Frauen im Discgolf – Ein Kommentar

Ein Freund aus mei­ner Disc­golf-Bezugs­grup­pe stieß mich auf einen Bei­trag von dr.delay („Die idea­le Disc-Gol­fe­rin“), in dem der Autor sich für mehr Frau­en im Disc­golf aus­spricht. Sei­ne Inten­ti­on ist gut, den­noch spie­gelt der Arti­kel eini­ge Aspek­te wider, die mei­ner Mei­nung nach in direk­tem Zusam­men­hang mit der gerin­gen Frau­en­be­tei­li­gung im Disc­golf stehen.

1.) Der Arti­kel spricht aus­drück­lich nur Män­ner an. Es wird gar nicht erwar­tet, dass auch Frau­en ihn lesen könn­ten. Sozio­lo­gisch gese­hen haben wir hier eine In-Group-/Out-Group-Auf­tei­lung, also eine sozia­le Abgren­zung, die Inklu­si­on eher erschwert. Wel­che Frau wür­de da nach dem Lesen sagen, hey klingt gut, ich fühl mich ange­spro­chen, das pro­bier ich mal aus. Ich wahr­schein­lich eher nicht.

2.) Außer­dem ist auch das Framing her­vor­zu­he­ben. Es geht im Arti­kel um Frau­en – wel­che The­men müs­sen also genannt wer­den? Gutes Aus­se­hen und Romantik/Erotik. Stellt euch mal kurz vor, ihr wärt eine les­bi­sche Frau und/oder euer Aus­se­hen wäre für euch ein völ­lig irrele­van­tes The­ma oder eine Frau, die sich trotz Auf­wach­sens in einer Welt, in der sie stän­dig danach beur­teilt wird, einen Pups um ihr Aus­se­hen schert. Habt ihr? Gut. Und dann den Arti­kel noch­mal lesen. Was stellt ihr fest?

Nichts für ungut dr.delay, dei­ne Inten­ti­on ist wie gesagt her­vor­zu­he­ben. Als Ergän­zung aber jetzt auch noch­mal eine per­sön­li­che Stel­lung­nah­me zur The­ma­tik aus der Per­spek­ti­ve einer Frau.

Zunächst habe ich selbst das gro­ße Ver­gnü­gen, dass die Geschlech­ter­zu­ge­hö­rig­keit in mei­ner klei­nen Peer Group qua­si kei­ne Rol­le spielt, obwohl die­se haupt­säch­lich aus Män­nern besteht. Wir sind ganz ein­fach alle Men­schen, die gemein­sam den schöns­ten Sport der Welt betrei­ben. So ist das. War­um auch nicht.

Trotz solch idea­ler Bedin­gun­gen habe ich lan­ge gebraucht, um mich für die Sport­art zu begeis­tern und ihr einen Groß­teil mei­ner Frei­zeit wid­men zu wol­len. Der ers­te Kon­takt zu Disc­golf in mei­nem Freun­des­kreis wur­de durch eine Freun­din ver­mit­telt, die uns auf eine Run­de mit­nahm. Allen gefiels, aber irgend­wie wars das für uns dann erst­mal gewe­sen. Ein paar Jah­re spä­ter war ich für ein paar Mona­te im Aus­land und als ich zurück­kam, spiel­ten plötz­lich alle regel­mä­ßig Disc­golf und hat­ten sich bereits fun­dier­te Fähig­kei­ten ange­eig­net. Rich­tig gut, dach­te ich, und ging mit.

Nun war ich die Ein­stei­ge­rin zwi­schen all den Kön­nern (nicht sicher, ob auch Kön­ne­rin­nen dabei waren). Klar klappts beim ers­ten Ver­such nicht beson­ders gut und ich kam mir blöd vor und blieb dar­auf­hin daheim. Wie­der ein paar Jah­re spä­ter woll­te ich es aber doch noch­mal pro­bie­ren, mit Ambi­tio­nen auf Ver­bes­se­rung. Das Ich-seh-so-blöd-aus-und-kann-das-eh-nicht-Gefühl war zwar wie­der da, aber da war auch die ent­spann­te Bezugs­grup­pe, die sich uner­müd­lich im gedul­di­gen Zure­den und im Loben für gute Wür­fe übte, bis sich die Begeis­te­rung verselbstständigte.

Das ist mei­ne per­sön­li­che Geschich­te. Aber ich den­ke, es ist auch die per­sön­li­che Geschich­te vie­ler ande­rer Frau­en, die noch nicht die Über­win­dung gefun­den haben. Und Über­win­dung kos­tet es. Zum Bei­spiel, weil es ein kör­per­be­ton­ter Sport ist und man immer den Bli­cken der Ande­ren (meis­tens halt eben Män­ner) aus­ge­setzt ist. Zum Bei­spiel, weil man sich ab und zu anhö­ren muss, dass der Schrott-Wurf halt typisch Frau ist, denn die kön­nen das ja nicht so gut. Zum Bei­spiel, weil man auf einem Tur­nier von einem Mit­spie­ler gesagt bekommt, dass man doch eine ganz gute Figur habe und lie­ber nicht so wei­te Kla­mot­ten anzie­hen sol­le. Zum Beispiel.

Die meis­ten Frau­en, die ich bis­her gefragt habe, war­um sie nicht mit­kom­men, nen­nen das bereits erwähn­te Ich-seh-so-blöd-aus-und-kann-das-eh-nicht-Gefühl als Grund. Ja, Disc­golf ist ein män­ner­do­mi­nier­ter Sport. Ja, manch­mal hat man kack Erleb­nis­se. Aber mei­ner Mei­nung nach sind die meis­ten Disc­gol­fer den­noch Schät­ze ihrer Spe­zi­es, was den Ein­stieg sicher­lich ein­fa­cher macht als den Ein­stieg in ande­re „Män­ner­sport­ar­ten“.

Da ist aber noch was. Wenn man sich für ein Tur­nier der Ger­man Tour anmel­den will, gibt es ver­schie­de­ne Kate­go­rien. Open, Mas­ter, Grand­mas­ter, und so wei­ter. Also nach dem Kri­te­ri­um des Alters kate­go­ri­siert. Ach so, und dann gibt es noch die Kate­go­rie „Damen“. Hä, was? War­um wird hier denn nicht nach Alter, son­dern plötz­lich nach Geschlecht kate­go­ri­siert? War­um wird für die­se „Damen“ im Nor­mal­fall nur ein Bruch­teil der Start­plät­ze reser­viert? Über­haupt, müs­sen wir uns dann beim Spie­len auch wie Damen ver­hal­ten oder dür­fen wir Frau­en blei­ben? Natür­lich ist es Quatsch, Frau­en die Hälf­te der Start­plät­ze zu reser­vie­ren, denn es spie­len ja eh nur so weni­ge, die Plät­ze wür­den also alle frei blei­ben. Bes­tes Bei­spiel ist das Women’s Glo­bal Event letz­tes Jahr in Schö­nin­gen, bei dem von 52 Start­plät­zen nur 34 von Frau­en belegt waren. Ihr seht, es gibt ein­fach kei­ne Frau­en, die sich bei etwas Ermu­ti­gung trau­en wür­den. Sar­kas­mus Ende.

Das gerin­ge­re Inter­es­se von Frau­en an Disc­golf ist also viel­leicht nicht nur ein emo­tio­na­les, son­dern auch ein struk­tu­rel­les Pro­blem. Wenn es gewollt ist, dass der Anteil erhöht wird, dann müs­sen dafür bes­se­re Vor­aus­set­zun­gen geschaf­fen wer­den, sonst ändert sich nix. Sie­he Frau­en in Führungspositionen.

