It’s mid-to-late February. The Super Bowl is over, conference play in college basketball is heating up, and pitchers and catchers have reported.

Which means it’s time for the annual flogging of Sports Illustrated for its popular and highly lucrative swimsuit issue, now hitting the stands with Kate Upton leaving little to the imagination.

But instead of the usual sports feminist scolds doing the complaining, we have two middle-aged male sportswriters echoing similar concerns, and in some cases employing buzzwords found in a NOW press release.

I like both of these writers — Ed Sherman, formerly of The Chicago Tribune and now running an eponymous sports media site, and Michael Bradley, who’s written for ESPN The Magazine, among many outlets.

In the span of a week, they have both written that they think it’s hypocritical for SI to roll out this annual paean to red-blooded male leering not long after the magazine dedicated a special issue to the 40th anniversary of Title IX.

Sherman also was concerned that too many of the models were wearing only half of their bikinis, and conducted empirical research — by counting, apparently — to reach this conclusion:

And Vegas, here’s your winning total: 39. And that’s give or take a few I might have missed. Either way, the number seems rather excessive, or as my wife would say, “outrageous.”

Again, what’s the point other than to titillate and sell a bunch of ads? And one more question: How long before SI goes full frontal topless? No arms strategically placed, etc…

But titillating and selling a bunch of ads has always been the point, as much as I wish it weren’t so.

At least Sherman ran his thoughts by an actual woman — his wife — before writing his post. Bradley, writing on the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center website this morning, just ripped off standard feminist boilerplate in adding to Sherman’s point about the SI Title IX issue:

You can’t be an advocate for women’s rights and contribute to their objectification.

As I wrote in response to Bradley’s post, we live in a society in which women’s athletic developments are celebrated and embraced, unlike my pre-Title IX youth sports days.

Bully for that.

We saw this on display last night in a stirring women’s college basketball game between No. 1 Baylor, the defending national champion, and No. 3 UConn, which has seven NCAA titles to its name.

But we also live in a society in which drop-dead gorgeous women are still regarded as something to behold.

And bully for that too.

These are contradictory and “incongruent” things only to those who fall for simplistic, antiquated feminist rhetoric that’s still stuck in the 1970s. There’s really nothing to reconcile.

To suggest that women’s continued progress in sports must necessitate the eradication of supposedly sexist portrayals of women in general is as unlikely as it is absurd.

SI makes a lot of money with the swimsuit issue. A lot of money. It also is one of the Time Inc. titles up for sale in a panicked decision that media guru Michael Wolff has savaged.

Even if the magazine were in better commercial shape to ditch the swimsuit issue, why should it? Bradley provocatively asks, “At some point, Sports Illustrated’s publishers have to decide that they stand for something beyond profit.”

What troubles me is something else being implied here: That because SI has done good some journalism about women’s sports — this 1973 piece still rates highly in my book — then it somehow should be about advancing the cause of women’s sports.

Bradley’s is a valid question, one that many of us who have been in print media have muttered as we took newspaper and magazine buyouts or dealt with layoffs and early retirements.

During its early years, as it strived to fill a niche and develop an identity, SI lost money, a lot of money, according to “The Franchise,” Michael MacCambridge’s 1997 history of the magazine. It eventually became a gold mine before the advent of the swimsuit issue, on the strength of stylish writing, hard-nosed investigations and spectacular photography. Those have been its causes.

There’s a troubling notion at work here that women’s political, educational and legal gains, including Title IX and sports, are being undermined by photos of supermodels in fishnet bikini tops.

Those who follow this line of thought are serving up a set of false choices.

The American feminist establishment relentlessly projects the ideal woman as well-educated, in a successful, high-achieving, white-collar career in which she fights for, and ultimately gains, power and social status that men have long enjoyed. Sports feminists have crafted a similar variation of an “empowered” female athlete, with a healthy body image unrelated to how she looks.

These are all noble things, and I support removing barriers for women who want to pursue those avenues.

But there’s little room in this narrative for the expression of sex, or traditional feminine sexuality, since that plays to male erotic desires which cannot be tolerated in this egalitarian vision.

