Gender roles in sailing and cruising

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

Ya, I kinda think "being human" is generally a piss poor excuse for anything. Personally my philosophy is to use it as an excuse to forgive everyone else and as a standard to jerk my own chain when I get to big for my own britches. It almost works sometimes.

I didn't say it was an excuse. But it often is an explanation. You say you're 99.99% where you want to be in your relationship. Maybe you can give yourself a break? I'm sure she'll forgive you.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Exile

Some of us admit to it more readily than others, while some refuse to admit it and try to "make up for it" by prostrating themselves before the alter of political correctness. But none of that is meaningful compared to how we deal with it which is really the only thing that counts. Most of us know many who have been legitimate victims of bias, prejudice, and even discrimination, but not all of them are victimized.

I get where you are coming from, but I don't think this particular thread has had much "prostrating." Then again we (us men) all have different levels of sensitivity to the current name calling and attempted shaming.

Originally Posted by Exile

I didn't say it was an excuse. But it often is an explanation. You say you're 99.99% where you want to be in your relationship. Maybe you can give yourself a break? I'm sure she'll forgive you.

No, I guess you didn't. And to be honest I don't dwell on mu success or failings as a human except in discussions like these. But for the sake of argument (mine not yours), you gotta admit you can always do better and there's no harm in that.

[gamayun]

Exile, I have no interest in this post being about women beating on men in terms of how the women can learn to be better sailors on "their" boats. If it does devolve to that or to name calling, then I think we all lose out on hearing from both sides and their personal stories. I am the product of learning from the best of both men and women; and more importantly, from their personalities and seeing how people react around them. It's not easy to change one's spots, but I try. As someone who learned only recently how to sail, and a relatively new boat owner, I enjoy learning from and teaching others. I also sailed my boat solo to Hawaii (16 days) and returned it (21 days) with 2 male crew who were strangers to me, picked up from a CF post. So I will call it as I see it from experience. One thing I learned from a woman in a class I taught a couple of weeks ago was to have one word where everyone would know to immediately pause/stop what they're doing while the other worked out an issue. Call it "hold" or something like this that's only used when absolutely needed. This way, one person can work out the issue (maybe a knot in a jammed cleat or something) while the other keeps a steady course. Now this might not always be possible, but if someone is needing to crash tack often and can't wait 2 minutes for someone to clear something, then that's a spatial awareness issue and a communication issue more so than trying to ascertain "who's in charge?". Do this enough times and it will demolish trust and create a fear that will be hard to re-establish with the other person. Ask me how I know this, too...

[atmartin]

Originally Posted by Exile

I'm not sure what you mean by equality of opportunity vs. outcome or whether that was my point, but no matter.

Sorry, I tried to cram two points in one sentence. First was that you're right; it's wrong to observe a single incident or crew and assume stereotypes and chauvinism as the only possible explanations.

My second point was the strawman argument often applied to feminism: that the goal is equality of outcome, rather than opportunity. Most couples decide for the husband to be skipper. Fine. It's not anathema if the majority of skippers are male. No one here is saying everything must be 50/50. What's troubling are entrenched attitudes where men are the de-facto skippers, women are chided for performing 'masculine' work and men feel pressured to appear more competent than they really are. These biases can and do interfere with the meritocracy most of us strive for.

There are more female skippers among younger generations, so that suggests more than pure ability at play. Some posters made arguments along the lines of "the owner of the boat has the most at stake". This is perfectly fair, but many owners (not as many cruisers) hire professionals or let crew steer. Presumably because they recognize that sometimes they're not the best helmsman helmsperson aboard.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

But for the sake of argument (mine not yours), you gotta admit you can always do better and there's no harm in that.

Of course, and one should always be open to learning. Speaking only for myself, I do sometimes wonder whether all that learning has led to my becoming better educated though! The problem I've seen and experienced myself is when the efforts to do better are all for naught, since the person you're trying to please is incapable of being pleased, maybe just a fundamentally unhappy person. Oftentimes these sorts of people are quick to blame others for their perpetual woes, and their partner takes the brunt of it. Especially on a boat, you gotta be respectful but you also gotta feel free to be yourself. Even if that means raising your voice or losing your temper occasionally when the SHTF.

