[EDEQUITY] Re 12: Title IX

From: Linda Purrington (lpurring@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu May 11 2000 - 11:07:42 EDT

  • Next message: Linda Purrington: "[EDEQUITY] Teen gender-based violence"

    No, Zachary, girls do not have the same right to join the football team
    as boys have to join the literary club. Girls are excluded, legally,
    from the football team, because under Title IX it is a contact sport,
    and therefore an area where girls are thought to be disadvantaged by
    size and weight; hence schools are allowed to exclude girls from the
    sport that takes the elephant's share of sports scholarships, support,
    and opportunity.

    Moreover, it is hard to ignore the big picture when talking about Title
    IX. There is a history of discrimination against girls in this as in all
    nations; and there is a profound difference between the condition of
    school and the condition of the workplace that follows school. This
    country's law--which is pretty good, in theory--was written to correct a
    gap in democracy; that law isn't perfect, isn't enforced, but is very
    influential--it is like holding up an ideal toward which the nation is
    moving. That is why in thinking about Title IX, we need to look at the
    history and the surrounding environment of schools, the purpose of
    schools.

    And as for academic excellence, girls are learning to excel in school
    partly because of their worry about what lies ahead--the unequal
    challenges of economic life that face women in the workplace who must
    try to simultaneously satisfy cultural and biological patterns that keep
    them poor. Girls are trying to store up some help for the days when it
    doesn't matter how good their grades were in school--the young men will
    still be preferred for high-paying jobs, will still shirk their share of
    the chores, and will still refuse to pay their full share of child
    support.

    The good news is, boys are changing--they really are gaining from Title
    IX, because more and more think it is only fair for women to get equal
    wages for equal work, not to be left with the worst burdens of poverty,
    to have an equal voice in government. In other words, they are becoming
    fuller participants in the human condition.

    Linda Purrington
    Title IX Advocates
    lpurring@earthlink.net



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 11 2000 - 11:08:02 EDT