For those who follow the effects of Title IX, which has radically realigned college sports so that there is an equal distribution of male/female athletes (no matter the inclinations of the student bodies), hang onto your foam fingers. The legislation will now apply to high schools, affecting younger participants, often dismantling entire legacies so that parity will be maintained.
At the center of the pro-quota activists’ marching orders for Congress today is something called the “High School Sports Information Collection Act.” It’s modeled after the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA), which for a dozen years has forced colleges and universities to annually report their athletic participation and expenses — broken down by sex — to the feds. The EADA was meant to be, and is, a one-stop-shopping list for trial lawyers and activist groups looking for schools to sue for failing to meet the Title IX quota. Now, courtesy of Senators Olympia Snowe and Patty Murray, they are about to have the same litigation hit list of high schools.
There comes a time when equality of opportunity is morphed into equality of outcome, and freedom ceases to be at the heart of the measure. Draconian steps are now in place to make sure fewer boys can continue the sport they enjoy so that girls will be encouraged to get moving -- at something, for the sake of quotas.
Interestingly, it doesn't work because of [gasp!] healthy differences between boys and girls that manifest themselves early.
Federal fiat, it turns out, can provide for the additional sports for girls, but it can’t make them come out and play. When gender bean counters told Martin County high schools that they “didn’t have enough” girls playing junior varsity sports, the county instituted a full court press to lure more freshman and JV female athletes. But response was so poor that one school had to cancel plans for girls’ varsity soccer, another couldn’t get enough players for JV basketball. At Martin County High School, the athletic director had trouble getting four girls out of a female student body of over 800 to come out for the new bowling team.
The reason high schools are having trouble finding as many girls to play sports as there are boys clamoring to take the field is apparent to anyone who takes the time to look: Girls have more varied extracurricular interests than boys. Girls out-participate boys in every extracurricular activity — band, drama, debate, student government — every one, that is, except for sports. The extracurricular gender gap so favors girls that the Independent Women’s Forum calculated that if the government were suddenly to require the same gender quota for participation in other extracurricular activities that it does in sports, 36 percent of female choir members, 25 percent of female orchestra members, and 33 percent of female debaters would have to be eliminated.
Boys run a greater risk of gangs, addictions to video games, drugs and alcohol, or other dangerous behaviours, and often struggle more with academics than girls do. They often turn to sports as a diversion, and outlet for excess energy, for bonding and for proving themselves physically. Now feminists are pulling the rug out from underneath them, and undermining girls in the process. Instead of allowing the girls to enjoy themselves with 4-H, Honour Society, or the latest play, gender-gurus are dragging them kicking and screaming onto the new bowling team to prove a sorry point.
Motherly hearts are intuitive and wise. Unfortunately, with the rejection of motherhood in its myriad forms, feminists are leaving some of the most critical skills behind in a shabby effort to be at best second-class men. Pity.
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