Tag: athletic performance

athletes · Olympics · sexism · stereotypes

Funding for Women’s Sports Around the World

Diane HarperLeave a comment

A friend posted this article about the Indian Women’s Cricket team winning the Women’s World Cup.

This AP photo of the women celebrating their World Cup win is from the India Today article linked above.

“Three years before this moment, back in October 2022, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) made a bold and unprecedented move during its 15th Apex Council meeting. They unanimously passed a resolution to introduce pay parity between India’s men’s and women’s cricketers. For the first time, the women who wore the blue jersey would receive the same match fees as their male counterparts.”

“This triumph was not accidental. It was the result of a carefully constructed ecosystem designed to elevate women’s cricket from the fringes to the forefront. The BCCI’s [Board of Control for Cricket in India] equal pay decision was only one piece of a larger puzzle: improved facilities, better coaching structures, and the advent of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), which gave Indian players consistent exposure to world-class competition. The WPL, in particular, provided an arena for rising stars to play alongside and against international icons, sharpening their skills and instilling the poise needed for high-pressure moments like a World Cup final.”

The article got me thinking about other low and middle income countries with powerhouse sports teams. I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but discovered that Kenya has a national strategy and several funds (public and private sector) to support women athletes. Jamaica announced a fund to support women’s soccer earlier this year, just two years after the national team had to crowd-fund its way to the Women’s World Cup.

Most seem to rely on non-governmental funding, which is more about empowering women and girls rather than producing elite athletes. That is arguably a far more important goal. But as interest in women’s sport continues to rise around the world, I look forward to seeing other countries and corporate sponsors putting resources into equal funding for women’s sport.

I’m already a fan of the Olympics, where there are serious efforts to ensure gender parity in the competitions and on individual teams. Future games promise to be even more interesting, as the traditional dominance of countries that have (relatively) strong support for female athletes is tested.

diversity · equality · feminism · fitness · gender policing · inclusiveness · sexism · stereotypes

The Harms of Gendered Sport and How We Could Fight Back

Diane Harper

Cate’s great post from a couple of weeks ago, combined with the latest over-the-top reaction to a trans athlete who hasn’t even competed since 2022 (aren’t all reactions over the top when people are complying with the rules?) led me down a rabbit hole of the harms gendered sports do more generally.


University of Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas competing in 2022. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump suspended about $175 million US in funding for the university over the participation of Thomas in its swimming program back in 2022. (John Bazemore/The Associated Press)

I have written about it before, here, and about Lia Thomas and other trans athletes. As a good analyst should, I am putting my biases on the table: I have trans friends, both men and women, who have gone from being suicidal and afraid to use a public washroom or change-room, to being happy and physically active. But as Cate said, and the “punishment” of the University of Pennsylvania shows, the whole trans athlete garbage isn’t really about trans athletes, especially at the elite level.

So what if we were to fight back by refusing to play along? What if we developed more all-gender sports, like we have already done for ultimate frisbee, mixed curling and many other new team sports, and which has been the standard in equestrian sport for decades? What if we changed the rules so that sports valued artistic merit, endurance and flexibility as much as they do upper body strength? What if women could do throws in figure skating, or compete in pommel horse? What if we then changed uniform rules so that men could wear sequins and women could wear pants (or at least shorts that covered more than most of the crotch)?


China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong competing during the Winter Olympics at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing. Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images

What if we simply stopped having men’s and women’s categories for things like shooting or fencing, where gender seems completely irrelevant? What if people like Katie Ledecky could compete against male swimmers? It is entirely possible she doesn’t know for sure just how much she is capable of because she races at different distances than men, and so outstrips many of her competitors that she may never have pushed herself to her absolute limits.

What if these rule changes led to much more equitable funding for sports traditionally segregated to women, or seen as too feminine (gymnastics, figure skating)?

There will undoubtedly be pushback, just like what we are seeing now against the LGBTQ+ community, from men who think they are losing something when women gain something. We will need to keep up the fight for fairness in sport. It’s a fight worth having for men, women, everyone.

feminism · fitness · stereotypes · swimming

Grandmothers as Athletes: How About We Just Call them Athletes?

