Title IX regulations have created a vicious cycle, discouraging men from enrolling in colleges that eliminated their preferred sports programs. In 1980, equal numbers of men and women obtained college degrees, but now nearly 60% of college degrees are awarded to women and only 40% awarded to men!
Under interpretation of Title IX regulations, colleges are generally forbidden from having more sports teams for men than women, so if there is not enough interest in women’s hockey or another large team sport for women, the college is not likely to start a men’s hockey team.
In the traditional Winter Olympic events of alpine and cross-country skiing in February, the United States men won a grand total of zero medals. Today there are more college women’s ski teams than there are men’s, perhaps again due to the impact of the proportionality test under Title IX.
Olympic sports themselves have been emasculated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which even tried to eliminate men’s wrestling from the 2020 Olympics. The IOC reinstated wrestling after an uproar but still cut 56 positions, replacing them with events that “include more women” in the summer games.
Women’s figure skating remains popular to watch, but in a continuation of political correctness the public heard this year more about the men’s figure skating instead. Despite this, a large crowd did stay up past midnight on the East Coast to watch the exciting finale of the women’s figure skating competition in Pyeongchang.
Downplaying the overall nosedive in viewership of and interest in the Olympics, some commentators say this is merely part of a more general trend. But the decline in viewership of football, still as masculine as ever, has been small compared with the bottom falling out for Olympic viewership.
When Phyllis Schlafly spoke for her last time at Harvard, she was greeted afterwards by Professor Harvey Mansfield, author of a book entitled “Manliness.” If NBC executives hope to recoup the billions they invested in exclusive rights for the Olympics then they might pick up a copy, and the Title IX regulators would also benefit from recognizing the greater demand for men’s sports.
