This week in class we watched a few short videos about the resistance to Title IX and people trying to get public support to look at Title IX and try to change a few things. I actually enjoyed watching the videos and getting a good laugh out of them. We also read and discussed an article about blaming the victim in Title IX. We had really good discussions about both of them.
The article was cool to read because it talked about the actual cases and how the men were portrayed as the victims and the women were the victimizers. Ultimately, it was suggested that long-term solutions to the problems associated with Title IX and gender equality only exist when people shift their ideas that allows for sport participation to be viewed as a basic human right. This is hard for some people though. Especially the athletes who were involved with teams that were cut in the seventies and eighties when Title IX was being implemented. It is hard to just walk away and be okay with being cut because the school needed more women's sport to be compliant with Title IX.
The videos we watched in class were videos that were against Title IX and videos that tried to get people to help out the organizations who were trying to take Title IX out. Most of the videos were old and the "facts" they had were hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. The one video of the wrestler from South Missouri State was the best one. He had been a wrestler back in the day and was part of an organization to take Title IX away and put wrestling back at his alma mater. The funny thing is that he tried to make people feel bad for the position the school was in, but the truth of the fact is that no one really knows about the school or the wrestling program there. It would have had a better impact if it was a school that everyone in the country knew about or a wrestling program that was really good and nationally known.