Diane Harper

Sam recently wrote about Amy Appelhans Gubser, her amazing swim and the way it was portrayed in the media. TL:DR it was bad. Lazy journalists treated it as a “human interest” story about an overweight grandmother who miraculously did a long swim.

Since I follow a lot of marathon swimmers and marathon swimming enthusiasts, the coverage I saw what quite different. Everyone was respectful (in awe) of what she achieved. No-one commented on her age, family status, weight or anything else. I assume it’s because women are very well represented in marathon swim records (which do not have separate categories for men and women) and extra weight may actually be an advantage when you are swimming for many hours in cold water. And they can understand just how tough that swim was, and that it wasn’t undertaken lightly by some kooky old lady who miraculously succeeded.

Here’s what Amy accomplished:

  • Golden Gate Bridge to SE Farallon Island
  • 47.7 km (29.6 miles) in 17 hours, 3 minutes on 11 May 2024
  • First to complete route in outbound direction (mainland to island)

That’s impressive all by itself, but here’s what her friend and fellow marathon swimmer Simon Dominguez had to say:

“I am still marveling at Amy’s swim. What some might not know is why this is such a difficult swim so I thought I would tell you.

28.5 miles of open water swimming. A long way but there are other swims of the same distance that are not nearly as tough. Why is it so tough ? (and thanks for asking). Because of the following:

The cold
While the temperature ranged from 48 to 57 degrees F, I know that it touched down at a low of 43 near the islands. 17+ hours of swimming in these temperatures should not be possible but were for Amy because of the work she put in training in very cold water for a number of years preparing for this swim. Also, you need to remember that the longer you swim, the more exhausted you get, the more you feel the cold. Add this to the fact that as you head out to the Farallones, the water temperature continues to drop so you get the double whammy of exhaustion and cold combining to make this an almost impossible undertaking.

The currents
While Amy whipped out extremely quickly at the start of the swim on a strong ebb, she then had to fight a flood. Amy told me that she got stuck in place for over an hour at one stage as she fought the tide. And it was near the end of the swim when she was the most depleted. Truly amazing.

Sea creatures
Luckily Amy did not encounter any men in grey suits but they are out there all year long. I have no doubt that she was watched while she was swimming. The Farallon Islands sit in the Red Triangle – the largest great white shark breeding ground in the world. Amy respects that she is a visitor in their world. This is not the first swim that Amy has done in shark inhabited waters.

I attempted this swim in 2015 and did not make it due to a shark encounter about three miles from the finish. I could not be happier that the first person to successfully complete this swim is the amazing Amy Appelhans Gubser. A fierce competitor who has no quit in her and who is the first person to put her hand up to help others in need.

I salute you Amy. I know you probably feel like you have gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. But your name will now go down in history as a true South End Rowing Club badass.”

Amy Appelhans Gubser showing off the badass T Shirt her husband brought her from Dublin, where he had been while she was doing her Farallon Island swim. Photo shared by Amy Appelhans Gubser on Facebook

Amy is well-known and respected as a long-time marathon swimmer. Her first major marathon swim was across the Strait of Gibraltar in 2015: 14.4 km in 4 hours. There have been many great swims since, and she was named one of the World’s 50 Most Adventurous Open Water Women in 2019 by the World Open Water Swimming Association.

But somehow all that pales in importance imparted to her status as a grandmother (sarcasm). Sam’s son Miles made me laugh by telling Sam “All your athletic achievements could be so much more impressive if I had a kid.” I have a feeling Amy would laugh at the absurdity of it too, secure in the knowledge that people who understand marathon swimming appreciate what she achieved.

fitness

Translating Fitness Skills Across Disciplines

Diane Harper1 Comment

A few years ago, my friend Bess came to visit and I took her to my ballet class. She has zero interest in ballet but was fascinated to hear the feedback we were getting: it was just like what she uses when heavy weapons fighting.

Bess, on the right in a red surcoat and holding a sword and shield, has her feet ready to advance on her opponent, who is wearing a black surcoat.

Use your core muscles. Keep your spine aligned. Bend your knees so you can spring up and land without injury. Engage those quick twitch muscles so you can move around the floor. Pay attention to the angle of your wrists: it can mean the difference between a “killing” blow and a wasted hit with the flat of your sword. Or if you are dancing, it’s the difference between a graceful line and strong back muscles vs looking like you have chicken wings for arms.

