UKLA Chair blog #35
I loved this video from the ILCA6 sailors on the British Sailing Team about achieving gender equality for Olympic participants and medals in Sailing at Paris 2024. It’s been a long time coming. I was lucky enough to coach my sister Denise in the single-hander Europe class at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. It certainly felt like progress then since Cathy Foster had sailed in the 470 class in Los Angeles in 1984 as the only female sailor. In Barcelona there were three female classes but with the Soling, Star and Flying Dutchman among the “missed” classes it was hardly surprising that female sailors were less than 20% of the total.
Regular readers of this blog will know a little of the history of the ILCA6 in the Olympics (blog #26) and the launch of our female participation survey, about which I want to give you a summary. We had 108 responses and have spent March reviewing the findings and starting to develop an action plan.
Many of the responders said they were attracted to the ILCA by the single-handed sailing but also the active racing scene (from club to National level), easy access to used boats and of course a community of like-minded sailors and friends. A sizable number, although a minority, reported direct unfavourable gender-based discrimination (through words or actions) with plenty of examples reported. This has no place in our class or sport. As a community, we must call out this behaviour when we see it and provide education to our sailors (from younger ILCA4 sailors to older ILCA7 master sailors) so that we all understand what it is inappropriate.
A smaller percentage, but again still a sizable number, experienced or observed direct unfavourable gender-based discrimination through structural barriers. The themes included the need to have more female role models, not just the top sailors, but also coaches, race officers and key volunteers including on the UKLA Committee (it is 25% female). Youth female ILCA4 sailors want to be encouraged to stay in the ILCA4 if it suits them and Master sailors want the opportunity to sail an ILCA4 at UKLA events (note that ILCA4 is an open class in the UK, not age restricted). Respondents also want UKLA to help foster an empowering attitude for female sailors and a higher-level engagement on the challenges encountered by female sailors.
There is very clear support for a separate set of male and female results (in addition to overall results) at UKLA events and support (although less emphatic) for a female mentor/buddy scheme to match an ILCA 4 sailor with an ILCA 6 sailor.
In answer to the questions on separate racing for male and female sailors, female only training sessions and female only regattas, the results reflect differing perspectives. A small majority would support separate racing and regattas “sometimes”, with comments stressing the value of females racing together from time to time. But a large minority have the strongly held view that they “never” want to race in a female only fleet (at UKLA events) and want the challenge of getting to the top of that fleet. Close to 75% would like to “sometimes” have female only training. It seems there is an opportunity to balance both perspectives better given our current position of providing no separate female racing, regattas or training.
We are currently planning a virtual feedback session on April 19th at 7pm for those who said in the survey they were interested in staying involved. If you are interested in joining them (especially as a younger female sailor), we will have a limited number of extra spaces, just let me know.
As part of the journey towards Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, it is important that we know the diversity that we already have within UKLA. We will shortly be sending our members and ILCA sailors a form which we would appreciate you filled in.
Snippet:
You can now buy ILCA class flags for your club through our garment shop