Games equality seach heads to Cape Town
The annual meeting of the Federation of Gay Games will create an international dialogue on women in sport, and hopefully generate some solutions which could be applicable to the Australian context, says local sports champion and federation spokeswoman Kate Rowe.
Currently meeting in Cape Town, the Federation of Gay Games has scheduled a Gender Parity workshop and a series of lesbian sporting events as part of their outreach program and in an effort to encourage female participation in sports.
Rowe organised the workshop and hopes to pick some ideas that could be adopted here in Sydney.
It’s really about re-invigorating the whole gender parity issue, to increase female and transgender representation, Rowe told Sydney Star Observer before flying to Cape Town.
Participation rates at the Gay Games have historically shown a lack of female participation. At Chicago it was about 30 percent, Sydney was a bit more, Amsterdam in ’98 had the best rates with almost 40 percent.
Gender politics have changed over the years, and you will find when you speak to any club, they always have issues with trying to get women involved. We’ll be asking, why is that? When you have no board members who are women or you have no female co-presidents -” what kind of message does that send out?
The event will feature talks from local South African academics Mary Hames and Jennifer Lemons as well as presentations from the co-president of TOGS, the South African equivalent of Team Sydney, on the status of women in sport and the specific issues faced by lesbians playing sport in South Africa.
They will contribute ideas to be put towards a gender policy to be developed by the Federation’s board.
The workshop will be just one part of a broader outreach program undertaken by Federation members while in South Africa.
Other initiatives will include a series of scholarship donations to allow locals to attend the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne, visits to orphanages for children with HIV and a talk from the mayor of Cape Town.
It’s our human rights in action if you like. It’s a political thing we’re doing and it’s at a grassroots level. It’s not another conference about human rights or whatever, it’s about engaging the local community while also absorbing as much as we can, to take home with us, Rowe said.
Firstly Ms Rowe is not the spokesperson for the FGG. That must be remembered in reading the contents of this interview.
Having been in Cape Town myself I made it very clear to a lot of members just how Team Sydney is comprised and yes MJ we are very proud of our all female sporting clubs. The Flying Bats and the Sydney Womans Baseball League have now been joined by Amazon Tennis, yet another all womans sports group. Many of our other clubs have a proportion of woman in their ranks like Wettones, Frontrunners and Freezone.
Having talked about this with those that were in attendaance there is a general lack of interest in woman taking on administrative roles at club level let alone at Team Sydney level. Some of our clubs have taken the same steps as Team Sydney with the position of Co Presidents as it has not been working.
Ms Rowe knows perfectly well how Team Sydney has worked hard at getting woman represented on our Board. It is not easy. She also knows that Team Sydney changed their consitituion at our AGM in 2007 to refelct this . The vote was 43 for and one against (Ms Rowe by absentee vote). We still strive to maintain some representation by woman and the contistution now reads as follows:
The officers of Team Sydney shall be the President, the Vice-President, the Treasurer, the Registrar
and the Secretary. Ideally, if the President is of one sex then the Vice-President shall be of the opposite
sex. In the event that there are insufficient people of either sex volunteering for these positions, then
both positions can be filled by people of the same sex or the position of Vice-President can be left
unfilled.
Another error in Ms Rowe’s statement is that TOGS in South Africa is the equivalent of Team Sydney. This is not the case. TOGS is an all male organisation
Team Sydney is not here to be dictated to by either Ms Rowe or the FGG on how they should run. Having read this article whilst in South Africa the Board of FGG were made aware of her statements and they do NOT reflect those of the Board and were not authorised by them.
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I would like to respond to MJ’s comments whilst i sit here in cape town learning what the situation here is like for G & L in sport and i am overwhelmed at how hard it is here.
I feel i have been misinterpreted and totally take on board his comments about how women are out there playing sport. of course they are and how great that is. My point was to get women involved in sports organisations like team sydney and the fgg and others to increase the particpation rate even more. team sydney has the resources that single clubs may not have and they really want to support women. my question is (and this applies equally to fgg) why do they choose not to engage? what can we do to engage them. If MJ wishes to give his or her feedback and suggestions he is most welcome to contactme
regarda
kate rowe
Let’s take a reality check on this issue shall we? Women’s sports participation rates are low? Get real – Parity? you’ve got to be joking! Best we ask why there are so many lesbians who are medalists in our Olympic / World Championship teams – and not cry over how poorly represented women are: Ms Rowe should know how tough the competition is at a masters level – don’t tell me she is a world champion just because no one else bothered to turn up!
Let’s ask Gay Games ambassadors: Michelle Feris, Billy Jean-King, Martina Navratalova, Olympic Gold winning waterpolo player(s) Kate Hooper National Volleyball players, Soccer players, Gold Medalist Women’s Hockey players, Basketballers, Softballers just to get our minds grinding away – how few women are there playing sport / how badly represented are the lesbian community?
It’s great to assume that 50% of our Community are lesbians – that is just not the case! Cutting edge research suggests that the split is somewhere more like 65/35%; so ‘gender parity’ is 5 women for every 5 men on every committee or board in the world? This is a joke!
It would be better that the GG Fed asked itself why Outgames are gaining a huge following – and why the biggest representative sporting event in the world is the World Masters?
Our world champion women, our local female participants seek the same thing that all sports people seek, male or female; the best venues, a way to get to competition (national teams, sponsorship, coaching, event travel assistance etc.) Let’s not cry foul because women don’t care about team mates sexuality – where as men who are gay playing in hetrosexual teams still have the battle of the locker room on a weekly basis according to Canadian (incidentally, lesbian)research
Women who are good, who want to play; do. Why the political mind games and talk fest – when the action is on the sporting field? Less talk, more welcoming arms, less bitching and more team spirit will achieve more than a Labour Party like ‘Moratorium’ to preselect women for parliment! Just ask some of the most successful G&L sporting clubs in Sydney: Sydney Women’s Baseball League; The Flying Bats {who a girlfriend told me yesterday are unable to take any new members in 2008 due to the clubs expansion!} or Wettones Swimming Club.
I do hope Ms Rowe lets the GG Federation know about these success stories from her own backyard, rather than just ‘Getting more women on the Board!’