 |
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
 |
||
|
||||
|
FEMINISM'S LAST FRONTIERS Scores of reporters and various others were disappointed last month when Michelle Wie failed to make the cut and finish all four rounds at the US Open at Augusta, GA. (No female golfer has ever done it.) She shot rounds of 68 and 75, finishing far down the field. Of course, it was a big deal for her just to be there, as electronic and print media ceaselessly reminded us. Miss Wie is an excellent golfer – her skills certainly exceed all but a very select group of perhaps one hundred golfers, worldwide. Millions of weekend duffers have never dreamed of playing anywhere near her level. Experts say her shots have great power and precision. Besides, she is just a girl of 16. Undoubtedly she will get even better. I’m pulling for her. Perhaps Michelle Wie will eventually win a tournament on the men’s PGA Tour, as her fans so fondly hope, but I doubt it. The unyielding truth of competitive sport is that men are generally better at games involving a ball. They can throw, hit and kick farther and more accurately than most women athletes can. They are bigger and stronger, and they can run faster. This is why women have their own leagues and professional associations. If they didn’t, few women would be seen on the fields, courts, and links of college or professional sports, except as spectators. But this is not good enough for feminists and their media fellow-travelers. They want more than a place in the sun for women athletes. They want women to beat men at their own games. This is why Michelle Wie is the current Great White Hope of female sports. (I know, I know – she’s Hawaian/Asian. It’s a figure of speech.) I doubt if Miss Wie wants to be a GWH. She probably just wants to play for the big bucks in pro golf. (I don’t blame her.) But she has become an icon for feminists desperately trying to break through the frontier of male pro sports – perhaps the last true meritocracy in the country. Miss Wie lives in the merciless, real world of professional golf, but feminists are living in a delusion. The twenty-first century is truly the Age of Women. American women have entered nearly every occupation and profession. They are police officers, fire-fighters, truck drivers, soldiers, CEOs, technicians, managers, airline pilots, senators, governors, judges, lobbyists, news anchors, doctors, lawyers, and indian-chiefs. (Not a complete list.) Movies and TV dramas depict them as the smartest, the toughest, the most capable and the most caring characters. Women are shown firing automatic weapons and defeating hulking men – things not one woman in a million could really do. But in the movies it’s all in a day’s work for shapely babes with perfect cheekbones. Besides being tougher-, badder- and dirtier-than-thou, cinematic women retain that marvelous Hollywood patina of seductive femininity that has defined every actress since Jean Harlow. We watch The Closer (played by actress Kyra Sedgwick) winsomely succeed where clumsy (and ugly) men cannot. And we cheer as the female Karate Kid (played by actress Hilary Swank) defeats the loathsome enemies of her good, but physically less gifted boyfriend. Millions of girls and young women watch these inventions and believe they can be true. But it is all delusional – a highly organized campaign to convince the public that women really can outdo men in every endeavor. Unfortunately, reality is stubborn. Most flesh-and-blood women are no match for a determined male adversary, as bitter experience has shown. Sometimes a failure to anticipate this can have fatal consequences. In March 2005, Brian Nichols, 33 – a 200-pound prisoner – overwhelmed Cynthia Hall (the deputy escorting him through the Atlanta courthouse), knocked her senseless and took her weapon, then entered a courtroom where he fatally shot Judge Rowland Barnes, 64, and court stenographer Julie Brandau, 43. Nichols also killed sheriff’s deputy Hoyt Teasley who pursued him into the street. He pistol-whipped journalist Don O’Briant, stole his car, and escaped. Prisoners often escape custody. How many are being guarded by women when they break out? We’ll never know because journalists delicately omit inconvenient gender-info unless a woman is actually injured during the event. A prisoner unafraid to face a loaded firearm can defeat most armed women. When are we going to face the facts? Feminists must know women aren’t as physically capable as men. Is this why they think eliminating male college sports programs under Title IX is important? (If you can’t beat them, cancel their sport.) Title IX (of the Education Amendments of 1972) requires a school’s female/male athlete-ratio to equal its female/male student-ratio. If a school can’t find enough female athletes, some male programs must be cut to make the numbers right. This has eliminated some men’s track teams which had produced world-class runners. Instead, we now have women’s college basketball – played at roughly a boys’ high school level. (Is this really progress?) In 2002, some college coaches sued the US Department of Education. They claimed Title IX discriminates against men by causing low profile male sports to be eliminated when colleges don’t have enough female athletes. Plaintiffs said 170 wrestling programs, 80 men's tennis teams, 70 men's gymnastic teams and 45 men's track teams were cut under Title IX student-ratio rules. (The Supreme Court refused to hear the suit.) Male college sports are being