Print PDF

By Mr. Manners

Four years ago following the Summer Olympics, Mr. Manners wrote an article on this website discussing the summer games along with Title IX and sports. Once again he tackles these subjects. Meaning he might do so again four years from now, giving us something to look forward to in our otherwise mundane existence.

When we last heard from Manners on the subjects, he noted that people are crediting Title IX for success of females in the Olympics. He observed that many schools have eliminated male sports that are a part of the Summer Olympics. So using the same logic, one would conclude it has made male Olympic success harder (Mr. Manners Sports and Title 1X).

He also pontificated on the fact that title IX has made it extremely difficult to have coed sports in school athletic programs. This contrasts with the Olympics where they have a number of them. Thus the law has worked against former tennis great and female sports advocate Billy Jean King highly praised visions of sports. That being that male and female athletes could participate together on sports teams.

Before reading this article Mr. M wanted us to consider the following:

We hear often that Ginger Rodgers did everything that Fred Astaire did. “She just did it backwards and in high heels.”  From this we are supposed to infer, women have to do better than men to get equal recognition.

Reality-Astaire was a better dancer. In addition, he was a songwriter, a dance innovator in film, choreographer, singer and actor. The talented Rodgers was a singer and actress. Yet the two are consistently linked together and people not knowledgeable would think she was the more talented of the two.

Reality We Don’t Hear-Men in major tennis tournaments play longer, better, accrue more revenue, while earning the same amount of money. This we are told is an example of equality. That is equal pay for unequal work. Meaning men doing more work is equality. So Mr. Manners will ask the question, what about other sports?

With out further ado, I give you Mr. Manners.

Sincerely,

Bruce Kanter NCFM member.

Dear Readers:

Mr. Manners was pleased that in 2024, Olympic bronze medal winning gymnast Richard Fredricks said he wanted to make male gymnastics more popular, without scapegoating the more popular America female program. Instead, he is working to increase the popularity of his sport.  More females in America pursue gymnastics, making it harder to excel in the sport than men. In addition, more people watch women’s gymnastics than men’s

The greater popularity is no doubt in part due to the numbers of females who watch the women’s events. The femininity being expressed in some of the individual events being a significant contributor. Fortunately for female participants and viewers, rules of the sport preceded feminist activism. If not, my guess is women would have been encouraged to make the rules of their sport more similar the ones of the men.

Since this is a men’s advocacy publication, I will not deny that male abilities such as strength and jumping ability make men better in some aspects of these events. However, female gymnastics is somewhat a different sport than men’s. In addition, women’s greater flexibility is a skill utilized in some of these sports. Plus, one could plausibly argue that the popularity of the women’s sport spills over to make the male events more popular.

On the other hand according to the PBS’s “The News Hour“, college men’s gymnastics teams have been reduced from 59 in 1981 to 12 in 2024 (“The News Hour”, Sept 5 ). If Title 1X compliance is not the reason what is? This depletion of men’s gymnastics is not acceptable.

Watching the Olympics, I could not help noticing that male gymnasts compete in six events compared to four for females.  While not as popular as the female version, men’s gymnastics is a more popular event than most Olympic sports. So they may in fact create as much or more revenue than women in Olympics by competing in more events. As far as the all-around competition, male gymnasts have to master two more events than women.

The 2024 Summer Games was praised for having equal number of male and female participants for the first time. Why is this looked at as equality? It seems quite likely that overall, those desiring to compete in the games is significantly higher for men. Why does equality not mean equal work and equal risks for equal rewards?

I was reminded of the 2008 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Before the events, the luge track was found to be too dangerous. We learned that they shorten both the men’s and women’s race. Until then I had never heard that the female luge track was shorter.

Checking out Olympic skiing, I discovered that: “Men and women rarely race on the same courses, which are set according to different guidelines, with men’s courses requiring a greater change in levitation.” Also: “In other Winter Olympic sports where events are defined by their lengths, such as cross-country skiing and biathlon, the women’s races are also almost always significantly shorter.”(What If Men And Women Skied Against Each Other) .”

Such differences in the competition should be part of basic reporting.  By mostly omitting such information, journalists clearly have decided the general public should not be privy to such facts. In reality, it might be that the female competitors have the right idea and that men’s slopes are too risky. By keeping things in the dark, such discussion is unlikely to happen. To check out other possible difference by sex in sports events, I suggest looking at high risk sports.

One can only conclude that the media feels women in general need protection from learning about these gender differences in sports events.  No doubt the female participants in these events are aware of these disparities. Most likely their views are instrumental in the different standards, otherwise they would advocate change

Still, it is anathema to even observe that men’s performance in sports exceeds women’s. That is how Serena Williams could be spoken of as the greatest tennis player in the world, when she herself has stated she would lose 6-0 6-0 to male tennis star Andy Murray.

Or for example, sportswriter and University of Maryland teacher Kevin Blackstone wrote that Catlin Clark was the best basketball player male or female at The University of Iowa. This is taken as legitimate statement, even though players on the men’s team were clearly better. Even men who win the Olympic 100-meter dash are no longer called the fastest human, but instead the fastest man.

Placating women and other protected groups certainly are not to their benefit. We hear about snowflakes, college students who are too weak to handle criticism. It is thought that this relates to upbringing. However, if so, why do their concerns center around women’s issues and other issues where journalist slant the truth.

What about basketball? The improvement over the years in the skills of female basketball players arguably exceeds any sport, male or female.  In addition, there is a recent surge in popularity of the game. This is good news for men’s school sports because it means less economic help needs to go to women’s athletics.

