This Monday, Ashley Herzog said in her column “Feminist-enforced Title IX harms male, female athletes” that “feminist busybodies” are responsible for the cuts to athletic teams that have been made at Ohio University and across the country in order to meet gender equity requirements.

Herzog doesn’t even try to hide her disdain for the “ruthless” feminists, spending most of the column belittling them and blaming them for the loss of sports teams. It’s pretty obvious to me that, with this article, she desperately is seeking a scapegoat on which to pin the blame for these cuts. For Herzog, whom better to blame than the very group of individuals — men and women combined — that is working hard to ensure that all women, herself included, have equal opportunities on and off the playing fields?

If Herzog would stop stereotyping feminists as a group of relentless bullies who have single-handedly caused all this turmoil in the world of sports, then maybe she would be able to acknowledge some of the good things this “feminist-enforced” Title IX has done.

Title IX has ensured that women in sports receive the same quality of equipment, uniforms and supplies that men playing sports receive. It guarantees that women have equal practice facilities and the same size and quality of locker rooms and competition facilities. It means that women’s teams are coached by professionals with the same level of expertise as those who coach men’s teams. These are just a few of the many benefits of Title IX, and I’m sure that if you were to ask the parents of female athletes and the athletes themselves, they would agree that Title IX is an excellent piece of legislation. This legislation isn’t just something that only meddling feminists are pushing for, as Herzog says.

As for her statement that “every reasonable person realizes that men are generally more interested in athletics than women,” I beg to differ. I subscribe to the belief that interest usually follows opportunity. Before 1972, when Title IX was brought into effect, the main physical activities available to girls were cheerleading and square-dancing, according to www.titleix.info. There were almost no scholarships awarded to female athletes and female college athletes received only 2 percent of a school’s athletic budget, according to the site. Since 1972, with the expansion of sports programs for women at universities, the number of female athletes also has increased. Before Title IX, only about 32,000 women were college athletes. Now, that number is up to about 150,000 — about a fivefold increase.

If Herzog wants to write a column on why she doesn’t think gender equality in sports is necessary, then fine. She certainly is entitled to her opinion, but I might be a little more inclined to stomach her argument if it didn’t include fifth-grade-level digs at feminists and false generalizations about women and their interest in sports.

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