Osler's Razor

As a high school football player, it was ridiculous how much stuff they did for girls sports no one cared about because of that law. At one point, they capped the numbers on football because of it. What is the point of that?

In Texas, at least, no one cares about girls playing soccer. They care about football.
 

Who could possibly think this was a bad idea? Except for misogynists that think that playing sports is unladylike and will lead to women doing all sorts of unsavory things, like voting.
 

Lane, lots of rational people have a problem with this. The impact on some sports like wrestling, has been devastating. Meanwhile, schools like Baylor spend money on sham sports like "varsity competitive cheerleading" to comply with the law.
 

Seriously, competitive cheerleading? It is not a real sport if the mascot gets to participate.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

I can't remember what Title IX does... is Title IX why the Detroit Lions are still in business?

Also, how did Osler not comment today on Fate's latest kick in the berries for the city of Detroit: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=300602106.
 

Yes.. and when it was originally implemented the biggest issue was how to fund these additional sports teams. Most schools started Sports Booster Clubs to supplement the cost of supplies.

I am a part of the 45-50 yr old women who were the original beneficiaries of Title 9 in High School (late 70's). I think it has made us a much healthier nation and instilled in me many healthy habits.

Today in US Masters Swimming (I still swim) the most competitive and 'populous' age group is the Women's 45-49 age group. If these women took a break to have children and raise kids, they hve returned to sport with a vengeance.

I do have a problem with some of the administration of Title 9 at the college level (and probably HS) I hear about the problems at the college level. I don't know if the ratio of men to women at a school is a factor in determining the number of sports.

And let's face it, Football and perhaps Men's Basketball, due to outside endorsements, are usually the only dollar generating sports on any college campus. The rest of the sports, all of them, rely on the money makers to remain in existance.
 

I think 'competitive ' cheerleading is ...
That said, today's cheerleaders are essentially gymnasts. If you can't do back hand springs and back flips you aren't qualified to be a cheerleader. I don't recall any of our HS cheerleaders wishing to be on the gymnastics team back in the day.
 

If private universities don't want to allow women to play athletics, they should be able to make that choice and not have governmental interference. This is the United States of America, not communist Russia. Rand Paul for President!
 

Bruiser--

You should know better.

According to the Baylor web site, the 2005 Baylor Bears Mens Basketball team not only allowed the mascot to participate, he was the third highest scoring player on the team, despite the lack of an opposable thumb. This same team featured five players who made the team in open tryouts held in the school gym in the fall.
 

I'm completely with Lane on this one.
Being a girl who went through public school in Texas I can tell you that they still don't really comply with Title IX. I was on the soccer team and our two 'coaches' were really extra football coaches that wouldn't actually show up to our practices or games. Also we would 'share' our equipment with the men's sports (we would only get to use it after they had it for a year or two, if ever). We also weren't allowed on our field because they wanted to keep the grass nice as an extra field for football.
 

If there are competitions that require some form of physical mastery where a winner and loser is decided, it's a sport. That includes cheerleading. Or even curling, and I'm not quite sure how that's different than sweeping the floor.

Also, for you true patriots out there, this can only help the US' efforts to beat the tar out of everyone at the Olympics. Is this not a good thing? Or should we get the IOC to change the summer sports to football, NASCAR and huntin' and killin'?
 

Three thoughts:

1. Given the way you phrased it, this is a somewhat loaded question. You basically are asking a person to take the position that more opportunities for women is a bad thing in order to take issue with Title IX. I tend to think that increased opportunities for women is a good thing, but also think Title IX may not be the best way to go about it.

2. There are parts of Title IX that are great. For instance, it requires equal facilities for men and women. So, your men's basketball team can't have a brand new $10 million facility while your women play and practice in a barn. Also, your men's and women's team should get equal practice time and have equal accomodations made for them in relation to school. Those are all good things.

3. The problem with Title IX is that it isn't about equal opportunity to meet an actual need or desire, it is about mandated equal opportunities regardless of interest. Currently, Title IX requires that a school have percentages of male and female athletes that are roughly the same as the general percentages of male and female students on that campus. So, if the percentage of female students is 66% then 66% of your athletes must be female. This becomes particularly troubling when you account for certain mens sports that have a particularly high number of athletes.

