Affirmative Action?

Some of you know that there will be a new 2 person class at the Paralympics. Recently it was decided that the 2 person team will be at least 1 female. The boats have yet to be chosen. It will probably be the Martin 16 (my guess). After you read the bulletin excerpt and email responses think how your Olympics could be changed. My comments are bolded and italicized - Dawg

IFDS is the Disabled Sailor portion of the ISAF organization. The basic flow of this request for a new event at the Paralympics was:

1. IFDS sends request for more 2 more events - a 1 Person and a 2Person
2. IPC (International Paralympic Committee) sends acceptance of 1 (and chooses the 2P because we already have a 1P) *and* says that gender is of primary importance to them and they would like to see 30% of the total athlete count female, with a suggestion of having the new event 50:50 to help achieve that.
3. IFDS sends acceptance and requests 20% female for the next games and with the opening of the restriction of 50:50 to "at least one woman"
4. IPC don't have anything to do with how we meet their 30% quota.

Here is an excerpt from the IFDS Bulletin:

IFDS BULLETIN - SEPTEMBER 2005

If you have been keeping up with the forums (IFDS forums) at all this summer, you will know the long discussions we've had about boats, crews and disabilities in the new two-person event. From ongoing talks with the IPC and looking at the past Games, we've decided to make the Two-Person Keelboat, a mixed event - which means that there will have to be at least one woman in each boat.

The other options (making the 2.4mR all-female, or making the three-person event mixed with at least one woman in each Sonar) seemed to make little sense and limit opportunities in those classes. With the Equipment Evaluation Committee (EEC) working diligently to evaluate the submitted equipment in time for the 2005 AGM in Singapore, having a gender quota in the new event provides some new opportunities to teams that are just beginning to form. I recognize that quotas are not the best answer, but I am excited with the possibilities for the sport. Like the original Olympic 470 event, maybe we can look at revising things in 2016 and beyond, but this decision will hopefully give some equity and encouragement to a segment of our sport that has been under represented during the past games. This was also the only way to come even close to meeting our IPC Sport Program ratio of 58 men and 22 women in 2008.

Those of you at the 2005 IFDS Disabled Sailing World Championships in Denmark had the opportunity to speak with John (IRL) and some of the other EEC members. From those conversations, you'll know that they have been tasked with a very difficult job, to assess and report on equipment in a very short amount of time. They have developed some great criteria, ranking sheets and comparison charts that will help both now and for the next set of evaluations (that we can do in a more orderly fashion over the next three years). Your input is important as well - you already know some of the boats and hopefully there will be more information available soon on the other boats being evaluated. A few times, we've asked the question, "Should we just put things on hold and wait until 2012?" My consistent answer is that the current format gets 64 sailors on the water competing for medals. We have been given the opportunity to get 80 sailors on the water competing - let's not throw it away.

All country Ruling National Authorities should now be aware that there are two vacancies on the IFDS Executive Committee and they have been asked to nominate candidates, the deadline being 1700 hours UTC, Friday 7 October 2005. Further information is available on the website at http://www.sailing.org/?cm=z6vFGiAClLn,G7H

The IFDS Executive Committee are looking for dedicated and hard-working people willing to work to continue moving the sport forward for the good of sailors worldwide. Some of my personal goals are to grow the fleet sizes (Denmark was great), increase the number of countries involved in our sport and make sure that we keep things as equitable as possible. Additionally, during 2005 we have been working on keeping the governance of the sport in line with the rapid growth that has occurred over the last four years. Participation on the new committees provides a great way to get and give information and input on decisions that affect the sport.

There are a number of important broadcasts which will be announced shortly which will include the qualification process, numbers to qualify for the 2008 Paralympic Sailing Competition and information on the B3 status. This will be followed by the classification numbers for the Two-Person Keelboat event, confirmation of the locations of the IFDS World Disabled Sailing Championships for 2006 and 2007; and of course, the announcement of the equipment to be used for the Two-Person Keelboat class. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact the secretariat or ask me directly. As most of you know, I try to respond quickly and clearly to all of my emails. The forum (which can be accessed via ISAF Sailor) is also available for discussions and the 2005 AGM in Singapore promises to be another opportunity to see some of the new committees in action which will help to plan out our direction for the next four years.

Related Website
ISAF Sailor - http://sailing.org/isafsailor/

24. Future IFDS Bulletins

IFDS welcomes feedback from past IFDS Bulletins and contributions for future issues. The next bulletin will be published in November 2005 and your contributions are invited. Please send information to ifds@isaf.co.uk

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It appears that it has been decided if you want to sail in the new 2-person discipline (boats to be decided) in the Paralympics, the team must be co-ed. The boats will have a kite too. My problem is that there are few high quality women sailors with disabilities. I know a few that can drive/skipper. But I doubt there are many that can handle a kite in 20kts. (maybe I am wrong).

