Benny the Bilge Rat
Take a deep breath Rule69ers. We’re about to dive into an issue where even the bravest angels fear to tread: The Gender Agenda – (cue scary music).
Aaaargh! No matter what analysis you try to offer on the question of women in sport (however logical and well-argued it might be), the response is usually aggressive and emotional. Gender equity is automatically assumed as a moral ideal of goodness. Anything less is condemned as sexism. But what are the realities?
Let’s start from the basics. Women and men are created differently, duh. It’s undeniable that there are many things women do better than men, or equally well. But, at the elite level in sport, males run faster than females, jump higher, and can lift heavier weights. That’s just fact. It’s the obvious reason why the sexes don’t compete against each other in, say, football, or in the Finn dinghy.
It makes perfect sense that there should be separate gender competitions in the sports where physical factors are significant. (But it makes no sense in ‘disciplines’ such as archery or shooting, which are skills more than sports. Don’t get me started on that!)
However, here’s the bottom line: experience, talent, tactical flair, knowledge and instinct – all crucial in sailing – know no gender. Ponder that for a moment.
For me, where things begin to go skewwhiff is with the idea of ‘mixed’ gender competition. What is the object of these enforced male/female teams? World Sailing and the national authorities all sing from the same sheet-music. They say it’s meant to encourage more participation, and be more attractive to spectators and sponsors. But female participation has been growing steadily without this kind of social engineering, and conventional sailing is unlikely to ever become a major spectator sport. That’s just how it is.
Equally, there seems to be little logic for having all-female sailing events where physical differences are irrelevant. Match racing is a good example. The boats are usually small so strength is not a factor, yet men and women often compete in separate events. Ditto: some of the shorter around-the-cans regattas. The logic is hard to follow.
We’ve had female events in Olympic sailing since 1988. The breakthrough Maiden campaign was 35 years ago. Since then, women have been competing as equals in naturally occurring mixed-gender crews for decades. They hold their places on merit, which is as it should be. Why persist with gender divisions? To be consistent with this imposed policy there should also be mandated ‘all male’ crews. That sounds ridiculous, yet for some reason ‘all female’ crews are still thought to be perfectly fine.
This nonsense reaches its extreme with the tokenism of SailGP and the America’s Cup. Their rules compel every boat to have at least one female in the crew. So, that place is primarily determined by gender, not by sailing ability. Doesn’t look much like genuine equity to me.
– The Rat