The Bush administration offered a potential change to that system. Instead of tying the number of opportunities for women to the percentage of women on campus, just ask the women on campus whether they are interested in playing sports, or any kind. Then require the school to meet that interest. One college that did such a survey found that something like 85% percent of its male students were interested in athletics while something less than 15% of its female students were interested. Why should a school be required to provide opportunities when there is no demand? How can that make sense?

The problem with the proportionality system isn't only that is creates a need where no demand actually exists, it also hurts male students. Here is an article discussing this problem:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080503089.html?sub=AR

The bottom line, the federal government shouldn't be proud of taking away opportunities for male students in order to give opportunities to female students.

Should women who want to play be given an opportunity to play? Sure. Should a school that has women's athletics make sure they have the same quality experience the men have? Absolutely. But, should schools be forced to make a choice between increasing costs to meet an imaginary demand based on a silly proportionality system or simply cutting mens sports? I think the answer is no, and I think the fix is easy.
 

"Or should we get the IOC to change the summer sports to football, NASCAR and huntin' and killin'?"

Yes, we should do that. First, it would make the olympics worth watching, and second we would always dominate.

Oh, and just as an aside, we were dominant in women's athletics as a country before Title IX, and when we talk about olympic athletes, gymnasts for examples, we are talking about women that got there through private lessons for the most part, not through the benefit of athletic opportunities provided by their schools.
 

Australia might be able to out hunt 'n kill us. Just saying, they live in a place where everything is poisonous and possesses an innate hunger for human flesh. And God help us if we allow Formula One drivers to compete against NASCAR drivers. (Aside: Austin is now home to the Formula One championships! Go Texas!)

One of the reasons for Title IX, however, is that it is supposed to work to change cultural attitudes toward women's sports. There's something wrong with an 85%/15% split between desire to participate in athletics between men and women, and nothing wrong with requiring schools to encourage women to participate more. This also provides the potential for quality instruction to students that may not be able to afford private instruction.
 

I believe Title IX had a real purpose when it was originally implemented in the 1970's. And I am thankful that our school system embraced this legal change.

There were NO girls sports in high schools only Phys Ed class. Do I think it has evolved too far, perhaps.
 

RRL--

You don't have to say that more opportunities for women is a bad thing to contest my point-- but you do have to deal with that reality.

It is, I agree, also a reality of Title IX that it has limited the previously existing opportunities for some boys in sports like wrestling, which have struggled to find funding.
 

Title IX forced minor men's sports to face the same realities that had always confronted women's sports - namely, if no one wants to pay to watch, you have to do bake sales, etc.

I do know that it has given women a chance at a level playing field ( to coin an old cliche!) and forced schools to deal with them seriously. This will reverse in a heartbeat if the law is changed.

The really problem with the whole system is that only a very small percentage of schools actually make a profit on any sport. The one solution is to make the top football and basketball programs the pro feeders that they already are and charge the pros for the privilege, pay the athletes, and use the difference to support equally any other sports that the schools want. I

Amateur athletics has become an oxymoron in the elite schools anyway, so why not formalize it?

The vast majority of schools waste billions of dollars on athletic programs that could better be used for intermurals, PE, and academic classes and buildings, and better pay for faculty. It is obscene to pay coaches millions and professors peanuts.

Lee
 

Okay, you people need to stop hating on competitive cheerleading. It's not a sham sport. And anon 6:38: mascots typically don't participate anywhere but the sidelines and pep rallies. Watch the cheerleading competitions on ESPN. You'll be hard-pressed to see anyone dressed up as a tiger or falcon on the competition floor.

Cheerleaders engage in extensive practice and training and must perform with skill and precision (if they're going to be successful and, above all, safe), while simultaneously looking as attractive as possible, remaining upbeat and enthusiastic no matter how badly the team performs, and tuning out the cattiness endemic to the female population aged 13-18.