[daletournier]

Whos responsible for the ladies boat running education? Imo its 100% hers. Theres been a couple of posts that have indirectly implied "a mans not doing is job if the lady hasnt learnt to manage the boat",

After a two mth cruise i had a lady crew say to me " you didnt teach me anything!" I quickly coreected her by pointing out "you didnt learn anything and Im not responsible for your lack of interest in learning to manage the boat". I had another lady that was very enthusiastic about understanding and learning to sail. She learnt quickly. She sailed the boat almost solo one night while i was downstairs. The next morning she thanked me for trusting her, I thanked her for enjoying the boat and learning to sail. Good experience for both of us.

My days of teaching are done, people (men or ladies) step up, I dont step down, people learn or they dont, desire is the driver when it comes to learning , if one wants to they do, im certainly not making someone learn. I look at it like this, im a book, you open it and read or you dont, your responsibility.

This brings me back to one of my previous posts, in my experience many women arent particularly interested in learning to sail and manage the boat, whether they should be or not is irrelevant if they lack the desire, this doesn't mean they dont like cruising.

One thing i will not cop is "the man is responsible for a lady crew/partners learning" .

[Exile]

Originally Posted by daletournier

Whos responsible for the ladies boat running education? Imo its 100% hers. Theres been a couple of posts that have indirectly implied "a mans not doing is job if the lady hasnt learnt to manage the boat",

After a two mth cruise i had a lady crew say to me " you didnt teach me anything!" I quickly coreected her by pointing out "you didnt learn anything and Im not responsible for your lack of interest in learning to manage the boat". I had another lady that was very enthusiastic about understanding and learning to sail. She learnt quickly. She sailed the boat almost solo one night while i was downstairs. The next morning she thanked me for trusting her, I thanked her for enjoying the boat and learning to sail. Good experience for both of us.

My days of teaching are done, people (men or ladies) step up, I dont step down, people learn or they dont, desire is the driver when it comes to learning , if one wants to they do, im certainly not making someone learn. I look at it like this, im a book, you open it and read or you dont, your responsibility.

This brings me back to one of my previous posts, in my experience many women arent particularly interested in learning to sail and manage the boat, whether they should be or not is irrelevant if they lack the desire, this doesn't mean they dont like cruising.

One thing i will not cop is "the man is responsible for a lady crew/partners learning" .

I've also experienced this with male crew. Different levels of desire, interest and competence. You can usually tell right away whether any teaching you offer will be well received, or received at all.

[gamayun]

Agree, Dale, a person has to want to learn in order to get better and many are happy not being in the decision seat. I see that with many of my male friends and their spouses, too, and that's their decision to make. Where I deviate is after a weekend spent teaching women how to sail, many of them "advanced" in their minds, who barely knew what to do at the helm. Many of them were at this weekend course so they could become better sailors with their partners on "his boat" (their words, not mine). I'm in my 50s and many of the students were much younger than me so it's not a generational thing that I can see. I am coming across more and more women skippers so this might be changing, too. I'll just note with an anecdote about the current physics Nobel winner who, when it was pointed out she was only the third woman in the prize history, said something like women weren't expected to go into the physics field so there were relatively few compared to men who would likely receive the prize. Nothwithstanding what happened to Rosalind Franklin in biology, I think this is so true. Why would a woman want to be a skipper when so few are actually doing it? There seems to be few women who feel comfortable taking control of their boat because (in my opinion) someone else is going to do it for them. It is definitely scary the first (and many times, after) and they will feel nervous, but until they see others doing it for real, and they have the encouragement from their partners to do it, they don't have any examples to understand that these are normal feelings. That's why I suggested letting the woman take the boat out with her friends. The dynamic changes immediately and this would allow her to see that she is fully capable. There's nothing like doing something yourself to give you the confidence that you absolutely have it in you to succeed.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Why would a woman want to be a skipper when so few are actually doing it? There seems to be few women who feel comfortable taking control of their boat because (in my opinion) someone else is going to do it for them.

Is it just convenient laziness? It may sound impolite, but some people simply like to be driven around. If such a person's gender commonly allows this arrangement more easily than the other gender, why wouldn't the person more often just choose to sit back and chill?

A female work collegue (and feminist in a big way) recently asked me to re-install her Windows printer driver. No, really. She felt "dumb" calling the IT department. I told her to google it and give it a go- easy stuff. She said "Aw come on, you guys all know how to do this stuff. Can't you at least take a look?"

Laziness might be the simplest answer. In some cases it overrides any ideology. Humans.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by atmartin

What's troubling are entrenched attitudes where men are the de-facto skippers, women are chided for performing 'masculine' work and men feel pressured to appear more competent than they really are. These biases can and do interfere with the meritocracy most of us strive for.