Even women who choose to pose — and Lindsey Vonn donned a swimsuit for SI right before winning Olympic gold in Vancouver — are regarded as complicit in their own objectification.

While SI’s Title IX issue had some terrific components — including its Top 40 female athletes list — it largely ignored the concerns of those like me, who are critics of how the law is being enforced.

Still, SI displayed a lot more journalistic rigor than espnW, which truly went over the top in uncritical Title IX adulation to mark the 40th anniversary. That espnW has designated the activist Women’s Sports Foundation as its official charity has not generated one paragraph of scrutiny from any sports media party that I know of, nor from ESPN’s ombudsman.

There aren’t swimsuit babes on espnW, which ought to please Sherman and Bradley. I do get their weariness at seeing these displays in a supposedly more enlightened time. Indeed, among the upcoming ESPN/espnW “30 for 30″ documentaries includes “Branded,” which focuses on Anna Kournikova. From the promo:

This film explores the double standard placed on women athletes to be the best players on the field and the sexiest off them. Branded explores the question: can women’s sports ever gain an equal footing with their male counterparts or will sex always override achievement?

Because a “double standard” is presumed, I already know what the filmmakers’ answer is going to be.

If anyone wants to see a powerful media outlet taking on the cause of women and sports, and doing it badly, I give them the latest from featured espnW columnist Kate Fagan, who trafficks in women-as-perpetual-victims-of-a-sexist-sports-culture on a regular basis.

She takes a stupid, infantile comment from one NBA player known for saying and doing many stupid things, and spins it into a broad indictment of American culture:

Some people might shrug and say this type of gender-bashing is bound to happen in a male-dominated environment. But, of course, we know there’s more to it than that: It’s a microcosm of how women are too often disregarded across society.

This is truly lamentable stuff, and it does the cause of female sports advancement no more favors than a topless Kate Upton or a winless Anna Kournikova ever could.

It’s perfectly understandable to go back down memory lane with the 40th anniversary of Title IX approaching and recall what women’s sports were like in the 1970s.

I know this, because I was playing in fledgling youth sports leagues at the time, limited to slow-pitch softball and six-on-six basketball. That was all we had, but those memories — and they were blissful ones — have been on my mind a lot not just in the last few weeks, but as I have gotten older and tried to understand what they have meant to my life.

I understand why there have been so many accounts of the women rowers at Yale who stripped down to nothing in the mid-1970s to protest the lack of facilities and resources that their male counterparts took for granted.

Even if these happy media chroniclers haven’t written at all about the female athletes who fired the first shot across the bow for their rights under Title IX, I understand. Three years before the Yale rowers, several young women college tennis players sued other women, those leading the first intercollegiate athletic governing body for women, but who thought that women athletes shouldn’t be allowed scholarships.

Not a word about any of this has been uttered during this “celebratory” time, but I understand why. It would dash the familiar narrative of men — and only men — standing in the way of progress for women in sports. The fuller history of women in sports is more than pock-marked with decades of resistance from women sports leaders, but there is no room for any of this now. Or ever.

Aside from that, the memories and recollections and perspectives from so many individuals — athletes, coaches, administrators, activists, parents and others — have been useful in helping those of younger generations appreciate how much progress has been made in such a short amount of time.

What’s becoming almost unbearable are the shrieks from the Title IX establishment — including some prominent media types — that we must continue to “fight” as though this were still the 1970s.

On today’s espnW — the official benefactor of the Women’s Sports Foundation — columnist Johnette Howard has continued her employers’ continuing stenography on this issue.

In particular, Howard fumes about the recent decision by a conservative Catholic school in Arizona not to play in a state championship baseball team because its opponent included a female player:

“That happened in 2012 America. The same 2012 America that has a pretty roiling political debate about whether there’s a ‘war on women’ over everything from birth control to workplace rights to, well, you name it.”

Of course. The “war on women.” I may be more liberal than Howard, and I deeply despise the gender politics of the right, but this is ridiculous. Title IX has always been about politics, and the flawed way in which it is being enforced in sports reflects the political agenda of the Title IX establishment.

I understand that, too.

