Tomorrow is the 45th anniversary of Title IX, which is currently under the gun by the Trump administration and Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos concerning the restructuring of some of the language that deals with equal treatment based on biological sex, and the suspension of due process in academic settings.

Since this came up, I was concerned that the Trump administration was focusing on Title IX in the same way that Republicans have focused on Planned Parenthood, basically that one single part of it made the whole thing worth scrapping in both instances. In the case of Title IX, it seems to actually be rewording it, rather than scrapping the whole thing, but that part seems to be a pretty important issue for a lot of people. In the case of Planned Parenthood, they want to scrap the entire thing based on 3% of the overall budget.

For a lot of us on this sub, Title IX is most significant because it has led to a culture of witch hunting and (I hate to say this phrase at all) victim-blaming when students who are predominantly male get railroaded and expelled simply for being implicated in sexual assault cases on campus, whether they are cleared, the victim from the beginning, or independent of evidence one way or another. Being expelled for reasons related to Title IX means that they can't get into another school, because almost all accredited schools in the US ask whether or not a potential student has been removed from an educational institution for reasons that include sexual assault, and no further explanation is requested or investigated.

This absence of due process is unconstitutional, but because educational institutions are not legally bound by the same laws that the courts are, they can do this with impunity. In that regard, perhaps a restructuring of Title IX could be a good thing.

On another more personal note, before I even got to work this morning, Slack messages from coworkers started coming through about how tomorrow is the 45th anniversary of Title IX, and because it is currently being threatened as it exists, it's a hot-button issue. Messages are buzzing around about getting the company Instagram accounts to post things about it, coworkers are excited, and searches for images that are relevant to the topic are under way. I thought about sending this image from a top post on /r/mensrights this morning, but this is where the issue lies:

We (the men's rights community) know that one of the big issues in western society today is that men can't speak their mind. Feminists will often say that this is because of some social pressure that's perpetuated by men to appear tough, masculine, and as if we don't have problems, which leads to a lot of problems where we bottle things up and shorten our life spans. Sitting at my desk though, looking at that post and thinking about Title IX, it made me think that this hesitation to voice our opinions isn't entirely coming from a fear of what other men will think. It's a fear that if I voice my own opinion, that I'll face professional retribution from almost all of my female coworkers and many of my male coworkers. It isn't even an attack, it's the mere thought that maybe (in this instance) a restructuring of Title IX might not be so bad. It's a debate, but one side isn't allowed to present a counter-argument. I can't stand Trump or Betsy DeVos, but even the thought that either one of them could be on to something where one bit of policy is concerned is so reprehensible that it could ruin a career is terrifying.

This isn't "try as hard as you can to not appear to be the weakest link because of 'toxic masculinity'", this is "tow the party line and blame bad things on yourself to protect society".

Another aspect of this is that our arguably-gynocentric society doesn't even realize that third-wave feminism already won. College campuses are already safer than the streets for women. 56% of college students are now female. Bathroom issues aside (and that's what the Title IX rewording debacle is about right now), college campuses are a stronghold for women like almost no other commonplace institution is, and regardless of Title IX, it doesn't show any sign of slowing down. Scholarships are either for everyone or women only. There are few if any that are exclusively available to men, so even if they do get in, they have a harder time paying for it. The cards are stacked against us, and we're prohibited from talking strategy, so our hands are tied.

TL;DR: Title IX restructuring may not be entirely wrong, and keeping our feelings bottled up doesn't just happen because of male posturing, it happens because society tells us to shut up for the sake of more popular social problems.