Christine was on-point with her comment that you basically have to be a gymnast to be a cheerleader now. Do any of you naysayers know how freaking difficult is to be proficient at gymnastics? Those flips are not easy to master, no matter how easy cheerleaders make them look.

If beefy boy-slobs can garner respect and accolades for running around on a field head-butting each other, then the girls (and sometimes guys) tossing each other around in the air and flipping down the sidelines can too.

/rant
 

"There's something wrong with an 85%/15% split between desire to participate in athletics between men and women"

This is the sentiment I don't understand. Why is that true? Why shouldn't kids basically get to decide what they're interested in? Why should we try to convince girls to be more interested in sports to achieve some social engineering goal?

More boys are interested in sports than girls. Thats OK, girls could be more interested in things like learning, reading, studying, the arts, etc. And that is their choice. I don't know why the government should be in the business of deciding what people should be interested in, especially when it comes to extracurricular activities.

Schools shouldn't discriminate on the basis of gender when it comes to athletics, we can all agree on that. So, why are so many people in favor of a policy that causes schools to prioritize women's programs over men's programs? Do two wrongs make a right? Isn't there a less harmful way to do this?
 

"If beefy boy-slobs can garner respect and accolades for running around on a field head-butting each other, then the girls (and sometimes guys) tossing each other around in the air and flipping down the sidelines can too."

Cheerleading only exists to support "beefy boy-slobs." Much like the band, and flag wavers, and dance teams. And no, I don't think a guy that holds a 105 pound girl up in the air while she does spirit sprinkles deserves as many accolades as Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Michael Irvin, or a whole host of other "beefy boy-slobs."

I also don't believe in unicorns or leprechauns, and think that youth athletics should keep score because kids need to learn that you don't always win, so get over it.
 

RRL: Cheerleading may have started out as an activity ancillary to football or other sports, but at this point, what the squad does on the sidelines at the football is often ancillary to competitions focused solely on cheerleading.

You're free to dole out more props to football players than to members of the cheerleading squad. I didn't mean to suggest that all sports are at a parity with one another. It was more difficult for me to play soccer than it was for me to be a cheerleader. I just have a problem with this "NOT A REAL SPORTS, LOSERS" attitude that people have toward competitive (not sideline) cheerleading. You compete against other teams in a difficult physical activity. Someone goes home a winner. It's a sport. Just because football is the end-all-be-all of American sports (especially in Texas) doesn't mean that the football teams gets to decide what is a sport and what isn't a sport.
 

"Why is that true? Why shouldn't kids basically get to decide what they're interested in? Why should we try to convince girls to be more interested in sports to achieve some social engineering goal?"

Your response assumes that girls' apparent disinterest in sports isn't the result of a social engineering goal, namely one that tells girls not to be interested in sports. The prevailing cultural attitude is still that sports are manly things that only men should be interest in, and that if a man isn't interest in sports, he's not manly (meaning he's girly), and that girls' interest in sports should be to support the men who are participating.

That's an attitude I find troubling, and wholeheartedly believe that if the law can remedy or ameliorate some of that attitude, it ought to, which was/is the purpose for Title IX.

Ceteris paribus, roughly equal percentages of men and women ought to be interested in sports. The only explanation for a difference in interest is that there is a prevailing cultural attitude that sports aren't for women (NB: this is the same regrettably attitude of sexing other activities, such as child-rearing and cooking, that are traditionally held to be "female" and male interest is discouraged. I think that we ought to encourage men to have a more active role in raising children and preparing meals as well.)

Of course there will always be a discrepancy in interest between individuals. Not all girls (or boys) want to play sports. But the numbers cited indicated an overwhelming preference for boys to play sports and girls to avoid it, and the only way that could happen is through a little social engineering masquerading as "tradition" or "human nature."
 

"The only explanation for a difference in interest is that there is a prevailing cultural attitude that sports aren't for women"

Well, this conversation will be fruitless because you're right, that is the only explanation, IF you believe that there aren't inherent biological differences between men and women that play at least some role in their interests. I tend to believe that such differences do exist, and explain men's and women's varying attitudes on a wide range of topics.