But Howard points to the example of Paige Sultzbach to conjure up a phony existing “war” on Title IX, a law she says has amazingly endured “given the sustained, occasionally ingenious, sometimes mean-spirited, sneaky and downright cynical attempts to roll it back or scrub it from the books completely.”

While there were stalwart opponents of Title IX and its sports regulations in the 1970s and into the 1980s, those foes — the NCAA and the lords of college football — were conquered long ago. All that’s left are a few individuals and groups who want to revamp the regulations and change the current interpretation of the law away from one that places an emphasis on proportionality, on numbers.

They’re not talking about scrubbing it from the books. They’re not being “mean-spirited” in pointing out that the focus on numbers has been at a great cost to some male athletes in some sports. Critics of the interpretation — not Title IX — are talking about making it work to reflect the intent and spirit of Congress when it passed the law (without any mention of sports) that President Nixon signed 40 years ago on Saturday.

It’s one thing to remember the past, and to learn from the examples of women’s sports pioneers, and to appreciate what exists now. I may never agree with some of them on Title IX, but I do respect their passion and their tenacity for their cause.

It’s another thing altogether to continue to fight the past, as though we were still living in it. I’m sure Howard remembers the 1970s, as I do. To be honest, I had almost forgotten about disco music until the recent deaths of Donna Summer and Robin Gibb.

I’m not trying to be flip here, but to point out that perpetual indignation can work against your own best interests. Too many high-profile women’s sports leaders, such as former Women’s Sports Foundation CEO Donna Lopiano, remain stuck in the 1970s, still bristling about what they didn’t have, as she reiterated again this week:

“I don’t think anyone could have envisioned the kind of reality we have today. It’s hard to envision a future you never had.”

And she’s regarded as one of the true visionaries of women’s sports. I didn’t have much more in the ways of opportunities than Lopiano did, but this is a perfect example of why the present tone of advocacy, as well as the Title IX regulations, have to change with the future in mind.

I tried to shake some cobwebs loose about this a year ago in my series “Women’s Sports Without Illusions.”

I’ve updated those posts in a new project that I will be unveiling here very soon. So please stay tuned.

ESPN The Magazine’s Peter Keating laid out a case on espnW this week for changes in NCAA scholarship allocation limits that he asserts is “the silent enemy” of men’s non-revenue sports.

There are some interesting numbers here, and he does make a good point in suggesting that raising scholarship limits in non-revenue sports “may be the only way to amplify their voices in the ongoing debates over how to reform college athletics.”

But for the most part, this is another example of glorified Title IX stenography from espnW, which has already parroted amply from its official benefactor, the Women’s Sports Foundation, on the supposed “myths” of Title IX that come from critics of the law’s sports regulations.

Previously, I pulled apart an espnW “expose” called “The Glass Wall,” about the alleged grim prospects of women coaches, due mainly to sexism and homophobia. I called it a crock then, and it’s still a crock and always will be.

Keating is another experienced journalist put on espnW’s massive Title IX initiative, and it’s glaring how eagerly he dismisses anyone who disagrees with the Title IX establishment. Throw out a bunch of numbers and it’s hard to cut through the stale dogma he’s serving up.

Keating also makes sure to point out that critics of the Title IX regulations — whom he incorrectly assumes are all “opponents” of the statute — are “scapegoating the law” when men’s teams are cut.

The American Sports Council, which is critical of the Title IX proportionality provision, protested furiously on its Saving Sports blog, complaining that espnW didn’t provide the organization an opportunity to respond.

I won’t dig into those arguments here; ASC spokesman Jim McCarthy gets right to the point. But that rejection shouldn’t be surprising, given espnW’s zeal to perpetuate a narrative about Title IX that allows for no scrutiny of the sports regulations, more than 30 years after they were enacted and on the 40th anniversary of the passage of the law.

While Keating is described as an investigative reporter who also covers “statistical subjects,” much of the numbers-based argument he makes is a smokescreen. I don’t see how reallocating more scholarships to non-revenue sports will have any impact on college athletics reform; does he notice how much more college football is steering the ship with constant conference realignment and even richer television contracts? The men’s non-revenue side will continue to be vulnerable to cuts because of the way Title IX is being enforced in the courts.