Trotz­dem: Der Ein­stieg lohnt sich, ihr Frau­en da drau­ßen. Und dazu braucht ihr kei­nen disc­gol­fen­den Freund und auch kei­ne engen Kla­mot­ten, son­dern ledig­lich Bock und viel­leicht ein klei­nes biss­chen Überwindung.

Von daher: Ein­fach machen, Schwes­tern! Ein­fach las­sen, Brü­der! Ein­fach gemein­sam Freu­de haben, Menschen!

Edit: Hier ein lesens­wer­ter Bei­trag zu dem The­ma aus inter­na­tio­na­ler Per­spek­ti­ve. Dan­ke an K. für den Hinweis!

Edit-02: Here is an Eng­lish ver­si­on of the ori­gi­nal con­tri­bu­ti­on by dr.delay and of the com­ment above.

25 Gedanken zu „Frauen im Discgolf – Ein Kommentar

  1. Dan­ke, Anna, für die­sen Text!

    Ich wür­de in der Kri­tik an dem Bei­trag von dr. delay noch wei­ter gehen. Der Macker-Ton­fall, in dem der Bei­trag geschrie­ben ist, straft die „gute Inten­ti­on“ Lügen. Schon allei­ne, dass er gleich den ers­ten Satz sei­nem eige­nen Ego wid­met, indem er nicht nur in kom­plet­ter The­ma­ver­feh­lung erst­mal mit sei­nem Rating prahlt, son­dern oben­drauf noch mit sei­nem chau­vi­nis­ti­schen Spitz­na­men, lässt mich an sei­nen „guten Inten­tio­nen“ zwei­feln. Von Män­nern, die sich für Femi­nis­ten hal­ten, weil sie ja angeb­lich „Frau­en lie­ben“ und damit nur Frau­en als Sex­ob­jek­te mei­nen, habe ich die Nase voll. Eben­so von Män­nern, die selbst­ge­fäl­li­ge Kom­men­ta­re abge­ben, ohne anschei­nend auch nur ein biss­chen recher­chiert oder nach­ge­dacht zu haben.

    Bereits durch den Titel (und dann auch im Text) stellt er impli­zit haupt­säch­lich die Fra­ge, wel­che Vor­aus­set­zun­gen eine Frau erfül­len muss, um Disc­golf zu spie­len. So als müss­ten wir es uns irgend­wie „ver­die­nen“, in den Boys‘ Club auf­ge­nom­men zu wer­den. Wenn wir es nicht schaf­fen, sind wir wahr­schein­lich selbst schuld. Der Titel heißt „Die idea­le Disc­gol­fe­rin“, nicht „Plä­doy­er für eine inklu­si­ve Disc­golf-Com­mu­ni­ty“ oder sowas.

    Das Framing, das du erwähnst, macht den Text nicht nur irrele­vant für les­bi­sche Frau­en oder sol­che, denen ihr Aus­se­hen nicht so wich­tig ist. Die­ses Framing repro­du­ziert schäd­li­che Ste­reo­ty­pe – nur dadurch, dass er sie auf­zählt. Dass er sie am Ende kri­ti­siert, hilft nichts. Da ist der Scha­den schon ange­rich­tet. Wenn wir von Frau­en in so einem sexua­li­sier­ten Kon­text lesen, bekräf­tigt das die sexis­ti­sche Sicht­wei­se von Frau­en, die wir alle bis zu einem gewis­sen Grad ver­in­ner­licht haben. Wie es am Ende bewer­tet wird – ob es kri­ti­siert wird oder sich als Witz her­aus­stellt o.ä. – spielt in der Wir­kung fast kei­ne Rol­le. Dass die Nen­nung bereits aus­reicht, um sol­che Denk­mus­ter zu ver­stär­ken, wur­de psy­cho­lo­gisch zu Genü­ge erforscht.

    Ich bin sicher, dass er selbst denkt, es sei gut gemeint. Sei­ne innere/unbewusste Moti­va­ti­on scheint mir jedoch sei­ne eige­ne gön­ne­ri­sche Selbst­dar­stel­lung zu sein. Wenn ihm die Sache wirk­lich am Her­zen läge, hät­te er mehr getan als sei­ne eige­ne unre­flek­tier­te “gut gemein­te” Grüt­ze hin­aus­zu­po­sau­nen, sich zurück­zu­leh­nen und auf sei­ne Medail­le zu war­ten oder auf wil­li­ge „Ladies“, die ihn „loven“ wol­len. Er hät­te sich mit dis­kri­mi­nie­ren­den Struk­tu­ren aus­ein­an­der­ge­setzt, hät­te chau­vi­nis­ti­sches Ver­hal­ten ange­pran­gert, hät­te Kam­pa­gnen zur Frau­en­för­de­rung gefor­dert oder mehr Tur­nie­re, die sich an Frau­en rich­ten. Er hät­te zumin­dest vor dem Schrei­ben mit ein paar Disc­gol­fe­rin­nen gespro­chen oder sei­nen Text einer Frau zum Drü­ber­le­sen vorgelegt.

    Ist er so beschränkt, dass ihm nichts ande­res ein­fällt, als die nahe­lie­gends­ten Kli­schees auf­zu­zäh­len und die­se dann „hel­den­haft“ zu ver­nei­nen? Oder hat er sich ein­fach kei­ne Mühe gege­ben, einen wirk­lich wert­vol­len Arti­kel zu schreiben?

    Die trau­ri­ge Wahr­heit, die in sei­nem Text nicht auf­taucht, ist, dass es star­ke frau­en­feind­li­che Ein­stel­lun­gen in der Disc­golf-Welt gibt. Ein­fluss­rei­che Män­ner in der Sze­ne, die nicht nur kei­nen Grund sehen, Frau­en zu för­dern (weil Frau­en eh viel zu schlecht sei­en und das Pres­ti­ge des Sports beschä­di­gen), son­dern die aktiv Leu­te anfein­den, die sich für mehr Gleich­be­rech­ti­gung im Disc­golf ein­set­zen. War­um spie­len in den meis­ten Tur­nier­fi­na­len die fünf best­plat­zier­ten Spie­ler anstatt die Sieger*innen der Divi­sio­nen? Es gibt aus der Ver­gan­gen­heit genug Bei­spie­le von Turnierdirektor*innen, die das letz­te­re For­mat gewählt haben (wodurch immer eine Frau im Fina­le spielt) und denen mit Spott oder gar Ver­ach­tung begeg­net wur­de. Es gibt Män­ner im Disc­golf, die den­ken, Frau­en zie­hen durch ihr “Schlech­ter Sein” die Qua­li­tät des Sports nach unten. Es sei eine Zumu­tung für die Top-Spie­ler, im Fina­le „den Frau­en beim Schei­ben­su­chen hel­fen zu müs­sen”. Die sind heiß auf Pres­ti­ge und nur auf ihr Ego fixiert und Nach­wuchs­för­de­rung oder Inklu­si­on ist ihnen scheißegal.

    Dafür gibt es auch Momen­te der Soli­da­ri­tät und die­se gilt es zu stär­ken. Ich selbst habe mal bei einem Tur­nier einen Regel­ver­stoß älte­rer Disc­golf­spie­ler im uns fol­gen­den Flight ange­pran­gert, die uns immer wie­der in die Bahn rein­spiel­ten, bevor wir fer­tig waren. Beson­ders einer woll­te davon nichts hören und hat mich als hys­te­risch abge­stem­pelt. Die ande­ren Frau­en in mei­nem Flight, obwohl sie sich unter uns wäh­rend der Run­de eben­falls über die Stö­rung auf­reg­ten, haben das Maul nicht auf­ge­macht, als es nach der Run­de dar­auf ankam. Die jun­gen männ­li­chen TDs haben mich aber ernst genom­men. Sie haben bei der Preis­ver­lei­hung eine Ansa­ge zu dem The­ma gemacht und danach noch­mal das per­sön­li­che Gespräch mit mir gesucht.