A woman in a long flowing blue dress holds her arms above her head with her elbows bent. To the left is a pair of white chicken wings with the words “chicken wings” below the,. Image: Zarely.co

That experience has stuck with me, especially when I realized it applies to other sports.

When riding my horse, all those instructions about core, posture, and arm position also apply. Swimming is also all about core, alignment and precise use Of arms and wrists for maximum efficiency when moving through the water.

From watching other sports, especially things like martial arts, it appears these principles are pretty universal.

This discovery has allowed me to take feedback from one sport and apply it to another. Mental images that helped in ballet turned out to be really useful for correcting my riding. Figuring out how certain muscles feel when properly engaged helped me recognize when I was working my core in the pool.

Equally important was the recognition that those translatable skills can make it possible to try a new sport with less fear of the unknown. This is probably that magical knowledge (whether conscious or unconscious) that makes natural athletes “natural”.

I haven’t yet decided to take up anything new, but I like the idea that I could do so and not be starting at absolute zero. In my heart, I’m like the character in the children’s book Brianna Bright, Ballerina Knight, who isn’t very good at ballet but bumbles and stumbles her way through other sports until she discovers fencing,

Brianna Bright, a cartoon girl with long brown hair in a pony tail, eats dinner while images of her as a ballerina and a fencer float above her head. Image copyright Liana Hee, 2018, text copyright Pam Calvert, 2018. Courtesy of Two Lions.
Lia Thomas and Trans Athletes
fitness

Lia Thomas and Trans Athletes

Diane Harper4 Comments

Lia Thomas’ recent win at the NCAA swim meet has sparked another round of debate about the rights of transgender athletes to participate in sports.

Here is what Sarah Sardinia wrote on Twitter: To all those pushing this false narrative that Trans People have an advantage in sports, and are using Lia Thomas as “proof”, let me lay down some stats here …

1650 yard distance
Lia pre-transition: 14:54.765
Lia post-transition: 15:59.71 (lost 65 seconds)
Male record: 14:12.08 (Kieran Smith)
Female record: 15:03:31 (Katie Ledecky)
She was 40 seconds behind the male record, now she is 56 behind the female

500 yard distance
Lia’s best pre-transition, 4:18:72
Lia’s current, 4:34:06
Female record (Katie Ledecky), 4:24:06
Male record (Kieran Smith), 4:06:32

200 yard distance
Prior to transition 1:39.31
Male record, 1:29.15
After transition 1:41.93
Female record of 1:39.10

See a pattern here?
Not advantage, consistency

There’s a reason that with all the Trans Women competing in sports for years, she is one of the only top ranking ones, because she’s always been one of the top ranking. You can read more here about the data.

To put it another way:

And those images really need to be juxtaposed with the next one, which includes a photo of Olympic champion Katie Ledecky. Katie is 6 feet tall, which makes her one inch shorter than Lia, and two inches shorter than Missy Franklin, who set that NCAA 200 yard record in 2015. There is a lot of talk about how height, and size, and arm span give men natural advantages over women. Swimmers like Michael Phelps have natural advantages, including height, huge feet and flexibility, arm reach, long torsos and relatively short legs. That’s true both among men and women.

Maybe we should learn a a bit more about what this very private athlete has to say for herself. Her experience is not atypical of the gender testing that has gone on for many decades.

The reality is that the vast majority of youth athletes of any gender don’t compete at the elite level. However, even as amateur athletes they face discrimination, so few participate, especially trans girls. A recent Reuters article noted that “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2019 that just 1.8% of high school students in the country are transgender, and the Human Rights Campaign has said that, according to surveys, only about 12% play on girls’ sports teams.”.

Some do do compete as boys or men without too much attention, such as Schuyler Bailar, the first openly trans swimmer in the NCAA men’s first division, and Chris Mosier, the first openly trans athlete to qualify for Team USA and who competed in the Olympic Trials in January 2020. Others, such as Mack Beggs, the Texas high school wrestler forced to compete against girls even after starting to take testosterone, are forced into the same unwelcome spotlight as Lia Thomas. By focusing so much on biology and physiology, the impact is the dehumanization of those kids.

