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: aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net [mailto:aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net] 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. ]
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