The great pay gap between men’s and women’s professional basketball was constantly decried even before the increase in popularity of the women’s game. The Women’s Basketball Association (WNBA) players are treated as powerless victims in regard to elevating women’s salaries. The much shorter seasons and 20% shorter games compared to The National Basketball Association (NBA) go unmentioned. This is ironic, because another complaint is that women’s sports do not get enough time on television. Obviously, the shorter length of some female sports events contributes to this.

Also often ignored is that the WNBA benefits from money that comes from revenue from the NBA. Plus, fundamental to the women’s game is keeping male players out of it. Since without such discrimination, the league would not exist.  I am in favor such discrimination. What I object to is the abrogation of free speech by the media, treating it as a taboo subject.

TITLE IX AND SPORTS

While more women participate in gymnastics, the reverse is true in the great majority of sports. Brown University challenged the policy that participants matching the student gender population was necessarily discrimination. As an Ivy League school Brown offered no sports scholarships so that was not an issue.

The college pointed out that regarding what most closely mirrors college sports competition club sports, males participated eight times more than females. Intramural sports participation was 3 to 1 in favor of male participation (Jessica Gavora, Tilting The Playing Field, Encounter Books 2002, page 78).

It was also brought out in court that: “Brown’s men’s teams were forced to turn away would be participants while almost all of its women’s teams had room for additional players (ibid; Gavora, p79).” The statistics were not considered relevant and Brown lost the case.

The fact that women are the majority of participants in extracurricular activities, often with a higher gender disparity than sports did not sway the decision. Nor the fact that some of these school activities are what might be considered academic, something one would think would be more important to have gender equality in schools. Sports unlike many of these activities, can be revenue enhancing, or costly, another factor separating it from many other colleges activities. Of course, the fact that women competing in other activities means less availability for sports, also was not take into consideration.

In the present, we are told that there is equal interest by the sexes to participate in school sports. This, even as schools search for sports to meet quotas. As a result, bowling is a major sport, but only for women. This is despite the fact that 82% of recreational bowlers are male and 18% are female. (Bowler demographics and statistics in the US – Zippia).

The effort by advocates is not about adding female players. It is to have them be in proportion to men’s, whatever that number of is. The size of the college, whether or not the college has a lot of male players, the current number of women’s sports teams, at a college, are not relevant.

In addition, frequently this “equity” often means cutting male sports without adding women’ s teams. In some instances, both male and female sports are cut to reach proportionality.

As far as Brown University, it had almost twice as many Divisions I women’s sports teams before the law suit than the average college. It also had more female teams than men’s (ibid;70). If the desire is more women in athletics, why not leave such a college alone and focus on schools with less females on teams?

Certainly if the interest was to increase women on sports teams, all female schools would be a prime target of advocates. The all-female HBCU “Spelman College” dropped sports completely. Every school with athletic programs has more women’s sports than Spelman. Yet I found no evidence of advocates for female sports show any interest involving athletics teams at Spelman

CONCLUSION

In a 1970 article in “Time” magazine “If We Win”,  Gloria Steinem  observed what would happen if feminist goals were reached” “Athletic teams will be picked only by strength and skill.” We know now such a practice would come close to eliminating female sports.

Needing to have athletic teams match school population is a major obstacle in Title IX sports compliance. In a lot of instances the issues is that there are more female students than males without the corresponding number of percent of athletic participants. Which begs the question, why is it more important to have an equal percent of athletic participants by gender than an equal amount of students by gender?

Interest of student bodies is also not considered.  Partly due to the greater abilities of male players, both male and female, students attend more male sports events. Witness for example, the many female students attending college football games. So the much larger number of students than athletes show with their actions that they are more interested in men’s sports.

What are the problems then with meeting the proportional numbers in college. Men are more interested in participating in sports. More people of both sexes are more interested in watching them. In addition, more males are willing to be on sports teams even if they are on the bench, compared to women (ibid :Gavora,p67) With the number rules as they exist, walk-ons in sports such as men’s cross country and football are not allowed. Even if they mean no additional costs to athletic programs. Warren Farrell has pointed out a reason for this. Often men try to get on sports teams to impress women. Sometimes walk-ons end up as major athletes in their sport. Thus men are kept from being more attractive to women and women have less men they are attracted to.

If athletic directors were able to allocate money as they choose, I believe it would better for female sports. Schools are dedicated to having women’s sports. Without the hindrances of Title IX, a lot of good things could happen. For instance, rather than all female track teams they would become coed. This would increase viewers, meaning more people would watch the women.

What would be eliminated? Putting ads in the college paper to get women to participate in crew. Or building a gulch in the desert as they did at Arizona State University in order to have a female crew team (ibid; Gavora 67). Thus making sports less expensive. Also, schools that have crew could easily make them coed.

Besides having coed sports, the solution is for the sports programs male and female, be independent regarding gender. If it is worthwhile to add a male sport go ahead and do it. The same for female. In fact, it works both ways. Fairfax county Virginia recently added boys’ volleyball. The media coverage discussed the interest and benefits of boys playing on school volleyball teams. However, it is not as if such things are true, it happened suddenly. Why now? It was revealed that the county is going to add female wrestling. So apparently, in order to meet the quota, a male team had to be added.

What could increased revenue in sports mean? A lower athletic fee for students could be one. I would also put such money to have independent research on the benefits as well as negative aspects of sports team participation. One example  could be to look at is why the National Football League players have safer kickoff rules with their 2.7 million salaries as of 2017, while college players are still playing under the old rules.

NCFM Member Mr. Manners, Quarterly Sports Report, the Olympics and Title IX

Tags: andy murry, co-ed, gymnastics, Gynocentrism, men's gymnastics, NBA, serema williams, summer games, title ix, winter olympics, WNBA