Here are some opinions from email exchanges. Of course names have been removed to protect the innocent.

The first email comments about the bulletin:

Note that the two person keelboat (equipment to be announced in November) will be a 'Mixed' (one male, one female) Event. Looks like we are ahead of the Olympics here!

Best regards

I responded with:

I'll probably get blasted for this but here is my opinionated opinion:

While I have no problem co-skipper/crewing for US (My country of origin) female sailors like Karen, Jen or Donna because they have demonstrated their ability....but....I do have a problem being told that as a male the only way you can sail in this discipline is with a woman as part of the team. But if you are a woman you can sail with whoever you want. This smacks every AB/Dis male sailor in the face.

You call this being ahead of the Olympics? Why do the Olympics have separate events? Wait..wait...lets stop there, we don't want to politize this. It's already turned into a reverse discrimination thing.

With our options somewhat limited because of our disabilities why are we limiting them even more?

This response came from a US Female disabled sailor:

I am a female sailor from the USA. The rationale for making a class mandatory for female participation is due to the gross under representation of women in our sport. The IPC has ordered sailing to fix the disparity and has issued goals to our sport to attain 21 (?) women at the next games. Please look for the female participants in the Athens games and count them, I think there were 4?? Hannah, Helena, Annette and Yoko. The UK made up 50 % of those 4. Q: How many men at the Athens Games? A: 68.

As in regular AB (Able Bodied) sailing, very few women throughout the world are the skippers, even though numbers of female crew are climbing. The question has been asked why has our disabled sport not seen the same climb? (DUH-by and large men are more competitive than women) Teams, sailors and investments have already been made in the 1 person and the 3 person boats for Beijing 2008. So, by the time of the 2 person boat selection in Nov., teams can start fresh on the newly selected boat with one female sailor.

It is openly believed that women do not have the weight needed for the rail of the 3 person Sonar, nor the strength, (Though I disagree on the strength issue, and feel any woman can weight train for strength and be as strong as her same weighted male counterpart) so females are so often only able to skipper the Sonar and not be the crew upon the rail.

So for all these reasons and more, 1 woman in the 2 person will be required. I think it was a good decision.

Another response from a US Disabled Female sailor:

I'm no advocate for quotas. We tried it in our nation's school systems and we know if doesn't work. Yes, I agree that over-segmentation is bad for the sport. It just leads to less boats on the start line. I've spent a lot of time with Linda, Serge and the Athlete advisory committee voicing opposition to imposing quotas.

But this is all imposed by IPC. IFDS is just trying to come up with a solution to this stupid quota created by IPC. Is it the right solution? No, but they had to do something. Believe me I hate the fact that they are trying to get more severely disabled sailors and more women all in one boat..Ha!

So what do we do now? Like a consumer, I vote with my dollar. I'm staying away from the 2-person event. If IPC sees low participation and performance like Green fleeters, maybe they will get the point.

That's my 2 cents...on another point.

Currently the Sonar and 2.4 are open. Which means that you can be either/or. Why make a mandate when the pool to draw from is already limited. I should not have to go out and find a girl and train her to sail/race. Frankly I think they should have 3 classes as described below.

1. A class strictly for using electronic controls. This will put a level playing field on anyone who wants to sail in this class. Anyone who thinks that a high level quad will be able to compete at the highest levels with a single leg amp or a low para is dreaming. Oh sure they may win the local country trials but you can bet it was because they spent more money than anyone else, they will not win the gold at the Paralympics. A separate class is needed to make competition equitable for the high level injuries. Use either the Martin 16 or an access dinghy.
2. An open class using the new UD18 or Martin 16. This will be open to all disabled sailors with no team rating restrictions. Lets go racing using kites with no wind limits. 25knts sounds fun to me.
3. An all female class. This will get more women out sailing than the new stupid restrictions.

Dump the 2.4 and get kites out there with advertising allowed on them for corporate sponsorship. This shit is too expensive especially when you add in your expenses for your disabilities. By creating an all electronic and an all female class you will be encouraging and getting more high level disabled sailors and women out at the games which is the objective.

How would you Able-Bodied sailors feel if the organizing body for the Olympics told you that the 470, Star, 49er.... had to be co-ed teams? Why not eliminate the Men's/Women's classes and combine them? That would save a ton of money by combining classes and be PROGRESSIVE too.

What do you think??
Dawg