Lots more research is needed on the impact of hormones on performance, and there are legitimate concerns about putting competitors of significantly different sizes/abilities in the same categories when there is a risk of injury. The Christian Science Monitor has done a decent job of trying to summarize the latest research and how it is interpreted. But the bottom line for me and most of the people I know can be summarized like this:

Anyone saying trans girls have an unfair advantage have never seen me perform a sport. Cartoon by Sophie Labelle (https://www.serioustransvibes.com/)

Diane Harper lives and swims in Ottawa.

fitness

Underage high performance athletes – striking a balance

Diane Harper1 Comment

The biggest story of the Beijing Winter Olympics may have been that of Kamila Valieva, the 15 year-old who was phenomenal in the team figure skating event, but then accused of having failed a doping test two months before. Despite the test results, she was allowed to compete in the individual event, where she stumbled to a fourth place finish after being widely expected to take the gold.

The story didn’t end there. Her coach’s harsh reaction to her performance was widely condemned, including by the head of the International Olympic Committee. That coach is known for producing medal-winning athletes who retire, often in their teens, often following injuries, questionable diet practices and overtraining,

The gold and silver medal winners were also teenagers who trained under this coach. That was the part that really struck me as tragic. Alexandra Trusova, who placed second, broke down after her performance, crying “I hate this sport. I won’t go onto the ice again”. This gifted athlete, who had just landed five quadruple jumps, may never skate again. For non-skating fans, the first quadruple jump in competition was by Elvis Stojko in 1998. Few skaters can do these jumps at all, yet she landed five in the space of about flour minutes.

The pressures on talented youngsters to excel at sports is something I struggle with. On one hand, as a kid who never got to test the limits of her ability but dreamed of being an Olympic backstroker, I want those athletes with the talent and drive to have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

On the other hand, I have watched the horrific case of Larry Nasser, who abused generations of young and vulnerable gymnasts. There have been cases of doping involving young teens in various sports for decades, presumably with the involvement of their coaches or other adults. A recent Globe and Mail investigation found that one in five Canadian national team athletes faced “questionable coaching methods, a toxic sport environment, chronic overtraining or unjustified pressure to be thinner”.

Should there be higher age limits for athletes? I don’t know. Some young athletes can do extraordinary things, but they could also be at higher risk for injury because they haven’t finished growing yet. Those quad jumps are a prime example. They put incredible pressure on joints, and may do lifelong damage.

Should we encourage kids to try lots of different things, potentially limiting their chances to excel? I don’t know the answer to that one either. As an adult, I am very happy to do lots of different things, but I have friends who are equally happy focusing on being the best they can be at one sport. My kids were equally split; one played every sport he could, while the other focused like a laser on becoming a dancer.

Should we be taking better care of these young athletes? Absolutely! No matter what path they take, I want them to become adults who enjoy being active, have fond memories of growing up, and possibly become coaches themselves for the next generation of high performance stars, or TimBits hockey teams.

This all feels very inconclusive, so I am going to end with a shout-out to someone who was mostly overlooked in all the skating drama: Kaori Sakamoto, who won the bronze medal with a performance that former Olympian Johnny Weir described as “wonderful reckless abandon and beautiful technical skills”. Her routine was choreographed to celebrate the power of women. The 21 year old was the only medallist who appeared truly happy with her result, and she says she wants to keep skating as long as she can.

Kaori Sakamoto, in a multicoloured costume, skates at the Japanese Nationals in December 2021. She has a huge grin and is clearly having fun.

Diane Harper lives in Ottawa. She is a terrible skater, but enjoys it anyway and loves exploring neighbourhood rinks and the Canal.

fitness

Women’s Bodies and Athletic Performace #LikeAGirl! #CSWIP

Tracy I4 Comments

Sam and I on our morning walk from downtown to the University of Regina for CSWIP.
Sam and I on our morning walk from downtown to the University of Regina for CSWIP. Photo credit: Kate Norlock

One of the best things about being a feminist philosopher in Canada is getting to go to the Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy conference.  We just got back from Regina, where the conference was held this year.  There were lots of great moments, and one of them was the panel Sam organized on women’s bodies and athletic performance.

