John Tierney of the NY Times is once more confusing sexism with rational thought.
In January he argued that men should tell women whether or not to have abortions. On July 11, 2006, he begs us to give poor, underprivileged, discriminated against college boys the chance to tell female athletes to shove off the field and let the males play. The playing field, Tierney cries, has tipped past level to angled in favor of girls.
I don’t know what field he’s talking about.
Athletic fields are still tilted to the right, toward men and boys. Young women make up 53% of the student body in Division 1 schools, yet they receive only 41% of the athletic opportunities, 36% of the athletic budgets, and 32% of the recruitment budget. Slightly more than one third, 34.9 %, of all women students are low income.
The economic field is tilting more and more, and women slide to the bottom. The U.S. Census Bureau says real earnings for women declined by 1% between 2003 and 2004. Women make only 77 cents for every $1 men earn. Women, especially poor women, return to school more often than men. As an additional burden, because of family obligations, 15% of college women take more than 10 years to complete a degree program. The educational system reflects the economic status of women in the US.
Tierney says Title IX, the 1972 statute banning discrimination on the basis of sex, is bad for boys.
Title IX reads:
No person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid.
The statute was designed to force colleges to accept women and to offer women the same educational and athletic opportunities they offer men. How is that bad for boys? Well, Tierney says, “besides enjoying the testosterone rushes, (men) have a better chance of glory — and of impressing the opposite sex” by playing sports.
Yep, that’s what women want, an athlete, a guy who is unlikely to be in the 1% of male college athletes who make it to the pros; a guy who, should he go pro, unless he plays golf, is likely to incur several concussions, broken bones and be away from home much of the year as a consequence of that career choice. Anyway, it’s nice to have Mr. Tierney answer the question of what women want. Clearly we can’t answer for ourselves.
Yet Tierney says, “some women are dedicated athletes, and they should be encouraged with every opportunity. But a lot of others have better things to do, like study or work on other extracurricular activities that will be more useful to their careers.” Well gosh, John, if it were possible for women to have a career in sports, wouldn’t athletics contribute to that goal?
Tierney says professional women’s sports don’t attract the audience or general interest that men’s sports do. True. Not yet. But how much does the male dominated sports media invest in promoting women’s sports? Not much. Not much more than white media of the 1920’s invested in the Negro League baseball.
Comparing the success of womens sports with other "upstart" sports leagues shows that women are moving relatively quickly. The Negro Leagues rose and fell over fifty years until their heyday during the 1930’s and 40’s. They were dead by 1951, killed by the goodness of major league integration.
It took Major League Baseball one-hundred-and-two years to sign Jackie Robinson. It took professional basketball fifty-four years to draft a black player. Willie O’Ree broke into professional hockey in 1958, but it was 18 years before another black man played the game professionally.
There is no research that says boys are more interested in sports than girls or that girls are more interested in guys who play sports. There’s a lot that says that exposure to sports, helps young people in a variety of ways. Students involved in sports are more likely to get better grades, to stay in school and to be responsible. Girls who play sports don’t get pregnant, quit school and sink into poverty as often as those who don’t play.
Plus, women and girls have come to sports. More women take up athletics late in life than do men. According to the Physical Activity Journal, Spring 2001, 86% of the women who played inter-collegiate sports in the 1960’s and 70’s have stayed active. There’s your new tradition right there.
The National Association for Girls and Women in Sport has studies showing that since Title IX, the number of male and female student athletes has greatly increased. “The number of male college athletes has increased from 170,384 in 1972 to 208,866 in 2001; the number of female college athletes has increased from 31,852 in 1972 to 150,916 - almost a five-fold increase. The number of high school girls playing competitive sports has increased from fewer than 300,000 before Title IX to 2.78 million in 2001.” Women's and men's interest in sports grows with their increased opportunities to play them.
George Bush attempted to weaken Title IX in 2003, but was temporarily disarmed by the volume and number of protests which his threatened to derail his 2004 campaign. Unfortunately, very quietly in early 2005, he had the Department of Education change the guidelines for Title IX, making it possible for colleges to comply with the statute by sending out e-mail surveys to judge the interest of girls in sports rather than providing opportunities for or encouraging girls to play sports.
If you built it they will come, but if there’s nothing there, there’s nowhere for them to go.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
Truth, meet Truthiness
Apparently loads of Americans lack a sense of humor. Stephen Colbert's presentation at the April 29th White House Correspondents dinner was met with as much dismay as laughter. President Bush was shocked and Laura Bush was said to be "miffed," "disoriented," and "distressed." As explained in Editor and Publisher, the press, targeted as much as the administration, shifted in their seats only enough to remove their hands from under their legs.
Have any of the parties offended by Stephen Colbert's presentation looked up the word, satire?
Using wit and irony to jab those in power is an ancient tradition, not a political bias. It wasn't only fictional Lear who trusted his jester to carry the truth, many cultures prized the court clown. That the Bush administration, its supporters and the press have no tolerance for humor is a reflection of their response to criticism.
The media, the press, those who claim the right to do what Colbert did, must realize that by disuse and abuse of their powerful positions, they have inadvertently opened the door and allowed sharp, fresh air into their closed rooms. One cannot clamor for freedom, cannot toss freedom around as a talking point without allowing people the liberty to talk.
The phrase, "speaking truth to power," was coined by the American Friends, Quakers, in response to the political assumption that military force can bring about peace. Colbert brought truth wrapped in truthiness. I suspect those who did not laugh have mistaken the wrapping for the gift.
Surely the event organizers hired Mr. Colbert precisely because of his satirical work. They are to be admired for inviting the Fool to Court.
Have any of the parties offended by Stephen Colbert's presentation looked up the word, satire?
