Customer Reviews

Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex, and Title IX

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

For those that want to understand what has truly gone wrong with title ix interpretations, read this book. For others that refuse to believe that the media has been duped into believing that the application of gender quotas in academia is only for the good it doesn't matter what they read.

Jessica Gavora provides a well-written book that describes, in detail, what happens when well-intentioned federal legislation is molded by those with an agenda. The result is a policy that forces addition by subtraction in athletics. Males are routinely eliminated from sports, with few additional women's opportunities created. All in the name of "gender equity."

The carnage of lost opportunities, for both genders, is appalling to those of us closely familiar with college athletics. This book is destined to become classic reading for anyone who wants to know the truth.

Those other reviewers obviously didn't read the book. Gavora puts together a solid and interesting argument about Title IX and gender bias in the college sports arena -- don't just dismiss her position off-hand because you disagree.

Jessica Gavora's "Tilting the Playing Field" is a provocative look at Title IX from a different perspective. The book is provocative because, in analyzing and criticizing the measure and its effect, it calls into question the value of American feminist orthodoxy. This is the book's strongest and most attractive feature - Gavora's willingness to speak candidly and in strong terms against policies so vaunted that attacking them is considered taboo.

It should be pointed out that "Tilting the Playing Field" is by no means an objective analysis. Gavora, having observed and studied Title IX, has a point to make and this book is the presentation of the facts as she sees it, coupled with her analysis and conclusions. Because her opinions are out of step with the driving philosophy behind Title IX, other reviewers have found it easy to avoid the argument and dismiss the messenger as a monolithic right-winger. For any prospective reader, this would be a foolish mistake. The value of reading this book, or any book with an ideological leaning, is to enrich one's own views by challenging beliefs and seeing issues from different viewpoints. In that regard, the most important aspect of a book like this is its accuracy.

"Tilting the Playing Field" succeeds on that account. The statistics are not flashy, nor are they manipulated or false. They are simply laid out as a foundation for Gavora's dissertation on the subject matter, and it is in her thesis and opinions that we can expect to find our own agreement, skepticism, anger, or insight. The book works as a solid, well-expressed and well-researched opinion against much of what Title IX has become, as opposed to what it was meant to be. Whether you agree or disagree, are closely associated with a higher education setting, or even if you are just a liberal or conservative, this is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in both sides of the story.

These "comically slanted" reviews point out once again that when confronted by fair and balanced reporting, those whose agenda is threatened will attack and attempt to discredit the source of their discomfort rather than offer a thoughtful rebuttal. Obviously, Gavora's book runs counter to their agenda with her well-documented examination of the "unintended consequences" of a law designed to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sex under federally funded education programs. While giving credit to Title IX, she shows why this law has outlived its usefulness. For the women's movement to really gain ground, she points out, credit for accomplishment should be given to a woman's talent, hard-work and dedication instead of diminishing that success by shackling it to a federal mandate. She contrasts the original intent of the law with what it has become. This is not just a critique of the female to male ratio quota in college sports, but a warning of what will happen as Title IX moves across the whole of education, into the classrooms, student testing and sexual harassment law. It's a frightening numbers game with an ominous forecast. If we mandate an equal number of female athletes to male athletes, why not the same quota system for all areas traditionally holding more interest for men than for women?

This is a brave and searching book. The author has revealed one of the dirty litte secrets of the current sports scene--how hardline feminists, who could give a fig about athletes or athletics, have seized control of the amateur sports scene in this country through Title IX. This law began as a good thing: insuring equal opportunity to participate. But like affirmative action, whose kissing cousin it is, Title IX has become a nasty little gender maneuver whose ultimate consequence, as Gavora documents so indisputably, is the death of one college men's sports program after another so that women, who choose not to participate in numbers equal to their growing percentage of college enrollment, can have "proportionality."
Gavora shows, moreover, that Title IX had nothing to do with the U.S. Women's Soccer team's victory over China, nor with the superb play of the WNBA. This is an important book that ought to be read be everyone who is tempted to repeat the brainwashed mantras about how Title IX has helped women. It ought to be read also by anyone frightened, as I am, by the hardline feminists' growing use of Title IX in education (if we have to have exactly the same number of men and women athletes, why not exactly the same number of mathematicians and physicists?) and the growth industry of sex harrassment.

Title IX sounds like a good idea -- who on earth would be in favor of discrimination against women in education?

Of course, as with every road to Hell, it's the UNINTENDED consequences that get you. In the case of Title IX, Ms. Gavora lucidly and compellingly documents what the unintended consequences have been: Title IX has been used to assault collegiate men's athletic programs.

But wait, you say. Surely you must be in favor of increased opportunities for women, even if that means fewer opportunities for men! Isn't that fair?

Well, it sure sounds fair -- but that isn't what Title IX is being used to do. The gender totalitarians enforcing Title IX have introduced into it the notion that it requires gender parity, or even that funding of and participation in athletic programs need to be distributed on the same gender proportions as general university enrollment.

So universities that have been unable to attract a sufficient number of women athletes -- universities where spots on women's teams sit unfilled because of lack of applicants -- have cut thriving and even self-funded men's programs to get their women-men ratio to the right level.

In other words, Title IX is being used to reduce the opportunities for men to play college sports even where no new opportunities for women are created or where women patently do not want those opportunities.

What woman actually want does not matter to these gender militants. What matters is that men's athletics programs must be smashed to bits, and the Federal government, levered into play with Title IX, is the biggest stick around.

Ms. Gavora is an excellent and convincing writer and this is an important and honest book.

The author paints an alarming picture and provides very insightful analysis. Her opinions are clear, but her points are convincing. Although this is not an issue of which people are widely aware, the book does an excellent job setting the stage and communicating the author's astute points.

This is a gem of a book. It is about time that someone took on Title IX, a good law at its onset which has been damaged by hardline feminists who hate men and hate sports too. The truth is that this law, which began as an attempt to promote fairness and equity, has resulted in a twisted numbers game that victimizes male athletes in sports such as wrestling and swimming rather than dignifying female athletes. Moreover, the hardline feminists, whose quota-driven malice Gavora documents to a fare-the-well, now see this law as a wedge into everything from sexual harrassment law to quotas in math and physics excellence. Tilting the Playing Field should get the nod as the best sports book of the year.

Jessica Gavora has done an outstanding job of debunking the myth that women need Title IX in order to succeed in any way. And it's from the perspective of a female athlete, too. It's meticulously researched, easy to follow, and compelling. She's remarkably even-handed in her analysis as well. I HIGHLY recommend it -- it is the definitive text on Title IX.

This is a fantastic and fair book. It's great to hear this perspective coming from the pen of a female athlete who doesn't just dismiss opposing arguments as insane, as do many Title IX-committed feminists. She doesn't even need to skewer them -- she just calmly makes points which really are indisputable and has completely changed my mind on Title IX. I hope to see more of her stuff out there.