    Die­se Soli­da­ri­tät – davon braucht es mehr, sowohl von Män­nern als auch Frau­en (Frau­en sind nicht auto­ma­tisch Femi­nis­tin­nen!). Män­ner im Disc­golf, die es wirk­lich gut mei­nen, müs­sen pro­ak­tiv zur Öff­nung des Sports bei­tra­gen, indem sie ent­spre­chen­de Tur­nier­for­ma­te wäh­len bzw. for­dern, und dis­kri­mi­nie­ren­dem Ver­hal­ten ent­schlos­sen ent­ge­gen­tre­ten. Das tut dr. delay hier lei­der nicht.

  2. Lie­be Sara,

    ich ken­ne Dich nicht, aber Du hin­ge­gen scheinst dr.delay bes­tens zu ken­nen und über ihn urtei­len zu kön­nen, dabei scheinst Du ein­fach nur sei­ne Iro­nie nicht wahr­neh­men zu wollen.

    Ich bedie­ne gele­gent­lich eine Disc Golf (!) ori­en­tier­te Kolum­ne und bin dabei weder frau­en­feind­lich (Macker-Ton­fall … Du hast gewiss­lich noch NIE vor­her ete­was von mir gele­sen) noch män­ner­freund­lich. Aber erstaun­lich, was man alles in einen so kur­zen Bei­trag (Dein Kom­men­tar ist drei Mal so lang) hin­ein­in­ter­pre­tie­ren kann.
    Eine frau­en­feind­li­che Ein­stel­lung in der­Disc Golf Welt konn­te ich bis­her keins­wegs fest­stel­len, eben­so wenig bin ich ein Ladies Lover (muss man das ernst­haft erklären?).

    Ich pfle­ge übri­gens mit bald allen deut­schen Spit­zen Disc Gol­fe­rin­nen Bekanntschaften/Freundschaften. Du auch?

    John aka dd

  3. “Eine frau­en­feind­li­che Ein­stel­lung in der­Disc Golf Welt konn­te ich bis­her keins­wegs feststellen”…schreibt der Mann. Großartig.….

  4. Erst­mal vie­len Dank für den wich­ti­gen Kom­men­tar Anna und die wei­ter­füh­ren­den Wor­te von Sara.

    Und nun zu Dir, Dr. Delay, alter Spaß­vo­gel. Wenn Du dich im Pri­va­ten ger­ne mit dem Titel “Ladies Love” schmückst ist und das lus­tig fin­dest, ist das dei­ne Sache, auch wenn das nicht so mein Ding ist. Sobald Du das auf einem öffent­li­chen Blog tust (jaja, ich weiß, ist ja alles iro­nisch gemeint…), repro­du­zierst du damit ste­reo­ty­pi­sche Geschlech­ter­bil­der, ob du willst oder nicht. Und dei­ne beiß­re­flex­ar­ti­ge, rela­ti­vie­ren­de Ant­wort, die wie­der­um auch typisch männ­lich-patri­ar­cha­le Kom­mu­ni­ka­ti­on ent­hält (sinn­bild­lich: “Fräu­lein, du ver­stehst mich ein­fach nicht bzw. willst mich ja nicht ver­ste­hen), ist abso­lut ent­lar­vend. Dazu muss man dich auch nicht per­sön­lich ken­nen, um das zu che­cken. Hät­te ich nach dei­nem Arti­kel und Kom­men­tar jetzt eh nicht so Bock drauf…

    1. Phil­ipp,

      die Ver­wen­dung von Ste­reo­ty­pen ist ein Stil­mit­tel, um zu über­trei­ben. Und Über­trei­bung wird häu­fig ver­wen­det, um etwas zu ver­deut­li­chen Hat in Dei­nem Fall lei­der nicht funktioniert. 

      Du willst mich nicht per­sön­lich ken­nen­ler­nen, weil Du meinst, mich schon zu ken­nen. Ernst­haft? Das nennt man Arroganz. 

      Du darfst mei­nen Blog ger­ne doof fin­den, aber Dei­ne abwer­ten­de Beur­tei­lung über mich als Per­son (inter­es­san­ter Wei­se setz­te Du die Blog-Kunst-Figur dr.delay mit dem Autor gleich) ist dum­mer­haft und anmaßend.

      Spiel ein­fach wei­ter Ulti­ma­te. Du möch­test mich nicht ken­nen­ler­nen und im Disc Golf kön­nen wir auf spaß­be­frei­te Bes­ser­wis­ser, ent­schul­di­ge: sach­li­che Kri­ti­ker wie Dich ger­ne verzichten.

  5. Lie­ber John, 

    nein, ich ken­ne dich nicht. Muss ich auch nicht, um dei­nen Bei­trag zu kom­men­tie­ren. Dein Blog ist öffent­lich und daher zugäng­lich für eine gan­ze Men­ge Men­schen, die dich nicht ken­nen. Daher muss der Bei­trag für sich ste­hen kön­nen, ohne Vertrauensvorschuss.

    Dass du dei­nen eige­nen Ton­fall nicht als pro­ble­ma­tisch wahr­nimmst und auch kei­ne Frau­en­feind­lich­keit in der Disc­golf­welt siehst, spricht für sich. Eben­so das Hin­zu­zie­hen des alt­be­kann­ten “Some of my fri­ends are black/homosexual/women/…”-Arguments.

    Ich neh­me dei­ne Iro­nie durch­aus wahr. Wie ich aber bereits schrieb, kann sich davon nie­mand was kau­fen. Die Ste­reo­ty­pe, die du so unbe­schwert repro­du­zierst, rich­ten jeden Tag über­all auf der Welt Scha­den an. Du kannst dir die­se Iro­nie leis­ten. Für Frau­en sind Dis­kri­mi­nie­rung, Beläs­ti­gung und Gewalt bit­te­rer Ernst.

    Ja, es ist in der Tat span­nend, was man an einem Text wie dei­nem alles ana­ly­sie­ren kann. Der Sei­ten­hieb auf die Län­ge mei­ner Aus­füh­run­gen ist eben­falls span­nend. Es scheint unan­ge­nehm oder anstren­gend für dich zu sein, dich mit mei­ner Per­spek­ti­ve zu beschäf­ti­gen. Viel­leicht soll­test du mei­ne Reak­ti­on erst­mal ernst neh­men und als Denk­an­stoß, bevor du reflex­ar­tig in die Defen­si­ve gehst.

    Lie­be Grüße,
    Sara

    1. Die Län­ge Dei­ner Stel­lung­nah­me ist anstren­gend, weil sel­bi­ge ehr­lich gesagt ein wenig lang­wei­lig ist, und trotz­dem möch­te MANN ja nicht schon wie­der frau­en-/spie­le­rin­nen- und vor allen Din­gen nicht les­ben­f­rend­lich ´rüber­kom­men.
      Aber immer­hin bleibst Du sach­lich – anders als ande­re (hier).
      Im Übri­gen füh­le ich mich geehrt, dass ein pope­li­ger Blog-Ein­tag für so viel Unru­he unter den Ulti­ma­te­r­In­nen sorgt und manch gar, nicht ein­mal mehr unter der Kunst-Figur dr.delay und dem Autor unter­schei­den wollen.
      Übri­gens habe ich lan­ge, lan­ge vor Dir Ulti­ma­te gespielt, sogar mit Frau­en zusam­men in einem Team … damals ging das noch.
      Gruß zurück

  6. The artic­le com­pa­res les­bi­an women with women that are not inte­res­ted in their looks. It por­trays women as dogs that need to be prai­sed for good beha­viour (good girl, that was such a fine throw!). You girls make women to indi­vi­du­als with no self-con­fi­dence at all that need help of men to mas­ter their life and to fol­low their dreams.