Using wit and irony to jab those in power is an ancient tradition, not a political bias. It wasn't only fictional Lear who trusted his jester to carry the truth, many cultures prized the court clown. That the Bush administration, its supporters and the press have no tolerance for humor is a reflection of their response to criticism.
The media, the press, those who claim the right to do what Colbert did, must realize that by disuse and abuse of their powerful positions, they have inadvertently opened the door and allowed sharp, fresh air into their closed rooms. One cannot clamor for freedom, cannot toss freedom around as a talking point without allowing people the liberty to talk.
The phrase, "speaking truth to power," was coined by the American Friends, Quakers, in response to the political assumption that military force can bring about peace. Colbert brought truth wrapped in truthiness. I suspect those who did not laugh have mistaken the wrapping for the gift.
Surely the event organizers hired Mr. Colbert precisely because of his satirical work. They are to be admired for inviting the Fool to Court.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Linguistic Three Card Monte
John Tierney’s NY Times op-ed column of January 10th, “Men’s Abortion Rights,” contains the essential flaw of his argument in the title, “men’s abortion.” There is no such thing as a man having an abortion, so, according to the logic he espouses, men have no standing in the debate. Yet neither debate nor resolution is the point of his article. The point is to assert his authority to stir things up.
Tierney and others keep standing up, keep proclaiming their right to express themselves allows them to make broad, inaccurate and patently false statements under the mistaken notion that all opinions should be treated equally. This tactic justifies saying creationism is as valid a construct as evolution because any debate, no matter how scurrilous, stupid or distracting is good. Bill O’Reilly used this same device when he declared there was a war on Christmas.
Less grandly, but no less powerful, this tactic is also used to sell diet and personal finance books. You, too, can be slim, trim and wealthy, full of thoughts and experiences that are not your own. Send money to get a free sample of how to be upwardly moral and thin at the same time.
In Mr. Tierney’s case, the slimness is in what he posits as the quarrel. He insists that he is pro-choice - provided men are doing the choosing. He pulls the woman as succubus suspicion out of his hat, saying women use their bodies to trap men into taking responsibility over another body, to justify his position that men can lay claim to women’s bodies. He claims that feminism is about creating “gender neutral policy” - as if such a thing were possible or even desirable - ignoring what feminism is, an analysis of gender as an element of power structures. He claims that men have no power in the world, merely position, status and money – oh wait, that is power.
To accept this article as thoughtful is to ignore the suppositions behind Tierney’s curtain: that there is no history of women being abused by men; that child support payments are generous and made on time; that the unpaid labor of a homemaker is equivalent to the paid time of a breadwinner. Tierney sees “the playing field” of life as lush, green, soft and even. For him fairness means equality means the same set of rules. For him fairness means equality means the same set of rules regardless of circumstance; context matters less than construct.
Never mind that such grandstanding is demeaning and that the stories he tells are untrue. Do not see the derision in his divisiveness, the cruelty in his language. Women are subordinate clauses.
These pretend arguments about ethical principle pit people against each other, men against women, women against women, in a challenge race to the high moral ground. I am not sure where the high moral ground is, but those who believe they have the only sacred map inevitably get lost and fall prey to charlatans who turn real dilemmas into Three Card Monte.
People possess their own moral compass within a public system of shared values. The relationship of body to mind to soul cannot be fought in the courts or in public. It can be pondered, imagined and earnestly discussed, but the border between the individual and society is always blurred by its own motion. Abortion should be treated as a public health issue, one that keeps people, and by extension society, well and whole, not as a journalistic talking point or political football.
Tierney and others keep standing up, keep proclaiming their right to express themselves allows them to make broad, inaccurate and patently false statements under the mistaken notion that all opinions should be treated equally. This tactic justifies saying creationism is as valid a construct as evolution because any debate, no matter how scurrilous, stupid or distracting is good. Bill O’Reilly used this same device when he declared there was a war on Christmas.
Less grandly, but no less powerful, this tactic is also used to sell diet and personal finance books. You, too, can be slim, trim and wealthy, full of thoughts and experiences that are not your own. Send money to get a free sample of how to be upwardly moral and thin at the same time.
In Mr. Tierney’s case, the slimness is in what he posits as the quarrel. He insists that he is pro-choice - provided men are doing the choosing. He pulls the woman as succubus suspicion out of his hat, saying women use their bodies to trap men into taking responsibility over another body, to justify his position that men can lay claim to women’s bodies. He claims that feminism is about creating “gender neutral policy” - as if such a thing were possible or even desirable - ignoring what feminism is, an analysis of gender as an element of power structures. He claims that men have no power in the world, merely position, status and money – oh wait, that is power.
To accept this article as thoughtful is to ignore the suppositions behind Tierney’s curtain: that there is no history of women being abused by men; that child support payments are generous and made on time; that the unpaid labor of a homemaker is equivalent to the paid time of a breadwinner. Tierney sees “the playing field” of life as lush, green, soft and even. For him fairness means equality means the same set of rules. For him fairness means equality means the same set of rules regardless of circumstance; context matters less than construct.
Never mind that such grandstanding is demeaning and that the stories he tells are untrue. Do not see the derision in his divisiveness, the cruelty in his language. Women are subordinate clauses.
These pretend arguments about ethical principle pit people against each other, men against women, women against women, in a challenge race to the high moral ground. I am not sure where the high moral ground is, but those who believe they have the only sacred map inevitably get lost and fall prey to charlatans who turn real dilemmas into Three Card Monte.
People possess their own moral compass within a public system of shared values. The relationship of body to mind to soul cannot be fought in the courts or in public. It can be pondered, imagined and earnestly discussed, but the border between the individual and society is always blurred by its own motion. Abortion should be treated as a public health issue, one that keeps people, and by extension society, well and whole, not as a journalistic talking point or political football.
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