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Counterpoint:

By Jean Pudlo
 

 I write as the spouse of a man whose ice hockey team has lost to the Greensboro Hookers, an all-female team.  They’ve also beaten them.

That Charles Davenport (column, “Nicely traditional and enlightened,” Jan. 10) can use this team of strong, athletic women (including a teacher, CPA, property manager and health care worker) as an example of how women are somehow not fit for certain activities truly amazes me.

The world is just not so black-and-white. Or male and female.

To use Davenport’s example, there are some women I would probably not want to see on a firefighting squad at my house — but there are some men I wouldn’t want to see there, either. I trust that whoever shows up is trained and deemed capable by their supervisors.

You wouldn’t catch me playing hockey, but I would have loved to have competed in tennis or track at my high school, an opportunity not afforded me in 1972, when I started high school, but available to millions of girls since then because of Title IX.

Besides being a hockey spouse, I lead an organization of women who believe that women (and men) should make their own choices of what is the right sport or job or education for them. Many people do not realize the scope of the rights that Title IX of the Education Act of 1972 guarantees.

“Title IX is a law passed in 1972 that requires gender equity for boys and girls in every educational program that receives federal funding” (www.titleix.info). In addition to athletics, by this law women are mandated equal access to science and math programs, career education and a learning environment free of sexual harassment.

Schools are now prevented from expelling pregnant and parenting teens, whose right to a public education was affirmed by this law.  (Who would prefer that children be raised by uneducated mothers?) There has been tremendous progress in all of these areas because of Title IX, though there is still work to be done.

Davenport also refers to the group NeW and its desire to return to “traditional” female roles. I find it ironic that it was founded by women at the University of Virginia (my alma mater) —which only began admitting women to undergraduate study in 1972. I doubt they seek a return to major state universities that are inaccessible to women.  Title IX addressed equity in admissions and financial aid in higher education so these women can learn and work in institutions of their choice.

Title IX does not require men and women to be the same, but that they are given equal opportunities.

The writer lives in Greensboro and is interim executive director, YWCA Greensboro.