Esteemed colleague Gene Dermody, who looked me up a decade later after reading my previous post, offers a critique of Title IX you won’t have read before:
I believe sports are a crucial component in the proper socialization and education of our youth. My purpose here today is to articulate a different consequence of proportionality…. Proportionality assumes that men and women would participate equally in sports all other factors being equal. […]
There is no denying the biological nature of young males. The larger athletic types have an easier social adjustment because they have more opportunities in which to excel…. Would it startle anyone to learn that there are an extraordinarily high number of young males who are blue-collar to poor, minority (Asian, Black, Latino, mixed), under 5’8”, and under 150 pounds? Are they not the new majority? Do we not have an obligation to offer sports programs and scholarships in line with that cultural and morphological diversity? […]
The cause of many social problems is self-esteem, and it manifests itself in the extreme in young males as an antisocial syndrome with two paradoxically opposite behaviors:
The aggressive male, often the “bully,” who persecutes his peers, and is consequently isolated by them.
The passive male, often the “sissy,” who is persecuted by his peers, and consequently isolates himself. […]
But despite the persistent stereotypes, there is little correlation with any one factor save the lack of persistent healthy interaction with traditional male institutions of socialization, e.g. sports.
Lack of diverse opportunity
Team sports like baseball, football, and basketball work well with many externally-directed young males. These males respond well to traditional discipline, peer pressure, and the group ethos, the military “group dynamics” approach….
Threatened by proportionality are the individual sports that appeal to the other demographic of male athletes – sports like gymnastics, diving, and wrestling that have an element of art in them[, sports that are] more inclusive, especially for the more introspective/inner-directed young males who do not fit the morphological, group-dynamic, and kinematic requirements of the baseball/football/basketball paradigm.