The good news: Title IX has worked, big time. In 1970, two years before the seminal federal education law mandating equal opportunities for females was passed and signed into law, there were 3 million women, 3 percent of the female population, attending college. Today, more than 10 million women, nearly 7 percent of the female population, is attending college.
More men are going to college, too – in 1970, it was 4.4 million young men, about 4.4 percent of the male population, and today it’s just short of 8 million, or about 5 percent of the population.
You might notice a gap in the numbers there. Not only are young women attending college in greater numbers than young men, the growth in the Title IX era is close to figurative exponential in comparing the numbers.
Which makes me wonder aloud … is it time, maybe, for a Title IX for Males?
Could it be that we’re putting so much emphasis on pushing young girls into realizing their full potentials that we’re forgetting that young boys might need a similar push?
I highly doubt it, but then look again at the numbers. There has to be some reason why girls are more likely than boys to go to college these days.
I don’t claim to know what that reason is. A couple of quick Google searches brought up pages of results of studies by people who’ve spent a good bit of time and public and private money researching the issue. I’ve not found any consensus on what the reason might be, which tells me that more research and study is in order to try to arrive at an answer.
I’m not suggesting at all that Title IX has run its course, any more than one could suggest that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 could ever run its course, or that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution could one day become moot.
Just wondering aloud …
I’d like to see more young boys realizing their full potential.
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