Last week, a national poll found an astonishing split between men’s and women’s perception of the impact of Title IX.
Poll results showed that 61 percent of men say that due to Title IX, the country has made a “great deal” or “a lot” of progress toward gender equality. At the same time, only 37 percent of women say that is the case, according to the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the National Women’s History Museum.*
That’s a gap of a full 24 percent! Indeed, men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
Other women said that the country has made only “some” progress toward gender parity. Half of women held that view, while 13 percent said the country has made just “a little” or no progress.
Overall, 63 percent of those responding said they approve of Title IX, including majorities of men and women.
The end times
I guess, in the grand scheme of things, this is progress. In 1974, two years after the passage of Title IX, the executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) predicted that the end of the world was nigh.
“Impending doom is around the corner if these regulations are implemented,” warned Walter Byers.**
At the time, just 2 percent of college athletic budgets went to women’s sports. I guess Mr. Byers thought that was just too much already.
Still, 5 percent of those responding to the poll did not approve of Title IX at all (really?!?), while the rest said they were neutral or not sure.
One reason people might not be sure of whether we’ve benefited from Title IX is that they might not know what the law covers. Its reach has expanded beyond its original scope. In 1972, when the law was passed, its intent was to open colleges and universities to women. Its application in the realm of sports quickly followed.
Today, the law is being applied to matters of sexual harassment and sexual assault. You can easily see why — sexual violence creates a hostile environment for women on college campuses. And administrations historically have swept women’s complaints under the rug. Women often say they were raped twice — once by an attacker and then again by her college.
Whose turn is it?
The unequal perception unearthed by the poll doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Men and women also have widely different views on equality in other settings. For example, a 2021 Pew Research poll found that in the home, 55 percent of men say they are satisfied with the division of household chores. But women? Only 38 percent say they are satisfied with how labor is divided. Laundry anyone?!?
And let’s talk about talking. Australian author and researcher Dale Spender found that in a college classroom environment, men believe conversation is equally divided between men and women when women speak 15 percent of the time. Fifteen percent! She found that men also believe women dominate conversation when they speak 30 percent of the time.
Spender’s conclusion? Men have no idea how much they talk or who they talk over. And, ultimately, men would prefer that women remain silent.
One of the respondents to the Title IX poll summed up the situation well. Progress that started in the ’70s seems to have stalled, said Brenda Theiss, a 68-year-old retired optician in Vinemont, Alabama.***
“We’ve fought a lot, we’ve gained a little bit, but we haven’t really gained equality,” she said.
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* Collin Binkley, “Men, women split on equity gains since Title IX, poll shows,” AP News (June 15, 2022).
** Karen Blumenthal, Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX: The Law that Changed the Future of Girls in America (New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005), p. 65.
*** AP News poll.