Indeed, the biggest omission from Keating’s analysis is that scholarship reallocations, even the flexible options he proposes, essentially don’t address the Title IX numbers game that schools must play to avoid being sued.

For getting right with proportionality isn’t about how many men or women are on scholarship, or whether football, an all-male sport with big rosters, could stand to get another haircut to help out lacrosse and tennis and baseball.

When it comes to the Title IX sports regulation that matters above all, it’s about whether the female athletic headcount — the raw sports participation number of that “underrepresented” gender — closely matches the female undergraduate student enrollment percentage at a given school.

That’s how the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights compiles its data, and what prompts litigious organizations like the Women’s Sports Foundation and the Women’s National Law Center to threaten and file lawsuits.

If Keating and his espnW editors had been the least bit interested in a truly dispassionate approach to this subject, it might have made for some more interesting reading than another predictable complaint about the presumed  gluttony of football.

Both espnW and Sports Illustrated have compiled lists of the Top 40 women athletes of the Title IX era, and they’re both revealing in their approaches.

First of all, SI’s list is already done and available on one link, in a very compelling photo gallery. There are some notable omissions. No Dot Richardson, softball gold medalist and a key ambassador in her sport’s growth in the 1990s. No Cammi Granato, who in 2010 became one of the first two women inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

And Diana Taurasi as the top basketball player, ahead of even LPGA legend Annika Sorenstam? I’ve always been a big fan of Taurasi, but to put her ahead of hoopsters Cheryl Miller, Teresa Edwards and Ann Meyers? Hmmmm.

Sports fans love to argue about lists like this, however, and perhaps this list will create some passionate discussion as the 40th anniversary of Title IX approaches next month.

But espnW’s Top 40 list figures to create discussion for the athletes it is including — even women athletes whose careers have not been affected by Title IX at all. This list is being added once a day, and today’s No. 37 pick is Granato. But she’s the first athlete profiled who competed in college athletics. And this is just the problem.

The others thus far: Mary Lou Retton, jockey Julie Krone and Chinese Olympic diver Fu Mingxia. The disclaimer says”an industry-wide panel of journalists and women’s sports experts have cast their votes, which were tabulated by an independent, outside agency.”

That’s all good and well, but to declare that Title IX is a “law whose ripple effects extend far beyond the U.S., creating a women’s sports culture awash in opportunity” is more than a stretch, even for the purpose of this list.

The SI list contains no tennis players, no figure skaters, only two golfers — Sorenstam and Nancy Lopez; and just one gymnast, former Georgia All-American Courtney Kupets. No Mary Lou. No Venus. No Serena. No Martina. No Chrissie. No Steffi. No Nadia. No Picabo. No Kristi. No Lindsey. No Danica.

And this is as it should be. SI’s disclaimer noted that athletes on the list had to have competed at least one year in college sports, and that its list was compiled by its staffers.

By clicking through the SI photo gallery, you begin to see where Title IX has had its greatest impact — on women’s team sports in particular, and in some individual women’s Olympic sports, such as swimming and track and field.

But even then, there’s no acknowledgement that non-scholastic competition and development played much of a hand in the rise of these athletes. Mia Hamm was a member of the U.S. women’s soccer team before she ever stepped on a college soccer field. Sorenstam gave up college eligibility at the University of Arizona to join the LPGA Tour. Marion Jones cut short her basketball and track career at the University of North Carolina to pursue Olympic glory. Janet Evans, a teenage gold medalist in Seoul, later found the practice and competitive limits of college swimming too restrictive.

Even the LPGA Tour that Lopez and Sorenstam graced with their presence is becoming more global, with Koreans and the Taiwanese star Yani Tseng dominating. The American pro Natalie Gulbis bypassed a college apprenticeship, playing just one season at Arizona.

These matters cannot be pointed out during a time of “celebration,” of course, except by skunks at a garden party like me. But they are important to note.

For all of the marvelous things Title IX has done, it does have some significant limits. Its true cultural impact around the world isn’t as broad as the espnW disclaimer. To cite one very immediate example, Saudi Arabia is flat refusing to send women athletes to the London Olympics.

Brazil has a female head of state and the best female soccer player in the world in Marta, but its soccer federation and its society treats the distaff side of the sport with utter contempt. Indeed, America’s embrace of women’s soccer is not the rule, but the exception.

