MY ENGLISH FRIEND Dylan Winter is in
trouble with women sailors. He has been shot down in flames by angry women
readers of Small Craft Advisor
magazine. He roused their ire by writing a humorous article in which he tried
to figure out what male boat owners should do to make their wives and girl
friends more interested in sailing. Sailing with men, that is.
Perhaps he didn’t deserve all the
flak that came his way. He is a gentle, educated soul who sails small boats
quite peaceably with his wife, Jill, and his family. And he produces some of
the most artistically meritorious sailing videos I have ever seen as he wends
his way slowly around Great Britain in a small sailboat.*
All the same, he should have known
better. I, for one, could have told him that American women sailors are very
sensitive to being treated with condescension or superciliousness by men, even
in jest. They know their pintles from their gudgeons, and they demand respect. I
must say I’m all for it. Respect is good.
Nevertheless, we need to face the
facts. And the real question is, do women like
sailing?
I voiced my views on this subject
several years ago in a column on this blog, and it might help to repeat it here
now. Of course, there’s also a chance it might not help after all; but what the
heck. Faint heart ne’er won fair lady,
so here goes:
DELICATE SUBJECT THIS: Do women
really like sailing? It’s a question that occurred to me during a recent
meeting of a little committee whose members write and edit articles for our
local yacht club’s newsletter.
The editor wanted to know: Are we
having enough articles of interest to women members? Recipes, for instance. Or:
Where can they get nice nautical fabric for settee cushions? Or: What’s the
best detergent for washing up in salt water?
Then it occurred to me that these
questions are condescending. Women sailors are no different from men sailors,
except they smell better and seem to stay cleaner longer. Sailors are sailors,
and if women are interested in sailing they’ll be learning all the same stuff
that men learn.
The truth is that most people
don’t like sailing. It’s a minority sport. But those who do sail aren’t divided
into categories by gender. We all know women who have sailed around the world
singlehanded and non-stop. Perhaps they weren’t the first to do it, but there’s
no reason now to think women aren’t the equal of men as sailors.
What may be confusing is that there
are probably fewer women than men whose ambition is to sail a boat. And that’s
probably very wise of them, considering that sailing a small boat is the
slowest, most uncomfortable, and most expensive method of travel known to
mankind and womankind.
However, the fact that there are
still special sailing schools run by women, only for women, seems to me to smack
of discrimination. I don’t know of any sailing schools for men only. I think
the women-only schools sprang up because of a nasty rumor that men are prone to
shout at women who can’t perform a simple action on a boat after being shown
how to do it a hundred times, for goodness’ sake.
Women don’t shout at other women,
apparently. I presume that whatever needs to be done, the teacher just does it
for the pupil and keeps the peace. But what worries me is that when they have
graduated, those women will have to sail with men again, so they might as well
have got shouted at in the first place and have it all over and done with. (If
it’s true about men shouting, of course, which I’ve never seen proven.)
But, anyway, to presume that women
sailors want special articles in the club newsletter about how to butter
parsnips at anchor, or sauté mangel-wurzels under way, seems demeaning. Women
who like sailing want to know how to tell the difference between variation and
deviation and where the deepest chord of the mainsail should lie in heavy
weather. And if nice nautical fabric is needed for new cushions, why shouldn’t
it be a man who searches for it, rather than a woman? Come to think of it,
maybe it’s time for a woman editor for the club newsletter. Then the questions
wouldn’t even be asked.
Today’s
Thought
If men are always more or less deceived
on the subject of women, it is because they forget that they and women do not
speak altogether the same language.
—Amiel, Journal, 26 Dec 1868
Tailpiece
“Did you visit that spiritualist last night?”
Yeah.”
“Was she a good one?”
“Not really, just a medium.”
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