Four out of four of the speakers have written for the blog: Sam, Audrey, Sylvia, and Moira.  As if that alone wasn’t awesome enough, Kate and Alice were in the room too! And those are just the feminist philosophers who have blogged for us. Besides them, we were surrounded by awesomeness all weekend!

Megan Dean, the PhD student from Georgetown who won the essay prize, presented her winning paper, “Fat Shame Is Not Moral Shame” (and yes, she will be guest blogging for us sometime very soon).

But back to the panel Sam organized. Here’s what they talked about.

Audrey took Iris Marion Young’s feminist analysis of feminine body comportment and “throwing like a girl” into the realm of the relational by extending it to the martial arts. Not all throwing is as individualized as what we think of when we think of what it means to “throw like a girl.” In martial arts training, girls and women often have to overcome a lot of “I cannot” self-talk before they can throw and hit and kick other people, even though throwing and hitting and kicking other people are exactly what they’re there to do.

She made the point that even when we have the skills training so that we can control our own body, that doesn’t always or necessarily translate into being able to act on another’s body.  This led to a fabulous comment from Alice, who said we need to turn our “fleshy embodiment” into “fleshy agential embodiment.”  (yes, we are indeed philosophers!)

Next up was Sylvia on femininity and athleticism. She introduced an interesting scale of sports that are associated with the feminine (like figure skating and synchronized swimming), sports that are kind of (but not really) gender neutral (running and cycling), and sports that are more masculine in their representation (like hockey and basketball). Then she (depressingly) pointed out how difficult it is for women to negotiate the double bind. If they’re participating in so-called feminine sports, then they’re not taken seriously or recognized for their athleticism. If they’re participating in the so-called masculine sports then their femininity is called into question. In neither case is it easy to get taken seriously.

She posed the interesting question of whether sports mirror or magnify what happens in other realms. In my view (mine was the first hand in the air for the Q and A), the whole thing is depressingly true to life. When pressed, Sylvia said that the situation in sports magnifies, not just mirrors, what happens all over the place. And while I agree to some degree, don’t we also think that sport has promising liberatory potential?  Of course it does. So we need to continue to find ways to navigate and challenge the norms of mandatory femininity through participation in sport.

Moira considered the way that a focus on the external goods of sport can be harmful. Instead, she said, we need to focus on internal goods. External goods are things like winning, pleasing others, looking good, earning money, getting prizes. Internal goods are the goods internal to the practice, particular pleasures and skills and meaningful experiences.

She applied her analysis to fitness as preparation for physically transformative life events like reproduction, ageing, disability, and even death and dying. Fitness ideology is usually about avoiding many of these things rather than being better prepared for them.  But the internal goods of sport–endurance, pain tolerance, courage, working through exhaustion–are actually transferable skills that we can bring to bear in these other areas of our lives.  Moira talked about childbirth, but at the break a couple of us talked about how sport has prepped us for menopause!

Finally, Sam presented about the tension between the norms of sport performance and “ladylike” values. She coined a phrase that I’d never heard before and love: “the play gap.” That’s the gap between boys and girls with respect to time devoted to physical activity. It starts young and just gets worse as we grow to adulthood. She reminded us of all the sad facts about women being socialized not to be athletic, to recoil from athletic clothing because of poor body image, to work out in sheds for fear of being seen, to hesitate to spit and shout and do all those things that sporty men do without the least bit of self-consciousness.

She also talked about the blog and I just felt so happy about the blog and the bloggers and the attendance at the talk (because we have not had great luck populating sessions on feminism and fitness, so this was a real turn to the good). It was really a fantastic session!

Here’s to CSWIP and to all the fabulous colleagues we have who are taking these issues seriously!

Moira on the internal goods of sport as preparation for transformative physical life events.
Moira on the internal goods of sport as preparation for transformative physical life events. Photo credit: Kate Norlock

Sylvia talks about femininity and athleticism.
Sylvia talks about femininity and athleticism. Photo credit: Kate Norlock.

