't feminine. Well, stoney silence and disapproving glare was the response.
Supporting Title IX have given us many of the recent gold, silver and bronze metals in national and world sports. Title IX needs to continue in full force.
The academic achievement of boys has indeed remained static since the 1970's. In an era of transition from a manufacturing to a service economy, in an increasingly well educated world, this is completely unacceptable.
A static achievement level for boys has occurred during a 30 year period where enormous efforts and expenditures were made to improve female education, with no corresponding emphasis on male education. The female gap in math and science has all but disappeared thanks to this effort. However, no corresponding effort has been made on improving male reading and writing skills, and the gender gap favoring females in those areas remain as large as ever.
You want empirical evidence that boys are being shortchanged? There is strong and ample data. Take a look at www.boysproject.net/crisis.html for a start.
Unless you are an advocate of female supremacy or misandry, the fact that there is a 3/2 ratio of female to male college graduation rate is evidence enough of an anti-male bias. In an unbiased and truly fair educational system, we would expect a 50/50 gender distribution.
And finally, don't resort to the simple minded rhetorical ploy of changing the subject - in particular, changing the subject from one where females are clearly not being shortchanged (education) to one where they arguably are (political representation and economic power). These are separate topics. Economic and political gaps that disadvantage females must be addressed; but so must the educational gender gaps that today disadvantage males.
"A new study to be released today on gender equity in education concludes that a "boys crisis" in U.S. schools is a myth and that both sexes have stayed the same or improved on standardized tests in the past decade."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902798.html?hpid=topnews
As for your link, the site is registered to Judith Kleinfeld, University of Alaska Fairbanks. And is part of her "boys in crisis" work, which has been shown to be a shoddy (if not, out-right dishonest) body of 'scholarship'. Her reputation as an objective academic is at best, suspect.
http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i10/10a01401.htm
"...a 50/50 gender distribution", you state.
This % statement is somewhat simplistic. You seem to be missing statistical chance and/or probability factors in your 'analysis' but I bet you knew that already, huh.
"...educational gender gaps that today disadvantage males.", you state
This statement is just plain wrong.
"The most important conclusion of "Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education" is that academic success is more closely associated with family income than with gender..." (from above Washingtonpost link)
"The female gap in math and science has all but disappeared thanks to this effort."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You call less than 10% of the senior faculty in the physical, computational and mathematical sciences being women a gap that "has all but disappeared." TRY AGAIN, Kimosabe.
I suppose that a statistically insignificant 3% difference in performance in these fields between girls and boys at the middle-school level being wiped out by simply having them take the same classes is progress -- but why, then, the 90% attrition?
Title IX has supposedly guaranteed equal treatment throughout the more than 35 years it has been in existence, and there's certainly no lack of motivation on the part of women and girls in science education.
The problem is that science jobs post graduate study are typically one or two year appointments, and don't even fall under the Family and Medical Leave Act. If a woman, when she finishes her PhD -- falls pregnant, or refuses to have untoward relations with a senior scientist or faculty member -- the university can simply fail to reappoint her, and make the excuse that she "left science to have children" or "wasn't really dedicated to her career."
Maybe time to stop wasting scarce educational resources on grossly-self-important high-school sports, and instead promote healthy exercise opportunities for the obese many, and introduce better higher-level coaching for the elite few. (But, all gender blind of course.)
Title IX is flawed. It's much more common for boys to crave physical contest than girls, and they now have less opportunity because of Title IX. Males and females of our species may be equal, but there is no doubt that they are also different. Laws like this refuse to acknowledge this truth.
oh please. Anybody who seriously believes this hasn't ever bothered to watch a group of girls on a softball, baseball, soccer, football, field hockey, lacrosse, or any other playing field.
Males and females "may be equal." MAY???? At least the sexism of this statement is easy to spot. The empirical evidence that demonstrates that "it's much more common for boys to crave physical contest than girls" is glaringly absent.
Title IX refuses to acknowledge the truth? I think not. I think it's pigheaded sexists who refuse to acknowledge the truth.
I think you misunderstood the use of the work "may". In the way that it was used in this sentence, "may" would be akin to saying "are equal, but". Don't shoot down somebodies point because of grammar.
It is true that at a high school age, women tend to be a little more mature where as men's thought process tends to be a little more primal and focused on competition (usual in an attempt to impress women). Even as both men and women mature, males tend to lean toward competitiveness as a show of strength and prowess, which still relates to that primal need to impress women. Just the way the species works.
So...we'll agree to disagree then. I seem to have challenged your dogma.
Just one question though: Where's your 'empirical' evidence that girls are just as physically competitive as boys? Of course some are, but percentages will vary statistically, and you will see a separation between the sexes.
More and more evidence comes out every year about the differences in the way the male and female brains function. As I say, these are statistical trends, not absolutes.
Males and females "may" be equal?!? Gee thanks--
But if you are a runner, watch out for me in the next 10K that you sign up for. I was not an athlete in school, but I started working out after my undergrad days and I crave physical contest just as much as any other athlete, male or female, thank you.
(And thanks to historymatters for another good reply.)
aahhh yes, the 'but males are more competitive' argument.
Would your assertion have any credible science to back up that 'competitiveness' is a 'genetic-gender' difference and not a learned trait subject to correction or modification?
Title Nine suggests that competitiveness is learned and once the oppressing factors have been mitigated, this HUMAN trait will flourish and Title Nine's success (in the years since it's inception) makes a strong case for this, I believe.
How is it that we see examples of significant differences in social roles and behaviors between the sexes among animals, but so many humans refuse to acknowledge that the same forces might be at play among us? We ARE animals, just smarter. We're so smart that we are able to blather ourselves into blindness to simple truths.
Title IX came about because girls and women were denied the opportunity to engage in sports. Not because they couldn't or wouldn't, but because of backward ideas about what women could and should do. As a taxpayer and property owner [who pays taxes to support the school system], I am demanding that females be given the same opportunity as males to engage in sports. Anything less is discriminatory and unAmerican. Being different is not a good reason for denying a whole class of citizens an opportunity to gain skill, recognition and the joy and pride that comes with sports.
Sexism is alive and well, as is racism (see the various cartoons depicting Barack Obama).
Boys need to grow up. A close look at schools shows boys pulling back from competition with girls. I stood up for my son by teaching him to value all his classmates and work for HIS education. He started college at 14 and just finished his BA. Boys aren't being shortchanged in schools, they are being taught to shortchange themselves!
"The most telling effect of Title IX is the fact that today, more women than men are attending college. Today, well over half of all undergraduate college students are women -- and women outnumber men in graduate school enrollment, including high-paying, high-powered professional programs like law"..............................it's time to stand up for your son for a change. Boys are the ones being shortchanged in today's society.
please provide empirical evidence that boys are somehow being shortchanged. Studies have demonstrated that girls have GAINED in achievement, especially in math and science, while boys' achievement levels have remained static. In other words, once barriers were removed, girls were able to reach their full potential. And I don't see how anyone can argue that letting a group of girls have the same opportunity as a group of boys to play soccer, take a field trip, learn in a science lab, or participate on an academic team is somehow shortchanging boys.
In American society, women continue to earn about 72 cents for every dollar a man earns, men continue to dominate the highest paying professions, men continue to dominate corporate boardrooms and the halls of government.
All this crying about men and boys being shortchanged just because women and girls finally have a chance to give them some REAL competition is just pathetic.
Thanks--I was going to reply to this one, but you said it perfectly.
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