hit by a Title IX “double whammy”, as the female/male student-ratio keeps increasing – dictating even more female and fewer male athletes. (Evidently, running laps in the rain and knocking yourself out in training are not many women’s idea of a good time.) The current female/male student-ratio is 57:43. At some colleges the ratio already exceeds 60:40. Last year, for the first time in history, women earned more than half of the country’s associate, bachelors, masters, doctorate and professional degrees. Experts predict even lower percentages of males on college campuses – in all races, income groups and fields – according to policy analyst Thomas Mortenson, publisher of “Postsecondary Education Opportunity”, a newsletter from Oskaloosa, Iowa. Since 1995, Dr. Mortenson has tracked – and warned about – the dwindling male college student population. Feminists see no problem, but every parent and educator – every American! – should be alarmed: not because of male college sports, but because this trend cannot be good for the country. Christina Hoff Sommers, author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, says an initially well-intentioned effort to elevate the prospects and academic achievements of girls has morphed into a grotesque campaign to pathologize boyhood and harm manhood. According to Dr. Sommers, when boys are discussed at all it’s in the context of how to modify their antisocial behavior – i.e., how to make them more like girls. (Emphasis mine.) “Routinely regarded as proto-sexists, potential harassers and perpetuators of gender inequity, boys live under a cloud of censure,” Dr. Sommers writes, noting that boys are losing ground in an educational system that currently devotes more attention to the needs of girls. Even recess – a valuable way for boys to let off steam since Lincoln’s time – is being cancelled in many places. (Good move, when obesity is reaching “epidemic” proportions. Officials say recess is too rough.) Some schools now let homosexual activists “help” boys find their true sexual orientation. (I leave it as an exercise for the reader to work out what this probably entails.) Notwithstanding this vile pogrom to injure a whole gender – upon which the nation’s security and survival may depend – the abilities of boys and young men still glow like a preternatural spark that cannot be extinguished. National statistics show that boys in grades 4, 8, and 12 still test higher than girls in all academic subjects. The gap is widest in mathematics and science. Commentators like Morton Kondracke see this as a flaw that needs fixing (“Fixing Math, Science Gaps”; June 6, 2006). But I disagree. Something more than discrimination or social conditioning is at work here. Like (former) Harvard President Lawrence Summers, I believe it is innate ability – some gender-difference in the brain. Boys and men are simply more able in math and science than girls and women – not uniformly, but measurably so in the aggregate. (That might not seem fair, but was it fair that I couldn’t dunk a basketball?) Harvard’s politically correct faculty drove Dr. Summers from office for suggesting this, but booting him out won’t change nature. Women might outnumber men in college, but they still lag male enrollment in math, science, engineering, and computing. Last month my nephew graduated magna cum laude from Cedarville University (Ohio) with a computer-science engineering degree. Sixty-two engineering grads – only five of them women – represented a tenth of the 2006 graduating class. Meanwhile, colleges with weak math and science programs are having trouble attracting male students. Men care about these disciplines, so they go where they can get them. One shouldn’t overreach here, but I do see a certain similarity in competitive sports and mathematics/science. In most sports (excluding figure-skating and gymnastics), winners are determined objectively. It’s clear-cut: the best score or best time wins. Similarly, in math and science you’ve either solved a problem or you haven’t. There’s a right answer, and there are no gray areas – no subjective judgments or finessing of results. (You don’t get extra credit for community service or political activism.) Boys respond to this kind of definitive stimulus. They have been equipped by Providence – physically and mentally – to work within the austere, unforgiving constraints of these disciplines. Some girls can do it, too, but not as many. Feminists hate this, but they consistently fail to see that girls and boys – women and men – are unique creations, not interchangeable parts. I beg my readers to hold the tar and feathers. I have a daughter and four granddaughters, and I want each one to exercise her special gifts, without restraint, in a world of reality. I also have two sons and three grandsons. Each little guy – blazing with a boy’s wonderful physical energy – looks out at the world with the bright gaze of a keen mind that holds the promise of boundless possibilities. Each one is learning at his father’s knee what it means to treat a woman with love and respect. And, by God’s grace, each will grow into a man of faith, optimism, strength and daring. Delusions of man-hating feminists must not be allowed to keep any of them from reaching his full potential. Every boy in America deserves that future. If the rest of my life means anything, it must mean a complete commitment to defeating feminist unreality and securing the futures of millions of boys. Not one must be wasted.
|
|
| ||||||