It’s fine to honor and point out the accomplishments of women athletes around the world, and those American women who did not compete in college athletics. But not on a list designed to commemmorate Title IX.

For the women’s sports that are the most popular, lucrative and commercially viable are those that have not been dramatically affected by the impact of the law. Most had decades of a head start on basketball, soccer and hockey.

I’m hopeful this will change in my lifetime, but it is not the case now.

As promised, espnW this week rolled out “The Power of IX,” its special section devoted to the law that revolutionized women’s sports in America and that turns 40 in June.

As expected, the site is attractive visually and has a compelling mix of stories, photos, videos and other multimedia content.

The material is overwhelmingly positive in tone, celebrating the achievements of women athletes who’ve benefitted from the sports opportunities and the changes in cultural attitudes that the law has provided.

A disclaimer that you may not hear much about as this section grows over the next few months: espnW has designated the Women’s Sports Foundation as its official charity. A lengthy story about the espnW Title IX initiative in The Buffalo News over the weekend did not mention this, and I suspect the reporter did not know that.

You can find this disclaimer on the espnW about page, but it really doesn’t say much. On The Power of IX homepage, you can link easily to the WSF site and make a donation.

I point this out not to be the skunk at the garden party, although it appears I will be. However, a lot of journalistic firepower is going into this project. ESPN.com writer Bonnie D. Ford has written about playing basketball during the early years of Title IX. It provides a valuable history lesson, not just for those of us who remember the days of pinnies and six-on-six rules, but especially for those who know nothing but female basketball the way it is played and seen, today.

Former Sports Illustrated luminary Steve Wulf, in the centerpiece of Tuesday’s launch, wrote eloquently about how the law was passed, and what it’s meant to so many women. Today, we have Katie Couric chiming in about the life-changing powers of Title IX.

The law, and its legacy, have become virtually impossible to view in any other way than how the doyennes of Title IX, and their inheritors, have framed it. In wondering if the lines between journalism and advocacy are being blurred, here’s my own disclaimer:

I’m a journalist who’s written about women’s sports for the better part of two decades but who’s critical of some aspects of Title IX activism. (I’ve written here at length about why Title IX’s sports compliance three-part test is antiquated and needs to be replaced with a new framework for enforcement.)

From the early 1990s on, it has unfairly displaced some male athletes and places an illogical emphasis on equality by numbers that flouts the intent and spirit of the 1972 statute. To paraphrase others, Title IX is a good law with a bad interpretation.

This is an important distinction that has been ignored by Title IX activists for far too long, and I’ll be curious if espnW addresses it at all.

In my initial reading of The Power of IX, nearly everything related to women’s sports is made into a Title IX issue, even if it really doesn’t apply. The “Sizzling Sibling Rivalries” tab features a photo of Venus and Serena Williams, who never played college tennis. A story on betting in women’s sports focuses on the WNBA, which does feature college-produced players but has existed for 15 years because of the financial generosity of the NBA.

Also new is a video interview with U.S. soccer stars Julie Foudy (a former Women’s Sports Foundation president) and Kristine Lilly about Title IX. There’s no mention of accelerated development in elite youth soccer organizations that have nothing to do with Title IX. Lilly and the legendary Mia Hamm, in fact, made the national team before ever suiting up at North Carolina.

I understand espnW is trying to tap into a female audience with everything it does, and the tales of uplifting, inspiring experiences of athletic females go a long way toward serving this audience.

Not everything about women’s sports is attributable to Title IX. Other important factors, like youth sports leagues, for-profit sports business entities and revenue-producing college sports, are conveniently left out. Football in particular continues to be blamed for the slow progress of women in sports. In fact, the most successful women’s college sports teams — including those you will see at the Women’s Final Four this weekend — tend to be at schools where the loathed but lucrative “King Football” thrives.

While football has plenty of its own problems — I think the Penn State scandal may be the ugliest episode in the history of American sports — it is not the enemy of women in sports.

The espnW package offers the opportunity to clarify all this. But the euphoria over Title IX has created an easy catchall category for women’s sports that glosses over important issues I fear are going to be missed.