1. "Entrenched attitudes" about men being de facto skippers from who? I think Dale & Gamayun (why is your handle so hard to correctly spell? ) just shed some light on reasons which might help explain this.

2. I haven't observed any women being chided by men for doing their own boat work. Generally speaking I've mostly seen guys -- including yard workers -- genuinely impressed. I did hear a story from a very accomplished female skipper/boat owner who talked about her treatment from male yard workers when she first took delivery of her boat in Greece. She figured they may have never come across a female skipper/owner. Rather than griping about it, she simply demonstrated her competence which I suspect changed their outlook pretty quick!

3. Maybe what you mean here is men who put pressure on themselves to become competent before they have the requisite experience & know-how. For better or worse, that's how many men behave, but I'm not sure why you believe that negatively impacts on a woman's ability or yearning to become equally competent.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by cyan

She said "Aw come on, you guys all know how to do this stuff. Can't you at least take a look?"

Hey wait, that's sexist! And no, I don't mean sexiest.

Laziness might be the simplest answer. In some cases it overrides any ideology. Humans.

Yes, of course. But giving it a PC label usually stops any protest or even conversation and lends itself to perceived "empowerment."

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by Exile

Yes, of course. But giving it a PC label usually stops any protest or even conversation and lends itself to perceived "empowerment."

Maybe it's laziness, but let's take another look at it as, "pushing her outside of her comfort zone." Does that sit differently if you think of it this way? My son does this to me because he's the IT guy and I hate the stuff. Yes, I'd rather he just do it for me. He hates that I can't just figure it out myself so he has taught me how to Google things (which is where I go first for just about every fact finding thing in my life these days, sigh), but he will bail me out if I get desperate and need a helping hand. I don't see anything wrong with this approach. To me it's not lazy (check your inherent biases; hint, hint), but very human inability to immediately know how to problem solve when there are more experienced people around. I say give them the tools, and they'll figure it out though it might take a bit of encouragement. Of course, give them the tools, and they might not need you as their 'protectors' either

[cyan]

Originally Posted by Exile

Hey wait, that's sexist! And no, I don't mean sexiest.

Of course.
It also exposes nuances of gender roles. Clearly, not all such arrangements are the result of one side holding the other side back. My colleague as NO interest in the technical details of her computer- just that it prints her colorful spreadsheet.

My wife has little interest in the details of the boat- just that it gets us gracefully to cool destinations. Yes, she can turn the boat around on her own and pick up the MOB dummy float. It's just that she would rather look for dolphins instead. I'm cool with this arrangement.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Maybe it's laziness, but let's take another look at it as, "pushing her outside of her comfort zone." Does that sit differently if you think of it this way? My son does this to me because he's the IT guy and I hate the stuff. Yes, I'd rather he just do it for me. He hates that I can't just figure it out myself so he has taught me how to Google things (which is where I go first for just about every fact finding thing in my life these days, sigh)

You might be amused to know that I ignored my collegue's request. She googled it and she later stood up with a victorious touchdown signal as her printer whirred. I'm changing the world, one reluctant computer-hating feminist at a time. So much hate these days.

Originally Posted by gamayun

but he will bail me out if I get desperate and need a helping hand. I don't see anything wrong with this approach. To me it's not lazy (check your inherent biases; hint, hint), but very human inability to immediately know how to problem solve when there are more experienced people around. I say give them the tools, and they'll figure it out though it might take a bit of encouragement. Of course, give them the tools, and they might not need you as their 'protectors' either

Ahh yes, my inherent biases. Well, yes, I did secretly believe that my collegue was simply being lazy- furthermore, ironically employing a chivalry-shaming trick to easily dodge something that she hated- computer guts. Perhaps my inherent biases clouded my perspective? I can't see it, so help me out here.

[gamayun]

And just for the record, most men praise me on my accomplishments (almost embarrassingly so), and yet I still am called 'aggressive' when I state my mind or don't agree with a man's approach, 'incompetent' when I don't know every last button on my B&G devices, 'butch' when I walk alone, etc. These are just to my face. I really don't care, but at the time it stings and I certainly see it shutting down other women, especially during racing when the stress levels are higher. We are all sexist in some way or another because of our inherent gender biases. We see through our own rose-colored glasses because of how we've been raised, the people in power around us, and our own DNA, which has been shown to be linked to either risk taking or in seeking protection. It's just the (human) way it is