    Your comm­ents con­tain so much nega­ti­ve femi­nis­mus that I am asha­med and con­cer­ned about the nega­ti­ve impacts of the ste­reo­ty­pes YOU spread. Yes, I think the­re is a bet­ter way to work against the lack of women in disc golf than to ver­bal­ly attack someone who did not want to do any harm, and I don’t see any approach of you to chan­ge things. Ins­tead, you use a guy to work off your fee­lings, making him a sub­ject of a hunt ins­tead of tal­king to him. 

    Disc golf in Ger­ma­ny has a lot to do with tour­na­ments and I know that you know becau­se this is what you are also tal­king about. You com­plain and demand more tour­na­ment spots for women. I have seen you girls twice in my who­le disc golf care­er. Taking part at tour­na­ments means spots next year. Yes, we have to deser­ve our spots, as the other divi­si­ons also do.

    I would like to know who has made this vol­un­t­a­ry approach of this sin­gle guy to a task which must satis­fy YOUR demands and YOUR expec­ta­ti­ons? Who are you to judge? We should take him to jail for not addres­sing his artic­le to women. Him and all the other guys that may­be do mista­kes while try­ing to do good, ins­tead of the guys that do not­hing at all. I am real­ly curious about the artic­les of all the men that are com­men­ting dr delays artic­le, attack­ing him in public.

    I app­re­cia­te dr delays artic­le and I am also very thank­ful that he made fpo covera­ge and com­men­ta­ry at the Ger­man cham­pi­on­ships in 2018. Thank you, dr delay!

  7. Many thanks to ever­yo­ne for the comm­ents! Sin­ce appar­ent­ly non-Ger­man spea­k­ers are fol­lo­wing the dis­cus­sion I sug­gest to stick to Eng­lish (if pos­si­ble) in order to faci­li­ta­te the communication.

    My artic­le was not aimed at bas­hing anyo­ne, but was writ­ten as a rep­ly to dr.delay’s column – a column which is publicly available and should the­r­e­fo­re allow for a respon­se. Thanks, John, for ente­ring into the exch­an­ge. (I would have com­men­ted direct­ly under your artic­le, but the­re was no opti­on to com­ment so I used this platform.)

    Taking the column as a start­ing point, the actu­al ques­ti­on posed abo­ve is what might women inhi­bit from play­ing disc golf. I am not refer­ring to the top fema­le disc gol­fers that John men­ti­ons, but to the women who have never play­ed befo­re or who have tried it and still don’t love disc golf as much as others do (which is a pity, I’m sure many will agree).

    I’m more than hap­py for anyo­ne who has never faced sexism in disc golf and I still think that our com­mu­ni­ty is quite open-min­ded com­pared to other sports. At the same time I’ve given examp­les of whe­re I mys­elf encoun­te­red sexism and I argue that such cases, in com­bi­na­ti­on with an over­whel­ming male play­er­ship, is a poten­ti­al reason for the low fema­le par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on. At least the lat­ter is what I’ve heard as ans­wers from women when asking why they don’t start play­ing or con­ti­nue to play.

    Respon­ding to Cara (thanks for agre­e­ing to con­ti­nue the dis­cus­sion here, this allows me to participate):
    The artic­le does not compa­re les­bi­an women to women who are not inte­res­ted in their looks. The­se two types of women are inde­pen­dent examp­les of rea­der­ship that dr.delay’s column does not address. Cer­tain­ly the most obvious examp­les that were evoked.

    I have also not con­cep­tua­li­sed women as dogs. I wro­te about fema­le peo­p­le who argu­ab­ly face more dif­fi­cul­ties during their first disc golf moments than male peo­p­le. And that encou­ra­ge­ment and prai­se by skil­led play­ers of any gen­der is hel­pful. (I inten­tio­nal­ly used the gen­der-unspe­ci­fic “peer group” which, as was men­tio­ned, does not exclu­si­ve­ly con­sist of men, alt­hough it obvious­ly repres­ents the gene­ral gen­der ratio).

    My own approach to chan­ging things is ope­ning the dis­cus­sion on the reasons of fema­le under­re­pre­sen­ta­ti­on and sug­gest­ing to crea­te an inclu­si­ve envi­ron­ment for women. And a fema­le per­spec­ti­ve as a respon­se to a male per­spec­ti­ve is sup­port­i­ve to an inclu­si­ve envi­ron­ment. I wouldn’t call this a hunt, but a valid means to open up the dis­cour­se. Tal­king about women makes no sen­se when women are excluded – as was the case in dr.delay’s artic­le. Yes, pro­vi­ding tour­na­ment covera­ge is also a good approach to chan­ging things (this was never questioned).

    I con­sider it neces­sa­ry to react to one more point. The­re are always reasons why someone is not able to play as many tour­na­ments as they may per­so­nal­ly want: finan­cial, per­so­nal, orga­ni­sa­tio­nal reasons. You are right, women need to par­ti­ci­pa­te in tour­na­ments in order to beco­me visi­ble, even con­side­ring the pro­por­tio­nal­ly small amount of spots reser­ved for them. I alo­ne can’t fill all the­se spots and that’s why we have to rai­se fema­le par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in disc golf.

    I’d be exci­ted to hear everyone’s ide­as on how to achie­ve that.

  8. I show­ed both artic­les to my sis­ter and her wife. They were sho­cked. You can­not say tho­se phra­ses in one sen­tence. My sis­ter and her wife are homo­se­xu­al women, and they imme­dia­te­ly thought that dr delays artic­le is fun­ny and a way to reach other men. What do you thought would hap­pen, what is your ste­reo­ty­pe thin­king? That every les­bi­an woman is get­ting on the “bad guys” train imme­dia­te­ly, or run­ning around in sacks wit­hout taking care of their appearance and no humour? 

    Your artic­le Anna is not a harm­less “exch­an­ge” and you know that. Look at all the mean comm­ents your artic­le cau­sed, by men and women. As your fri­end Sara says, things stick in peo­p­les mind once they are spo­ken out and the dama­ge is done, no mat­ter if you after­wards rela­ti­vi­ze your own words. If dr delay is caus­ing no good with his artic­le alo­ne by using cer­tain sen­ten­ses in an iro­nic way, for ever­yo­ne clear to under­stand how it was meant, why do you belie­ve that your own words do bet­ter? You can­not choo­se what you like bet­ter. This is not a game, or a case stu­dy, or a doc­to­ral the­sis ton socio­lo­gy. You can cau­se bad things by wri­ting artic­les someone else takes imme­dia­te­ly as a han­ger to publicly cha­se a guy. 

    I only see a group of angry peo­p­le try­ing to mob a guy, and it sca­res me how easy peo­p­le jump on the train. Your fri­end Sara is not doing you good with her comm­ents, but I am sure you are per­fect­ly awa­re of that fact. 

    You star­ted a hob­by you imme­dia­te­ly lik­ed, but you thwar­ted yours­elf FOR YEARS becau­se you felt stu­pid while doing it? And the first and only thing that comes to your mind is to take that guys artic­le and hims­elf to the pran­ger when sear­ching for the reasons? I real­ly can see your good inten­ti­on, Anna, but your artic­le also reflects some aspects that, in my opi­ni­on, are direct­ly even more rela­ted to the low fema­le par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in disc golf and sports in gene­ral its­elf than any ste­reo­ty­pe artic­le of a guy who wan­ted to help can ever be. You are right, it’s total­ly irrele­vant which gen­der the mem­bers of your “peer group” belong to, as long as you need others to even get enough self-con­fi­dence to stick to a simp­le hob­by you might have a big­ger pro­blem than dr delays article.