Let me ask you a question Lane, why is it so easy for some many progressives to believe that homosexuals are just "born that way," and that environmental factors play little to no role in the development of sexual preference, but so hard for them to believe that men and women are just "born that way", and environmental facts play little to no role in the development of interests, etc.? Why is "human nature" only an acceptable explanation when the intelligentsia has decided the other explanations are offensive?

Also, these attitudes exist after nearly 40 years of Title IX. At which point can we admit that Title IX has no impact on women's actual desire to participate in sports, it just gives women that already had that desire a way to do so? Is 50 years enough? 60? 100? Or if we get 10,000 years from now and women still don't want to participate in sports in the same percentages as men, will you still say, "well, it must be because in the 50s TV made women believe they had to play with dolls and be housewifes, that is the only possible explanation. So, lets keep plugging away at this."

JTH - what I was responding to really was your characterization of football players as "beefy boy-slobs...running around on a field head-butting each other." Is cheerleading a sport? I think the question is irrelevant. If YOU like cheerleading then YOU should do it, or support it. Who cares if Bubba thinks its a sport. But when you decide to denegrate other athletes to make your point then you just become like those that denegrate your sport.
 

Sorry to offend, RRL. In an effort to highlight how annoyed I was after reading at least 3 "CHEERLEADING ISN'T A SPORT!!!!1" comments, I used a less-attractive term to highlight that football teams (in my experience) are composed of big/muscular guys that go outside and sweat for several hours a day. I don't see it as being much different from the way commenters on this blog invariably characterize liberals as hippies and conservatives as hicks. Those characterizations aren't meant to be taken seriously (I don't think), and neither was mine.

Since we're talking about gender equality in sports, I don't think the question of whether cheerleading is a sport is completely irrelevant to the dialogue, but I think I've beaten that horse enough at this point.

BTW, I agree with your opinion that the funding for girls' sports should only be mandated where there is a demand.
 

Interest in sports or science or math has been proven to be a cultural thing, not a genetic thing. Recent studies have proven that girls who are encouraged the same as boys respond at the same level or greater. In fact when girls are encouraged in math and science they out perform boys. This has been one of the major other areas that people say that boys are born better. The studies showed that girls under perform when they are told that they aren't good in those subjects. The self-fulfilling prophecy of underachievement is a social issue, not innate.

If women are/ have been so disinterested in sports over time, how come there were women participating in sports/ competition in Greek and Roman times? Along your way of thinking since women and other minorities have been oppressed over time with lesser rights means that we should keep them that way, since obviously they want to be oppressed. It used to be a social taboo to be against slavery or want the right to vote. I know this is not what you are saying, but it is the logical conclusion from that type of argument. Women aren’t in the work force at the same levels of men right now. During World War II the US had to launch a heavy advertising campaign to convince women that they wouldn’t be freaks for working in factories. The fact remains that it takes time to change attitudes.

My last point is this:
- Why not get rid of sports entirely out of schools, what is it worth to education?
- Given your answer, why shouldn’t women get those benefits that you think are important enough to give our limited education resources to? Does the gender difference you perceive mean women wouldn’t benefit from learning teamwork or goal orientation? We shouldn’t encourage young girls to learn these same lessons?
 

RRL, I don't think homosexuals are "just born that way." To me, that carries with it a, "so they can't help it." I just don't think homosexuality is something that needs to be "helped" as if it is a defective condition like being sick or going to Texas A&M. If it is a completely voluntary choice, it's also a valid and viable choice. I tend to think that human sexuality is never static and fixed and changes over time as people change over time, and that we all exist along a continuum of sexuality that defies easy labeling.

That said...

There's no evidence that there are an "inherent biological differences" that might account for a varying interest in sports between men and women. There's no evidence that, biologically, men and women are any different in any way that would impact behavior.
 

Have any of you considered that when women go to college the interest decreases in sport because it is not considered a career path; with a few exceptions? That might help explain the 85/15 split at the college level.