Kate, Audrey, and Sam with the big Saskatchewan sky behind them. Photo credit: Tracy I
Kate, Audrey, and Sam with the big Saskatchewan sky behind them. Photo credit: Tracy I

Supporting the sharks: Boston Sharkfest 2015
Weekends with Womack

Supporting the sharks: Boston Sharkfest 2015

catherine w2 Comments

Last week I posted about what an unexpectedly excellent active summer I’ve had. Fall is hard upon our heels in the northern hemisphere (google says it starts Sept 23), but I’m wringing out the last drops of summer nectar, with the weather, friends, and opportunities fully cooperating.

Yesterday my friends Janet and Steph and I got up very very very early (5:45am, which for me is like the middle of the night), to head to downtown Boston to help provide kayak support for the Boston Sharkfest open harbor swim event. It’s a 1500-meter open water swim across Boston harbor, and hundreds of swimmers do this, some in wetsuits and some in bathing suits. The cool (and necessary thing) about this event is that the shipping channel is closed during the event, so you get this illicit and delicious feeling of being let loose somewhere you would not otherwise get to explore. Here’s the map of the swim route:

map

I think this is one of the coolest feelings ever. When they close Storrow Drive in Boston on July 4 and you can walk down the highway, or when they close the Verrazano bridge for the Five Boro Bike Ride in New York City, it is a thrilling feeling to be where you normally cannot. Here’s what I was able to see from my kayak:

boston

Holding big events like open water swims and the swim part of triathlons requires a lot of support help in order to keep swimmers on track and safe. We joined a group of kayakers, paddle boarders and one surfer lifeguard (who paddled with his hands back and forth, covering at least 4 miles) to station ourselves along the route to basically herd the swimmers along the course. We were also keeping a sharp eye out for anyone in distress who needed a breather or some encouragement, and also for anyone with a medical emergency.

Honestly, I would have been scared to death to be in that open water without the security of my boat and paddle. Here’s where they were:

swimmer in process

In fact we joked with the swimmers when they stopped or looked a little discouraged, telling them how awesome they were and how funny it was that we needed boats to cross the area that they were swimming.

There was a huge range of finishing times, and the cutoff was 50 minutes; they had to reopen the channel to boats, so were constrained. I was accompanying a few of the last swimmers, who were tiring but continuing on.

almost

We could see the finish line. They had to swim to the dock, touch the electronic pad to get their time, and then swim around to the ladder.

finish line

This swimmer I talked to later had not only successfully done this one-mile swim after having ankle surgery to fuse her ankle, but she had done a 4-mile swim event in Vermont. Brrrrr.

swim-surfer

I was happy to celebrate with what I thought of as my swimmers at the finish line. I never got your names, but hey y’all—you are awe-inspiring athletes!

happy swimmers

Next week I want to talk more about athletic identity; it’s strange that none of the swimmers I talked to thought of themselves as athletes. But of course they are. What’s that about? But for now, let’s all enjoy their triumph.

Crossing a threshold in sports—one woman’s watery accomplishment
Weekends with Womack

Crossing a threshold in sports—one woman’s watery accomplishment

catherine w6 Comments

This summer I’ve been regaling blog readers with tales of my re-acquaintance with kayaking. One of the things that I love about kayaking is that it’s an activity you can do without much instruction, for whatever length of time you want, at whatever pace you want. It also gets you outside, on the water, moving along under your own power. Kayaking in any body of water at all makes me feel a little bit like I used to when I was 10 years old, riding my bike around my neighborhood; I felt liberated, autonomous, the open road (or water) wide open for my exploration.

All this is true.  BUT: when you start to do some sport, you quickly find out that in order to progress to the next level of activity, you have to pass some thresholds. Passing them may require special training, mastery of techniques, strength, speed, stamina, etc. And of course gear.

I talked a little about this in my blog post last week comparing cycling and kayaking. Both sports have a fairly low threshold for beginners—that is, you can do it without a lot of technical know-how. Basketball and tennis, on the other hand (at least in my experience), require some specific skills in order to play a game. I never learned how to do a lay-up so my basketball career never got off the ground…

We all know this—different sports have different-shaped learning curves, and the effort it takes to get to the next point on the curve (the next level of play or participation) varies a lot. As an athlete, being aware of 1) what the learning curve for your activity is, and 2) how much effort it’s going to take to meet your goals for that sport are both pretty important. I’ve learned, for example, that bike racing (road races and crits) for ME would require a level of training that’s just not feasible or desirable for me. However, fun road rides are both feasible and desirable. Competitive squash is also within my reach, given my available time and fitness and skill levels.