    Well, you can stop won­de­ring about why so few women are inte­res­ted in the sport if that is also their sche­me of thin­king. It has to do with cha­rac­ter what its­elf and has to do with edu­ca­ti­on and the way one grows up. And THIS is exact­ly whe­re we should start working. In fami­ly work and school edu­ca­ti­on. In strengh­ten girls in the opi­ni­on that they should not take care about what others think about them, that they can achie­ve wha­te­ver they want to and that they are free to choo­se for them­sel­ves tho­se things they want to achie­ve in their lifes. Tal­king about steo­reo­ty­pes is not hel­ping any­bo­dy. As Ger­mans say and to quo­te Sara “I can’t buy me any­thing” by tal­king about it and try­ing to force other peo­p­le with aggres­si­on to chan­ge their behaviour. 

    Sara, we should not streng­then other women to get mad on men that show bad beha­viour (and I am defi­ni­te­ly only tal­king about this kind of situa­ti­on, not about the topic in gene­ral) and unin­ten­tious­ly giving tho­se men more and more power over our­sel­ves, becau­se each time we get angry becau­se of others we spend too much atten­ti­on on tho­se nega­ti­ve things and loo­se hap­pi­ness in our own lifes. Stan­ding for your rights does not mean run­ning around insul­ting peo­p­le, or sear­ching for faults you can tear apart come hell or high water. It often means to choo­se to be free. We should rather streng­then young women to have enough con­fi­dence to don’t give a damn on such beha­viour. To men­tal toughness. 

    Don’t you know that you can’t chan­ge other peo­p­le? But you can always chan­ge yours­elf: you deci­de what to let into your life, and the way you are loo­king at things. That defi­ni­te­ly does not give any­bo­dy a free ticket for sexist beha­vi­or or mean that women have to chan­ge and men are allo­wed to stay as they are. But it’s bet­ter than to run against walls and scream and yelp and end up bit­ter becau­se no one is taking you serious and you still was­n’t able not chan­ge any­thing but had a bad life. Yes, no boy or man has the right to tre­at a girl or woman bad – but nobo­dy will chan­ge just becau­se we try to force them to. We should work ins­tead on the things we can chan­ge. The rest will hop­eful­ly follow. 

    I have been working on mys­elf for years, to let go the things that I have inter­na­li­zed sin­ce child­hood and to build a strong men­ta­li­ty. My life is so much easier sin­ce then. I per­so­nal­ly don’t give a damn on what other peo­p­le think about my short skirts on the cour­se, my pink discs, my game or what they talk about me. And I also do include women and men here­to, becau­se it’s not a men’s thing tal­king bad about other peo­p­le (men and women!) and dis­cri­mi­na­ting them for what they are or what they are not. I am facing this EVEN if or BECAUSE I show up a way some peo­p­le would say is “femi­ni­ne”. No mat­ter what you do, no mat­ter if your clo­thes are wide or tight, inse­cu­re peo­p­le will always find a way to dis­cri­mi­na­te you and to tre­at you from abo­ve. You are the ones that give value to the things that hap­pen to you in your life, not others. Even the fact that you think you need skills to stick to a hob­by shows, that the­re is a big value pro­blem. Is your sports acti­vi­ty only worth play­ing if you are good at it? One could also go out and cele­bra­te hims­elf for get­ting off the couch, for step­ping on unknown grounds or for say­ing to hims­elf and others “Yes, I am play­ing bad but it’s my way and it’s good the way it is”. You still would have the right to play disc golf and par­ti­ci­pa­te in tour­na­ments. But if you as a woman are not see­ing this (and you are not, other­wi­se you would not need prai­se of “more skil­led play­ers”) why should men? Becau­se the fact is that the­re are not only Anto­nia Fabers and Wieb­ke Jahns in Ger­ma­ny. The­re are girls that play, well, medio­cre. The­re are girls that need more throws for one round than a guy for the who­le tour­na­ment. And this does not have to do any­thing with sexism, they might just not be ath­le­tic. The­re are many boys and girls that might never get bet­ter at sports but should be allo­wed to love it any­way and have the right to take part. A strong men­ta­li­ty has not­hing to do with being good at sports. Should­n’t they have enough self-con­fi­dence to play even if they play bad, just for fun? But that also means that tho­se women, women like me, should not compa­re them­sel­ves with open play­ers. I win a lot of tour­na­ments just becau­se we are four women play­ing and none of the other play­ed bet­ter than me this time. Is this some­thing I can be proud of? Or can I con­clude from that that I am a “good” disc gol­fer? Someone who should play a final round tog­e­ther with open play­ers? Yes, why not having Anto­nia and Wieb­ke and Chris­ti­ne show­ing their skills at a final round with guys if they want to, but why do you think that I should want this, and that this is needful to show me that men respect me? For whom would such a mixed round be inte­res­t­ing or chal­len­ging from the point of view of the sport? And by the way, who deci­des which divi­si­ons should be in this “dream” flight, becau­se the­re are more than four divi­si­ons app­ly­ing for the four available spots. I feel like we are try­ing to put the cart in front of the hor­se. As long as the­re are not enough women play­ing, the­re does not seem to be room to cele­bra­te diver­si­ty in skills. 

    We should not go out and show the world that we are not bet­ter than tho­se we are com­plai­ning about by spre­a­ding and sha­ring unin­ten­tious­ly the same ste­reo­ty­pes. We should go out and tell the girls what disc golf can do for their men­tal strength. Disc golf is not only a phy­si­cal sport. The men­tal skills and tough­ness I need on the cour­se are pret­ty much the same that are hel­ping me to beco­me a self-deter­mi­ned, satis­fied and hap­py per­son. E.g. focus on the good things. Not to mourn after things I can­not chan­ge any­mo­re. Get­ting up on my feet over and over again. Chall­enge yours­elf. Being acti­ve. Being respon­si­ble for your own actions and take the con­se­quen­ces. May­be THAT a way to bring our sport “to the mar­ket”. Why not con­quer school clas­ses and tal­king about that men­tal tough­ness to boys and girls?

  9. Hel­lo you all, 

    sin­ce I was men­tio­ned twice now, I feel like I need to also give my opi­non to this.
    First I like to say, that I read dr.delays atric­le when it came out. I know John and also know his hou­mor, so I laug­hed. And I did not feel offen­ded. But it had me star­ted thin­king about women in dosc golf. 

    Yes, it is a public colum, but that does not mean it is addres­sing each and every sinlge per­son out the­re. So for tho­se who feel, that he was not adres­sing women, may­be that was not his inten­si­ons. May­be it was, still, I don’t get, why anyo­ne feels like attack­ing the auther, just becau­se they don’t like what was written. 

    In my opi­ni­on, the arti­cal was for sure good for start­ing a dis­cus­sion about women in disc golf, here in Ger­ma­ny. And that is also what I think we should focous on.
    If we, the disc gol­fers, can not moti­va­te more women to play and par­ti­ci­pa­te in tour­na­ments, the num­ber of spots, reser­ved for women at tour­na­ments, will never chan­ge. Right now the num­ber is cor­re­la­ted with the num­ner of acti­ve play­ers in each divi­si­on, that are enlis­ted in the DFV. So we need more women to play to get more spots.

