Apr 16 2007
Show, Don’t Tell
I cannot help myself; I start blogging, I need to start tirades as well. It’s just how I’m built.
So… the Strictly Sail Pacific show is this weekend, and Jason and Marc and I are figuring out what seminars to attend. Digging through the listings to see what fits our interests, and what we can get at other places. And I, ladies and gentlemen? I am fed the heck up.
Follow along with me here, folks. How about:
- It’s Your Boat Too – Women and Boating
- How Women can be Valuable Crew, Not Just Passangers (the spelling is theirs)
- Sixteen ways to keep your Lover -encouraging your partner to make the dream her own
On my library shelf right now are “Against the World” by Ellen MacArthur, and “One With the Sea” by Naomi James. Um, hello? Women have never been about being passengers, about being marginalized!
It’s not like there aren’t fabulous examples of the fact that male genitalia aren’t requisite to good sailing abounding. A quick look at Wikipedia is all you need… the names are there. And that’s just in modern sailing and racing. You want to get historical, women have been out there on boats pretty much since there were boats to be out on. I find it frustrating beyond belief that sailing is being overlain by classic sexism, and that boat shows are serving up doses of “let’s convince women to sail” based not on the reality of sailing, but on the stereotype.
So come on, Strictly Sail… let’s have some truly motivational speakers, OK? You want to fire women up about the dream of being on boats? Don’t just tell us that women can be sailors, if their partner wants them to be badly enough; show us the women who are motivational. They speak for themselves.
A fuckin’ MEN, sister!!!!
Did you get to speak with Mary SwiftSwan? She is an impressive lady who stands above many men!
fair winds
Z
Did we just all walk up on the wrong side of the boat this morning… or what? *laughs* Total convergence zone on pissed off female sailors who are NOT dragged aboard. It’s funny, but at the last Strictly Sail I attended, I was so pissed off at the anti-multihull bias, I didn’t even notice the misogyny. Maybe this is a sign of growth that now it’s all I can see when I step on to the boat show floors.