Over time, we all readjust our sports and activity goals, often because of time limitations and changing physical constraints, but also because we want to have new or different experiences. One thing I’ve noticed is an increasing desire to experience nature—in the woods or on the water—whenever possible.   Hence the renewed interest in sea kayaking.

This summer, after a long hiatus from it, I’ve been out on rivers and lakes and even saltwater estuaries in recreational and sea kayaks, and it’s been sublime. But one big goal has remained: kayaking in the ocean. That’s where the sports threshold issue reemerges.

In order to kayak safely in the ocean, with waves, currents, tides and changing weather, you need a bunch of skills. Some of them are technical—you need to be able to read, understand, interpret and plan trips based on tide charts, information about currents and the coastal geography of the area and weather forecasts. You also need some paddling skills for maneuvering the boat, like bracing and edging.

And of course you need to be able to get back in the boat if you happen to turn over in deep waters.

rescueThere are two kinds of rescues you learn in sea kayaking—the assisted rescue and the self rescue. The assisted one is where you get back in your boat (from deep water) with some help from a person in another boat. Turns out this isn’t very hard—with good instruction, everyone can do this using one or other of the many techniques available. But the self rescue seems more daunting—you have to get yourself back in the cockpit of your boat while treading water in the ocean, maybe in high seas.

Again, there are a couple of different techniques for self rescue, and I’d done one of them a long time ago. But I had been avoiding trying it again, out of sheer fear of failure. After all, the last time I did this was 15 years ago, and I’m older and feel less confident of my strength and abilities.

But if I want to kayak in the ocean (and do cool kayak trips with my friend Janet), I HAVE TO DO THIS.

So last Wednesday, Janet and I headed to Rockport, Massachusetts, to kayak in the ocean. This place looks exactly the way you might imagine new England coastal towns might look. That is, like this:

rockportThe outfitters wouldn’t let us take out ocean kayaks without demonstrating experience in rescues, but since Janet can do a self rescue in no time flat, and I can do an assisted one, they let us head out to sea. So off we went, picnic lunches stowed in dry bags and bilge pump and paddle float strapped to the decks.

There was some hazy fog along the rocky coast, so we stayed reasonably close to shore, avoiding the many outcroppings of rocks. The lobster fishermen were also trolling in the shallower waters, checking and resetting their lines, so we had to be vigilant. Actually, I’m pretty sure they’re used to kayakers and are adept at not colliding into them, but better to give them wide berth. After all, they’re working.

It was exhilarating and also a bit scary paddling in waves and deep water along a hazy, foggy, rocky coastline. I knew the chances of turning over were slim, and I knew I could get back in the boat with Janet’s assistance. Still, that vague uneasiness lurked in the background. Sigh.

We pulled into a beach for lunch, and some women obliged us with a photo.

Screen Shot 2015-08-30 at 11.04.07 AMAt that point I decided to face my fear and do what I had been avoiding for weeks: time to practice the self rescue.

I told Janet I wanted to try the scramble self rescue (also called the cowboy rescue, but Janet prefers the former name). It looks like this.

Yeah, right.

Having no other excuses for delays (all the lunch had been eaten and beach pictures taken), we took the boats out into the bay, where the water was deep enough but the waters were calmer. Janet did her self rescue first—nothin’ to it. Here she is, smiling astride her kayak.

Screen Shot 2015-08-30 at 11.06.13 AMNow it was my turn. The moment of truth. ACK. Well, the only way through it is to do it. Here I go—over into the water.

solo1We cheated a little—Janet actually emptied the water from my boat and turned it over. This prepped me for hauling myself back in. I tried getting on from the back, which didn’t work at all. But then I approached the boat from the side, and then centered my chest over the back of the boat. Like so.

solo2Then I had to inch (and I do mean inch) myself onto the back deck, pulling myself, kicking my legs, all the time keeping low and making sure my legs stayed in the water. Janet was coaching me from her boat the whole time, which was a huge help. She also documented it for posterity. Here I am, posing for a photo and pondering how to get myself back in the cockpit, which at the moment, seems very very far away.

solo3Then comes another hard part—sitting up without tipping the boat over. Again, you have to keep your legs in the water to act as stabilizers. Here I am, so close to the cockpit, but with a final challenge before me—move butt over seat back and into cockpit.

solo4

Well, who knows how this happened, but it did. Here I am, marveling at my inexplicable but undeniable return to the cockpit of my boat, celebrating with a swig of water.

solo5And then a funny thing happened. When we set back out into deeper ocean to explore the nearby south coast, I felt… great. More confident, more at ease, more able to enjoy the waves, the open water. Oh boy. I had crossed a threshold.