    I just play­ed Tyy­ni, they reser­ved 40 spots for FPO, but only 14 signed up. Does that mean we have less FPO spots next year? May­be not, becau­se NBDG (the orga­ni­zers) are fight­ing to get more women play­ing. And they do that all year around.
    Their stra­ta­gy is one, that I am thin­king about app­ly­ing to Ger­ma­ny. NBDG orga­ni­zes a series of women tour­na­ments (with all age and pro/amateur divi­si­ons), weekly/monthly trai­nings and occa­tio­nal work­shops throug­hout Finn­land. I am not sure, how to orga­ni­ze that, but if we all do just a part of it, I am sure that we can moti­va­te more women to try disc golf or play tour­na­ments. This howe­ver means a lot of work to tho­se involved. 

    I am also moti­va­ted to do so, becau­se I know, what Anna is tal­king about, when say­ing that some women are not sure if they belong in the cour­se. I poke to many women in the last years, man­ly to tho­se cad­ding for their boyfriend/husband… or women that were just play­ing a fun round with fri­ends. Most of tho­se, who did not com­pe­te, yet, told me that they don’t com­pe­te, sin­ce their are to many men and they feel like they don’t belong in tournaments.
    Do I feel, like they sould gain some con­fi­dence? Yes, but how to help them get the­re? I think the way to sol­ve that pro­blem is to pro­vi­de more oppor­tu­ni­ties for them to feel wel­co­me, by offe­ring more chan­ces to learn and com­pe­te within their com­fort zone (all or main­ly women).

    Well, I thinks that is enough from my site for now.
    If anyo­ne likes my ide­as and wants to help / join in on buil­ding a small women tour, let me know. But just so you know, I have fina­li­zed, yet. But I am sure we can work some­thing out. For the next month, I will be focou­sed on pre­pa­ring for the world, so I will work on this from September. 

    Che­ers, Anto­nia F.

  10. Dear ever­yo­ne,

    thanks for your thoughts and plea­se let me assu­re you that I very much app­re­cia­te everyone’s pas­si­on with which this dis­cus­sion is led.

    The for­mu­la­ti­on “your appearance was com­ple­te­ly irrele­vant to you” was not meant as “you don’t take care of your appearance”, but in the sen­se of “being a woman, you’ve grown up in a world whe­re your appearance is con­stant­ly jud­ged by others, and somehow you have still found a way to give a damn about other people’s opi­ni­on and just do your own thing”. That women are con­stant­ly jud­ged on the basis of their looks, their way to dress, their weight, etc. – of that I am con­vin­ced, just like Cara. If someone mana­ges to grow up like this wit­hout more serious dama­ge and a healt­hy self-per­cep­ti­on, then the­re can be not­hing but admi­ra­ti­on for them.

    I rea­li­se that this sen­se may not quite come across abo­ve, sin­ce the “and/or” is mis­lea­ding. I’ve chan­ged the wor­ding in the hope that it is clea­rer now.

    Let me sum­ma­ri­se my argu­ment posed abo­ve: I took John’s con­tri­bu­ti­on and poin­ted out in which ways it is pro­ble­ma­tic. Based on this, I added my own per­spec­ti­ve as a fema­le and gave examp­les of reasons why women might feel inhi­bi­ted to play disc golf. I can see that the­re is agree­ment in this regard bet­ween my own and Antonia’s assumptions.

    If the­re are any aspects in my text that are mis­lea­ding or seem offen­si­ve, I’m gra­teful for having them poin­ted out­and always wil­ling to chan­ge the wor­ding. I can’t say much about the reac­tions the artic­le has cau­sed, apart from the obvious cry for “Free­dom of expres­si­on for ever­yo­ne!”. I can only speak for mys­elf and after re-rea­ding and re-re-rea­ding I’m still of the opi­ni­on that I did not attack anyo­ne per­so­nal­ly, but that my argu­ment is more or less com­pre­hen­si­ve­ly built up and pre­sen­ted ratio­nal­ly. As I said, I’m hap­py to chan­ge the wor­ding whe­re offen­se might be taken. But I also demand not being offen­ded myself.

    Plea­se ever­yo­ne allow me now to sum up: Some peo­p­le find the ori­gi­nal artic­le by dr.delay amusing, some find it offen­si­ve, some find it one-sided, some find it lack­ing the fema­le perspective.

    I assu­me that most of what was neces­sa­ry to say is said and we can now bund­le our power and do a brain­stor­ming. The­re have been valuable sug­ges­ti­ons and espe­ci­al­ly Anto­nia has given con­cre­te ide­as on poten­ti­al mea­su­res that could be taken – thanks Anto­nia! I would like to fol­low this lead and talk about the sug­ges­ti­ons made and coll­ect more ide­as and opi­ni­ons on that.

  11. Anto­nia,

    that sounds supe­rin­spi­ring. With respect to a prac­ti­ce group for women in Pots­dam, you can count me in. I can think of at least 10 peo­p­le who would be total­ly up for it.

    I am also set­ting up a quick sur­vey (as some sort of pilot stu­dy) that hop­eful­ly aids in fin­ding out what the par­ti­cu­lar needs are, i.e. how to best crea­te a wel­co­ming envi­ron­ment. I will rest­rict the scope to Pots­dam though, as I don’t have more per­so­nal capa­ci­ties. If anyo­ne would like to pro­vi­de me with (fur­ther) ques­ti­ons that they feel need to be included, plea­se let me know. I can also share the sur­vey its­elf, so that other peo­p­le can spread it in and ana­ly­se the results for their spe­ci­fic regi­on. Just get in touch if you’­re interested.

    The tour­na­ment series sounds exci­ting as well. Would it make sen­se to have orga­nisers in seve­ral regi­ons and hold every tour­na­ment in a dif­fe­rent venue? If that’s not fea­si­ble, may­be con­cen­tra­te on one’s own cour­se first and then later con­nect? Not sure what’s better.

  12. Dear Anna,

    Sor­ry, I still don’t under­stand why you men­ti­on les­bi­an women at all. If you still don’t know I can’t help you. Howe­ver, it’s enough and I like “Pups”. 

    The only thing I am clai­ming is that EVERYBODY needs to be careful with his words and his own beha­viour, not only men, and that ever­y­bo­dy is more reflec­ti­ve becau­se nobo­dy is perfect.

    To come to an end I would like to quo­te you with a sen­tence I lik­ed immediately: 

    “Just do it, sis­ters! Just let them, brot­hers! Just have fun tog­e­ther, people!”

    Anto­nia, sor­ry for naming you per­so­nal­ly, but you are the Ger­man Cham­pi­on so you were the first per­son in my mind when tal­king about top fema­le ger­man disc golfers. 

    As far I know the idea of a womens league is not a new one and it has alre­a­dy been denied by play­ers becau­se the few fema­le disc gol­fers are spread throug­hout Ger­ma­ny and the­re were not enough women wil­ling or able to take part. Remem­ber the dis­cus­sion about whe­re the WGE should take place so that many women can take part. Worth try­ing? Sure, I am on board. 

    We ope­ned that Womens disc­golf Ger­ma­ny Face­book group last year, whe­re I thought to have a plat­form for exch­an­ge and I gave shou­touts to fema­le disc gol­fers play­ing inte­res­t­ing tour­na­ments. May­be it’s worth revi­ving it, in wha­te­ver way. It’s the­re and free to be used. I don’t know if Sara is in that group, I can add her if she wants and I would be hap­py for sug­ges­ti­ons of others poten­ti­al members. 

    I also tried to spread tho­se inter­na­tio­nal disc golf bag tags just for women during the WGE. I think more than 30 or 40 were sold, whats gre­at. But unfort­u­na­te­ly, only a few women regis­tered their bag tag and near­ly none if the regis­tered were chal­le­gen­ged by someone else.

    I also made tho­se litt­le WGE score­books and dis­tri­bu­ted them at the WGE. In the face­book dis­cus­sion someone com­men­ted that it might be good to put into play­ers packs “items women actual­ly want to use”, if I quo­te her cor­rect. May­be such score­books can give crea­ti­ve ide­as? I real­ly felt like a lot of women lik­ed them.

