Dorianna Gray Not Getting Any Prettier

Editor’s note: One of our readers posted this response to Gary Porpora’s recent column on Title IX’s negative impact on male athlete’s. Gary’s column can be found here: Title IX: A Picture of Dorianna Gray?

As a male and former high school athlete, I don’t think you have to be a radical feminist to see the value of Title IX. This is not about an injustice done to men, it’s about generations of injustices done to women.

Here is Gary’s response

Title IX specifically addresses “generations of injustice done to women”. That was the reason for its inception. Now it is about ongoing, in the moment, undeniable injustice being done to men by a law ostensibly designed to even the playing field for the female gender.

I support that noble goal but the pendulum has swung so far it’s distorted the playing field.

No one, except NOW, ever said Title IX calls for equal funding. In fact, I would argue that interpretation is unfounded and unjust. The point is male sports have been cut because the proportionality clause of the statute is misunderstood or inappropriately applied.

Here’s a paragraph from the NOW blog you cited:

Even under pre-existing Title IX guidance women still lack equal athletic opportunities. Women make up half or more of students in high schools and colleges, yet they receive only about 41 percent of the sports participation opportunities. In addition, women make up 53 percent of the student body in Division One schools, but receive only 41 percent of the athletic opportunities, 36 percent of the athletic budgets, and 32 percent of the recruitment budget.

That one paragraphs exposes the proportionality clause for the sham it is–and clearly verifies NOW does indeed believe Title IX “demands that institutions equalize funding.” That position is faulty on several levels:

First, women will never receive and can never expect to achieve an equal percentage of “sports participation opportunities” or the recruitment budget. WHY? In a word FOOTBALL!!! Most football teams at division 1 schools have 80-100 players on their football roster. That creates the unbalanced percentages Title IX’s fanatics yammer about. Also, Title IX doesn’t include only scholarship players in their definition of “participation opportunities”; the law-—or the fanatics who interpret it-—includes all males given an opportunity to play any sport. In most major college situations, I bet there are many more male walk-ons in most every sport than females.

I give the fanatic’s their due. They have a vested interest in bitching about something they know damn well can never be fixed using politically incendiary words like “equality” “injustice” and “sexism” to maintain the illusion of victimhood. They know very few American politicians have the balls/ovaries to go on national media and lay out the facts of Title IX and how it takes much more opportunity from males than females.

Go to any college or university. Randomly pick 100 boys and 100 girls, I’m willing to bet 60-80% of the males will have a genuine passion for or interest in athletic competition as opposed to 25-45% of the females. Why the hell should all of those 45–even if it were 60–women be entitled to have that need met and a grossly disproportionate percentage of men denied an equal opportunity?

On another level, the issue is money, at least, according to NOW.

NOW and its ilk contend a university’s athletic budget be dictated by the percentage of male/female population at the school. They want the funding of women’s athletics tied to the percentage of a given schools male/female split. That logic simply doesn’t fly. If you take the 100 top universities in America, the men’s football and basketball programs generate the lions’ share of the athletic department’s budget used to fund other male and female sports. Those ratios shrink in the smaller schools or in the handful of major colleges that have a successful women’s basketball program or other high profile women’s programs.

It will never evolve into women’s sports financially holding up men’s programs. Face it, culturally, physiologically, socially, psychically, men are driven to compete or conflict more than women. Until we evolve into androgens, women will not have that same drive as men.

The kernel of the issue is: how should money be apportioned? I believe a reasonable solution should partially depend upon the revenues created by all sports, the percentage of students truly interested in participating, the potential for sustained intra-conference and collegiate competition, and how the apportionment affects the participation opportunities of both genders.

NOW tends to think all women desiring to play sports must be allowed to do so even if 70 or 90% of men who want to compete will be denied the opportunity to compete.

That’s not “equality” or “equal opportunity” in any dictionary I reference.

The percentage of people of either gender denied the opportunity to participate in athletics should be equal. That means revamping the proportionality clause NOW and their fellow fanatics lean on to create the illusion of continuing victimhood.

Until then, many more young men than young women will be victims of senseless injustice.

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