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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