    To get cle­arance, about whom are we tal­king, women that alre­a­dy play disc golf or women that have never heard about it?

    Cara

  13. I see what you mean, I’ll brief­ly add the expl­ana­ti­on: I men­tio­ned les­bi­an women becau­se the column refer­red to the increased amount of snog­ging available to men at par­ties as a result of the inclu­si­on of women. I belie­ve that les­bi­an women (but not only, of cour­se) would be rather indif­fe­rent towards this pro­s­pect and the­r­e­fo­re not feel addressed.

    Coo­lio, so that’s that, sis­ters, brot­hers and people.

    I was espe­ci­al­ly refer­ring to women who do not regu­lar­ly play, but who have tried it once or a few times but never real­ly got into the game. I don’t see why they should not expe­ri­ence the same deve­lo­p­ment of enligh­ten­ment that I did and even­tual­ly beco­me disc golf lovers. The­re are so many of them and they might embrace low-thres­hold opti­ons for prac­ti­ce and tour­na­ment participation.

    Obvious­ly though, making the sport known in gene­ral is also important. The uni­ver­si­ty sports depart­ment has an ongo­ing coope­ra­ti­on with our ulti­ma­te play­ers and we’­re curr­ent­ly intro­du­cing disc golf as well.

    What does a women’s league ent­ail? Would that be the regu­lar tour­na­ments that Anto­nia men­tio­ned or a who­le other sto­ry? Sounds very intri­guing. (I’m not on Face­book though.)

    P.S.: I actual­ly did­n’t know that the bag tags could be regis­tered. I only know of one more in my sur­roun­ding so they’­re usual­ly just get­ting swapped.

  14. Thank you all for taking the time to ela­bo­ra­te. It is much app­re­cia­ted. I think we all have the same goal at heart, but dif­fe­rent view­points on cer­tain aspects & situa­tions. I wish I could respond to every detail, but I most­ly have one last issue. 

    Cara, you are sur­pri­sed that it took Anna so much courage/encouragement to real­ly get into disc golf. This is the case for a lot of women! Yes, making a wel­co­ming envi­ron­ment for women is about tour­na­ment for­mats, toi­lets etc., but con­side­ring the spe­cial needs of women also means taking into account the “con­fi­dence gap” when you’­re inter­ac­ting with women. This is often dis­missed as “degra­ding women to vic­tims” or like you kind of said “ste­reo­ty­p­ing women as weak” or so. On the other hand, it is often mista­ken for empower­ment or encou­ra­ge­ment to tell girls and women to just “be toug­her”. In some situa­tions this mes­sa­ge can be dis­cou­ra­ging, inti­mi­da­ting or sim­ply con­de­s­cen­ding. It makes a lot of peo­p­le feel asha­med, like something’s wrong with them for being scared or not “tough enough” alre­a­dy. In a wel­co­ming envi­ron­ment, it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be weak or vul­nerable. You recei­ve under­stan­ding and sup­port to over­co­me your fears. Accep­ting per­so­nal respon­si­bi­li­ty does­n’t mean not nee­ding help. It also does­n’t mean being silent about unfair cir­cum­s­tances (such as lack of toilets).

    Ano­ther fema­le disc gol­fer on Face­book men­tio­ned some comm­ents such as “women are too slow”, “shut up and lis­ten to bet­ter play­ers” that can be extre­me­ly dis­cou­ra­ging. Some things that you and dr.delay wro­te crea­te exact­ly the kind of atmo­sphe­re that makes beg­in­ners like us feel ina­de­qua­te and unwel­co­me. dr.delay asks me how many fema­le “top play­ers” I’m fri­ends with. You’­re sus­pi­cious about the amount of tour­na­ments we’­ve play­ed. What you’­re doing with that is inva­li­da­ting our opi­ni­ons by ques­tio­ning our sta­tus in the com­mu­ni­ty. This “who the f*** are you?!” atti­tu­de sends a mes­sa­ge: “You’­re not one of us. You don’t have a say in this.”

    It’s nice of you to remind me to “pick my batt­les”. Could I have not picked this one? Sure. Yes, my cri­ti­cism was harsh. I thought his text was crin­ge­wor­t­hy and I voi­ced that opi­ni­on. When you call yours­elf “Ladies love”, you should be awa­re of how often fema­le rea­ders have heard that (and simi­lar phra­ses). You’­re bound to trig­ger some anger. He could be pre­pared to lis­ten to that if he wri­tes like this on such a sen­si­ti­ve sub­ject. You call it an attack. I did­n’t hack his email account, publish his pri­va­te address, ask peo­p­le to hurt him or his fami­ly (as hap­pens to a lot of women who wri­te things online…). 

    He has, and you have, every right to cri­ti­ci­ze my cri­ti­cism and I assu­re you I have spent (and will spend) ple­nty of time thin­king and tal­king about this situa­ti­on and my part in it. (In fact I’m con­stant­ly figu­ring out how to address femi­nist issues with peo­p­le who have other per­spec­ti­ves.) But plea­se let’s stay on eye level and not rate people’s opi­ni­on by how far they’­ve made it in the disc golf world.

    That being said, I’m loving all the ide­as that have been put forth. I’m hap­py to take part in a pro­ject to sup­port women in disc golf in Pots­dam. For my part I would pre­fer to focus on recrui­ting more new fema­le play­ers, as this can be done with small steps. A women’s league sounds like too big of a pro­ject to start with. I alre­a­dy have some expe­ri­ence show­ing the sport to new­co­mers. But I’ve also been thin­king of thro­wing a WGE or so in 2020 – may­be even in Fins­ter­wal­de, as the new cour­se the­re is a pro­ject I want to sup­port as well. Let’s stay in touch.

    PS: The les­bi­an thing – would it help if I put the word “hete­ro­nor­ma­ti­vi­ty” out the­re…? I suspect that’s what Anna was refer­ring to.

    PPS: Rea­ding sug­ges­ti­on on the “con­fi­dence gap”:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-confidence-gap/359815/

    1. No, plea­se don’t amend the wor­ding into some­thing an avera­ge per­son has to look up in dic­tion­a­ry, thanks. 

      Thank you also for let­ting me know about the “con­fi­dence gap”, I somehow was pre­pared to hear the­re exists a femi­nist name for it. But hea­ring that I have “spe­cial needs” was some­thing com­ple­te­ly new for me, shame on me. I am fee­ling bad now. 

      Yes, I am crea­ting an atmo­sphe­re that makes you and other beg­in­ners feel ina­de­qua­te and unwel­co­me by rating your opi­ni­on by how far you’ve made it in the disc golf world and the num­ber of tour­na­ments you play­ed – if it is more com­for­ta­ble for you to belie­ve this I am here for your free dis­po­sal to work off your inse­cu­ri­ties, I can stand this. But if it is not too much to ask feel free next time to grab your own nose and see if you might have get others com­ple­te­ly wrong and that you just wan­ted to misun­derstand me and may­be also that “bad guy” dr. delay. I total­ly under­stand that it is so much easier to seek the pro­blem in others. 

      After all, it’s nice to see that disc golf is so much clo­ser to your heart than crea­ting an inclu­si­ve disc golf com­mu­ni­ty for that guy you atta­cked for his artic­le. Becau­se YOU real­ly made that effort to pro­of that you make a “more valuable con­tri­bu­ti­on” by doing your home­work and rese­arch on disc golf women’s the­mes, for exam­p­le “the thing with the tour­na­ment spots for women”. You did not “trumpet” your own unre­flec­ted well-meant “groats” (as Ger­ma­ny say), sat back and wai­ted for your medal. 

