> <<DON'T BLAME THE WOMEN: Donna de Varona, emcee for the most entertaining Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (BASHOF) banquet >in years, made a strong statement in defense of Title IX, which provides equal opportunities for female high school and college athletes. "Don't >blame the women for the cutting of men's sports," she said. "We're not the ones who pay million-dollar salaries to football coaches."
Actually, I beg to differ. Women make up over 50% of the population. Many (most?) of the big football salaries are at institutions that survive based on state and federal funding. It could only exist with the agreement of Congress and state legislatures. Women, by virtue of their greater numbers, have the majority voice in voting for those bodies. If the fact that men's football pays high salaraies means that men should stop complaining about their sports being cut, then certainly the fact that high school girls don't play as many sports as boys (NOT due to lack of opportunity in most cases) means women should stop complaining about having unequal opportunities in college. The point is that in both cases there are prevailing attitudes that end up hurting any group that doesn't share the attitude. I have no sympathy or respect for the approach suggested by the quote above, which is just as selfish in support of women's sports as football supporters are in defense of their position. I suspect if I was old enough to pay attention in the 1970's (my DOB is 1970), I would have supported Title IX. Clearly there were vast inequities that needed rectifying, and I am a strong believer in the need to give girls the same opportunities to experience athletics. But the Title IX situation in the past decade has turned me and a lot of other potential supporters of a well-designed policy into enemies of Title IX. Sooner or later, the advocates of Title IX are going to have to stop losing supporters like us or they could be in for a rude shock. It may take a while but the legislation will change, and if reasonable men like myself have had it up to here with the de facto discrimination against men that Title IX represents, the unreasonable men who still think women should be in the kitchen may come a lot closer to getting their way. - Ed Parrot