We become interested in intermural or dorm or 'greek' organized sports as opposed to NCAA level participation. It becomes a lifestyle choice to remain athletic in and after college.

Guys continue to grind it out on the gridiron, and the BB court, baseball field or the hocky rink in college because there is a chance they may (although small) continue playing in the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL or international professional leagues.
 

Lane,

In reference to your post of 10:17, thanks for recognizing curling as a sport. It's not terribly physically demanding like football, basketball, or track, but it's a hell of a lot harder than it looks. There's a lot of skill involved in curling - trust me.
 

This is an unexpectedly good and substantive discussion. The local paper should link to these.
 

Absolutely a good idea!
 

No!
I love the writers at the local paper here. They are an incredibly talented and dedicated bunch. However, when our paper let people comment on line- oh, lord it was ugly....
 

JTH - I'm not offended. I didn't
even play football after freshman
year because, despite my size and
obvious quicks, I was terrible at
football. I was a debater, and let's
not even get started on how sad it
is that a number of schools are
cutting their debate programs. And
not all liberals are hippies, just
the smelly ones.

JD - what studies? I'm not saying
they don't exist, but can you link
to one. I would be interested. I
never said that no women like and
want to compete in sports, just that
there is less desire than amongst
males. So, yes, women in greek times,
and women in America prior to Title
IX, like and play sports. That
does nothing to prove the like and
play sports in percentages equal to
dudes.

Lane & JD - there have absolutely
been studies showing that there are
biological differences between men
and women beyond anatomy.

Lane - good one on A&M. And I
certainly don't think homosexuals
have anything to apologize for. But
I don't think the progressive club is
going to like you implying
homosexuality is simply a choice.

Osler - if the Trib links to this I
want to go anonymous. I don't need
those crazies coming after me.

RRL
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/may/30/schools.uk1

I think this story is discussing one of the studies I was talking about, there have been a ton of them as of late, but this gives you an over-view. I read a lot of studies as they come out...

I didn't say that there was no other difference than physical: studies prove that men and women learn differently for one. My point was that liking/ not liking sports is more cultural.
 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/17/summers_remarks_on_women_draw_fire/

I thought the article above would be a timely blast-from-the-past for all the Obama admin. supporters.

On another note, I'm curious how much longer the current high school/college, government-regulated sports paradigm will last. Football is really the only sport that fits and it is ripe with corruption due to the financial incentives. But football basically carries the other sports with it. High school basketball has mostly become an appendage to the other private leagues used to filter the best recruits, as I'm sure is the case with other sports. So I guess the market is mostly finding a way around government social engineering.

Since scholarships and preference with employment recruiters are the ultimate benefits at issue, does Title 9 also apply to other parts of college life (music, drama, dancing, arts, academics, etc.)? I don't see why it shouldn't, especially now that poker and the spelling bee are regular features on ESPN. The word "sport" in today's lexicon really only seems to mean some iteration of organized competition.
 

RRL, I'm on the outs with the typical progressive crowd anyway. I find them petty and whiny, obsessed with their one pet issue and incapable of broader coalition building because things don't go their way all at once. Like immigration reform proponents that are mad at the President for meeting with Arizona Gov Jan Brewer. What's he supposed to do, not invite her to his birthday party because she signed legislation he doesn't like? Only the Kos/HP crowd could find that palatable.

What I'm trying to say is, coffee-shop liberals are annoying.
 

Hehe... Kendall said "appendage." He he.
 

crap. yet again, i have to agree with RRL on this.
ignoring the whole 'is cheerleading a sport?' issue, the substance of his assertions are spot-on, in my opinion.
speaking of opinion-- i, too, am glad the trib did away with commenting. the newspaper is for news, the opinion page is for opinion and so are blogs.
not to mention that this blog and its commenters are far more edumacated and thoughtful than 99 of 100 posters on the former trib commenting site.
the commenting became so vicious, ugly, offensive and trite that the trib, properly, did away with it.
perhaps a good initial idea-- trying to spur thoughtful discussion of issues-- but it fell on its face. and went away.