      You total­ly have the right to see my appeal to start with yours­elf, being respon­si­ble and taking care of your own men­tal health as some­thing too much to bear for young women. I am hap­py that I am not in that kind of “girls club”. 

      And of cour­se you have all the right in the world to rela­ti­vi­ze your attack by say­ing that men are doing worse to women every day. Thumbs up for this objec­ti­ve, two sided pie­ce of art. 

      I would have wis­hed that you repre­sen­ted women’s sport a bit more adequate.

  15. Hi,

    buil­ding sani­ta­ry rooms is a good thing and I am with you. We should con­sider that it is not always easy buil­ding a rest­room con­nec­ted to water and light, for exam­p­le deep in the woods, and see­king allo­wan­ces from aut­ho­ri­ties is also work, as is taking care of tho­se sani­ta­ry rooms, kee­ping them clean, refill toi­let paper and assu­re acces­si­bi­li­ty and access con­trol. To rent tem­po­r­a­ri­ly a Dixie toi­let is sure­ly pos­si­ble for tour­na­ments but at first sight it does not sound as if it can ser­ve for casu­al rounds, i.e. for a long-term solu­ti­on. I am not sure how much a Dixie cos­ts and if a disc golf club should be able to afford the­se cos­ts for a long-term solu­ti­on, and what type of care they need – I am neither into club finan­cials nor into Dixie toi­lets. This is some­thing someone would have to find out for being able to give any qua­li­fied ans­wer. I am not real­ly using sani­ta­ry rooms when I am disc gol­fing as they are often dir­ty or stin­ky, so I am not awa­re about the actu­al stan­dards in Ger­ma­ny. The idea of sani­ta­ry rooms on disc golf cour­ses is not new and it alre­a­dy made its way to the Ger­man Tour rules. It is fixed that and how a toi­let must be available for play­ers during tour­na­ments – if you reco­gni­ze that the­re is a rule vio­la­ti­on by a lack of toi­lets during tour­na­ments you are allo­wed to address it to the respon­si­ble per­sons, i.e. the TD (may­be even cont­ac­ting him or her BEFORE the respec­ti­ve tour­na­ment, becau­se we are not here to point with fin­gers on someone but to have a bet­ter envi­ron­ment for us women), and if that is not hel­pful go a level hig­her, i.e. GT/DFV.

    Gre­at idea to chan­ge tour­na­ment for­mats, or offer han­di­cap or women’s leagues and tour­na­ments, I am with you again. So what is to do, prin­ting fly­ers or some­thing like that? I feel like we have to inform women about the­se pos­si­bi­li­ties in some way, becau­se other­wi­se they will not coming back after play­ing this fateful casu­al round with their friends. 

    We have a metrix han­di­cap league in our club in Rüs­sels­heim, that’s real­ly real­ly a gre­at thing. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the par­ti­ci­pa­ting play­ers are the same as always. It is not addres­sing anyo­ne out­side the com­mu­ni­ty woman or men. We try to spread it via face­book, moti­va­te play­ers to par­ti­ci­pa­te, but that also addres­ses only peo­p­le that are alre­a­dy in the disc golf face­book community. 

    I alre­a­dy tried to explain and Anto­nia as well: The num­ber of spots for each year and each divi­si­on is direct­ly lin­ked to the num­ber of play­ers in that divi­si­on the year befo­re. No women in tour­na­ments in 2018 means no tour­na­ment spots for women in 2019. The same rules app­ly for all divi­si­ons. It’s that easy. Some­thing to chan­ge? May­be. Any ideas? 

    I alre­a­dy read twice “women’s maga­zi­nes” some words about disc golf in artic­les about new tren­dy sports. If I remem­ber cor­rect the descrip­ti­on was short and held easy. May­be it’s worth asking tho­se women’s maga­zi­ne if one could pro­vi­de a more detail­ed report, using their pre­ce­ding mini-artic­le as a han­ger. May­be about any spe­ci­fic fema­le play­er if anyo­ne is inte­res­ted in being inter­view­ed. Some­thing else than the typi­cal sum­ma­ri­zing event-artic­les of the club’s local news­pa­per – scores, wea­ther, the num­ber of play­ers… some­thing with con­tent that is inte­res­t­ing for women, I don’t know.

  16. “mai­no­va sport rhein main” is a home­page intro­du­cing to sport clubs in our area. Their slo­gan is “Find your sport” and I think I have also seen Pro­s­pect in which women and girls were expli­ci­te­ly addres­sed. May­be it’s worth get in touch with them?

  17. First of all, Anna, thank you so much for a very well-writ­ten and thought-pro­vo­king artic­le. Same goes for Sara’s com­ment, which addres­sed a lot of high­ly rele­vant issues. Being rela­tively new to DG, I don’t have much per­so­nal expe­ri­ence to draw from but just wan­ted to let you know that ever­y­thing you wro­te makes sen­se and I app­re­cia­te the thought that went into it. That’s why I’m stag­ge­red, frank­ly, at the rather hosti­le and aggres­si­ve tone some of the comm­ents see­med to take. All the points made in Anna’s pie­ce were spot on. I come from an ulti­ma­te fris­bee back­ground, which is a bit dif­fe­rent, but I see simi­la­ri­ties in all sports when it comes to gen­der diver­si­ty and inclu­si­on (or lack thereof).

    I live in Ros­tock and am at the local cour­se near­ly every day. Not once have I seen ano­ther woman play­ing or prac­ti­sing by hers­elf. On the rare occa­si­on that the­re is a woman play­ing, she is always with at least one other man. I hope to do some­thing (once Coro­na is under con­trol) to encou­ra­ge more women and girls to play – may­be a women’s intro cli­nic, or an orga­nis­ed recrea­tio­nal women’s round – along the same line of thin­king of what Anto­nia suggested.

    Or may­be I can move to Pots­dam whe­re the women’s DG sce­ne seems to be slight­ly more active 😉

    1. Dear Fio­na,

      many thanks for your encou­rag­e­ing com­ment! We’­re curr­ent­ly also plan­ning events, groups, prac­ti­ce rounds etc. in order to lower the inhi­bi­ti­on level for women to beco­me part of our local DG com­mu­ni­ty. Coro­na has some­what nar­ro­wed down the pos­si­bi­li­ties, but once this is over, we’ll be going full-speed again on brin­ging more diver­si­ty into the game.

      Let’s stay in touch, Ros­tock is not far away from Pots­dam! Let us know when you come to Pots­dam, so we can network 🙂

      All the best and a bela­ted hap­py New Year,
      Anna

    2. Hel­lo Fiona,
      thank you for your feed­back! It’s been a while sin­ce your com­ment… I only just saw it, but I still wan­ted to respond, most­ly con­cer­ning what you wro­te about yourself.
      First of all: Wel­co­me to the disc golf com­mu­ni­ty! I’m sor­ry to hear about the lack of women in your area. (Yes, in Pots­dam the­re are more of us, but even here the­re is work to do to bring the women tog­e­ther more. Like Anna said, we’­re working on it…)
      Are you on Face­book? If you are inte­res­ted in get­ting more con­nec­ted with other women in disc golf in Ger­ma­ny, the­re is a new pri­va­te group cal­led “Frau­en im Disc Golf” with over 70 mem­bers alre­a­dy. If you’­re on FB, I high­ly recom­mend joi­ning the group.
      The­re is also a Tele­gram group for women in Fris­bee sports. I can send you the invi­te link if you want.
      So, feel free to cont­act me any­ti­me at “sarak [ät] hyzernauts.de” to get in touch. I would be inte­res­ted in an exch­an­ge with you. And I can only say “dit­to” to Anna: Let us know when you come to Pots­dam sometime 🙂
      Cheers,
      Sara

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