thigmataxis: rats exploring a large novel area at first restrict their
movement to the walls and only much later venture out into the open.
(Hal & Ballachey, 1932; Patrick & Laughlin, 1934)
Now doesn't that explain just beautifully how women sometimes behave in
regard to laws such as Title IX, which grant freedoms that largely
remain still unexplored 25 years after their passage. A child born in
1972 in the year of the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments
--the federal law forbidding discrimination on the basis of sex in
schools receiving any federal funds at all--can this year have reached
the age of employment at the very agency charged with enforcing Title
IX--the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of
Education--without ever having been educated in a school that complies
with Title IX. Because the OCR has in fact never enforced Title IX.
Because women have never explored this "large novel area" and demanded
full enforcement of Title IX?
Bumper stickers for the year 2000: Freedom for all! Enforce Title IX
and the Violence Against Women Act! Prosecute gender violence as a hate
crime! Down with thigmataxis!
Linda Purrington <lpurring@earthlink.net>