It’s important to note that kayakers have to practice these rescue and other techniques in a variety of conditions (say, in rougher seas and in open water) to be really confident and adept. But with this accomplishment I was on my way.

So readers, what sorts of sports and activity thresholds have you crossed? What thresholds are you looking at now? I’d love to hear more about your experiences.

fitness · Guest Post

What’s in a (Women’s Team) Name?

elan.paulson8 Comments

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Recently I saw the everydayfeminism.com cartoon, How Society Polices Women’s Clothing (No Matter What We Wear), in which illustrated female figures engaging in various life activities (i.e. working-with-clipboard, relaxing-with-guitar, clubbing-with-clutch purse) are each critiqued for what clothing is worn. I had noticed, however, that none of the women were depicted wearing sports clothing.

This is not to say that women’s athletic apparel escapes cultural policing. For instance, women’s clothing for tennis and beach volleyball seem increasingly revealing and sexy, while already revealing women’s clothing has become athletic apparel, such as in the lingerie football league. In the 21st century, women athletes (particularly those who have achieved celebrity status) are tasked with demonstrating excellence in both athletic performance and sexual attractiveness.

In direct contrast, my current rec league soccer team jersey is far from sexy, especially after I have totally soaked it in the heat of an outdoor summer game. My jersey has white accents, but is mostly Wizard-of-Oz-Emerald-City green. On the jersey is printed the league’s insignia and the number 12 (not even my favourite number). Its style is almost totally generic. Aside from my rainbow socks and matching headband, I’m sure I must blend in almost entirely with the grassy green soccer pitch.

But I have come to identify profoundly with my jersey. On Sunday nights, number 12 green is me. An hour before game time you will find me frantically looking for my jersey like it’s a (well-hidden) treasure. When I arrive at the field, my heart begins to race when I see my Emerald City green-wearing teammates already warming up on the sidelines. (There’s no place like home!)

My only other soccer jersey (purple, number 18) is equally un-sexy with me in it, but on this jersey our fun and slightly sexy team name is on the front of it: “Chicks with Kicks.” My green team name, by the way, is “Femmes of Fury.” So while as sports clothing my jerseys aren’t explicitly gendered or sexualized, the team names still manage to adhere to the formula of suggesting both (aggressive) athletic performance and (sexy, objectified) femininity.

In fact, there are websites dedicated to listing such team names for women. On one site, top-rated women’s team names include the “Pink Fluffy Monsters” and the “Mighty Morphin Flower Arrangers.” Cute, right? But the performance-attractiveness formula emerges again, suggesting that women must be rough-aggressive and passive-feminine. Of course, this is not the case for every women’s sports team. Samantha has reflected in another FIAFI post on soccer team names bearing gender neutrality in favour of referencing activities like drinking and middle-age onset.

I tend to regard my team names and sports apparel as emblematic of 21st century mainstream feminism: the “radical” feminist power of our all-women team uniform, a liberal “girls are as tough as boys” attitude, and 3rd wave “fierce-but-still-fashionable” accessorizing (i.e. the afore-mentioned colourful socks and headbands) that expresses our individuality amidst our uniform-ity.

It’s not that I dislike “Femmes of Fury” and “Chicks with Kicks,” per se. But do I wonder about how these team names risk re-inscribing feminine-otherness, even as they invoke girl-power assertiveness. Do men feel the need to ensure their sports team names follow such a similarly gendered formula?

My questions for FIAFI readers: What do your team jerseys look like, and your team names sound like, and what do they mean to you? Do these “fearless feminine” team names still suggest that feminine attractiveness still matters as much as athletic performance? How might such team names resonate (or not) with non-cisgender or gender-queer players?