On the subject of culture change:
It's all very well saying (as some do) that the answer involves women
developing a thick skin. But that's a pretty self-serving answer, if you
ask me. "You change, so we don't have to." Culture change is hard, and
requires a concerted effort by a lot of folk over a long period of time.
But if that's what it's going to take, that's what it's going to take.
I'll just keep on doing the best I can. Every time a man notices sexism
and calls it out (whether it's the obvious sort like those idiot remarks
on the list yesterday, or the subtler sort, like not making an effort to
include female club members in "unofficial" club planning and
discussion), then that's one bit of extra supportiveness that the women
*will* notice. Truly, every little bit helps.
Often the problem can be a subtle sense that women are "visitors" on the
airfield and "not the target audience", if that makes any sense. How
does one address unspoken assumptions? God knows, I don't have any
answers. I'd like to see the issue discussed more openly, though. I
think that's a healthy step forward, at least. And if women *do* speak
up, *listen to what we say*. So many guys jump to reflexive
defensiveness and "...but not all men do that" whenever a woman mentions
stuff like this. After a while, a lot of us just give up and walk away.
It can be really hard, as a woman, to raise subjects like this in a
male-dominated environment. That goes a hundred times more for the
subtle, hard-to-verbalise stuff. (If you want to know more about the
sort of stuff I'm talking about here, do some reading on
"micro-agressions". Good place to start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression .)
Every single guy who makes an effort to "not be that guy", to put his
own defensiveness and self justification aside and really *listen* to
what we women are saying.. they're noticed and appreciated. It helps. A
lot. To those of you that are reading what I'm writing here and are
giving it serious thought rather than just dismissing it out of hand, I
offer you a heart-felt "thank you". Gliding as a sport has a lot of
great people in it. I've met some awesome folk on airfields. But being
"a great guy" isn't enough. I wish it were. This stuff takes active work
to fix. I thank all of you in advance who are willing to do a bit of
that work and help make gliding less of a male ghetto, and more
welcoming to *everyone*.
Teal
On 12/09/2014 11:27 PM, Gary Stevenson wrote:
Hi Mark,
Astounding! To me this is an absolutely stunning summary of the
current situation.
I can see why you have nominated not to make further comment – you
have summed it up quite succulently, and there seems little else that
can be meaningfully said by a mere male on this topic at this point in
time. [That cartoon is so brutal and true!] However I wonder if any
female member of the forum would like to make further informed comment?
It would seem that the ONLY ???? thing left to do is to action things.
But what actions? Quite obviously what we are really discussing here
is a major culture change. Usually, in the nature of things, this
takes time, almost always a great deal of time. Can this process be
accelerated?
Never the less I find it somewhat heartening that the topic is now
here on Aus- Soaring for discussion.
Terry Cubley, besides being the Aus rep, is now also the
Vice-President of the IGC. I know that Terry is a member of this forum
and therefore at least scans most of the posted material. As I said in
an earlier post to Teal, the problem is worldwide, and it would seem
appropriate that Terry is directed/nicely asked/whatever by the
members of this forum – the majority of whom I assume are GFA members
and therefore can somewhat informally make this request. {Yeah, yeah,
yeah , I know the formal process: The GFA member has to put it to
his/her Club Committee, the Club puts it to the State Association and
then the SA puts it to the GFA Board ... No wonder the likes of Mike B
despairs} - to do everything in his power (whatever that is ), to
expedite that cultural change at international level.
Terry, can you please respond to my post?
Regards,
Gary
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of
*Mark Newton
*Sent:* Friday, 12 September 2014 7:10 PM
*To:* Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.
*Subject:* [Aus-soaring] Controlling attitude
I reckon there will be a bunch of people who’ve read some of the posts
on this mailing list today who’ll be saying, “I don’t see the problem.
It’s just a bit of harmless fun. Doesn’t hurt anybody.”
Guys say that all the time, never realizing that the only reason
they're /able /to say it is because they’ve typically been utterly
indifferent to whether their fun is, indeed, “harmless,” or whether it
has hurt anybody.
I don’t know, perhaps parents of girls have a different view.
Perspective and experience.
The reason it usually passes without mention is because most women,
having put up with it for their entire living memory, are so sick of
it that they can’t be bothered going through the exhausting rigmarole
of engaging anymore, and just remove themselves from situations where
it’s a problem; and because so many men, harboring a cataclysmic
failure of empathy, don’t even notice the reactions of women, and just
let it slide without saying anything.
“The secret life of women.”
http://i.imgur.com/OigLS.png
(I know the cartoonist: He told me some of these quotes were provided
by his daughter)
In case you haven’t noticed (and I’m almost certain that some of you
actually haven’t), gliding is almost entirely dominated by men.
There’s no /physical/ reason why that should be the case. There’s also
no innate gender-based difference in skill to explain it either.
I’m going to say it’s cultural: The traditions and attitudes present
at gliding clubs all over Australia are, either overtly (like today’s
email messages) or subtly (like so much of everything else) repulsive
to women. I’ve seen so many women enjoy their AEF, stick with it for a
couple of weekends, and never come back. And thousands of pilots
barely ever wonder why that’s the case. Over time, gliding clubs
become male ghettos, all over Australia.
“What we walk past, we accept.”
When we’re learning to fly, the first lesson we’re taught is
stability. The second lesson we’re taught is how to change our attitude.
This community seems absolutely excellent at stability. When it comes
to sexism, maybe it ought to be skilled enough to master attitude.
There’ll no doubt be replies to this message. I’ve said my piece, I’m
not going to respond to any of them them. But I, like everyone else
who reads them, will be making character judgements regardless. If you
find that idea challenging, perhaps take 24 hours to have a good hard
think about why.
Fin.
- mark
[ I will also reserve judgement over whether off-list replies should
be forwarded to the list.
There will be no shadows here. ]
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
