modest about it. It plays straight into an allergy I have. I used to work in a consultancy where every single employee thought they were a ‘thought leader’, which just meant that there were a bunch of people running around acting all opinionated and full of themselves without really adding anything of value to important debates.” I wondered: if the same earned
credentials from my resume had been attached to a male persona, would this poster have written the same comments? If there was one thing I learned from Marjorie Bank it was to stand up and be proud of my accomplishments and hard earned credentials. So, I brushed these comments off but not without first noting that the male poster had responded to my inquiry in a ‘women only’ thread on an Internet forum. Another reader saw that too, commenting, “I’ve noticed over my years on SB that if you want to be sure of a male perspective, post it in the Women’s Forum.”
and was heavily influenced by, the male-dominated military. We speak nostalgically of Lloyd Bridges, Navy Frogmen and Captain Jacques Cousteau – yet rarely mention Zale Parry, the heroine of Sea Hunt fame, and one of the first women to engage in technical diving. To gather community opinions
about women’s issues in diving, I turned to the fabulously scientific Internet diving forums. I started threads entitled “Sexism?” on numerous social platforms. I tried to balance my request by asking the following: “A major diving publication has
asked me to write an article on sexism in diving. I’m curious how that makes people feel? Do we still have an issue with sexism in our industry? Are you sick of hearing women complain about unequal treatment? Are you tired of men saying there is no problem? Are
there some reasonable suggestions to help women feel validated and men feel informed?” It was, undoubtedly, a hot button
topic, because I received hundreds of replies and tens of thousands of views. One of the first responses hit me square in the teeth. The reader had perused my professional website (
IntoThePlanet.com), and declared that my resume was boastful and inflated. The reader said my mention of being honoured as a member of the inaugural class of The Women Divers Hall of Fame and receiving various Lifetime Achievement Awards was evidence that I was “full of myself.” This male diver wrote: “I don’t want to be insulting
but once again, I think there is an agenda here.... there are others on Scubaboard (I am not one of them) who have similar CVs and credentials and are a lot more
A question of approach: to ‘pink’ or not?
More opportunities to show off Other participants felt that sexism in diving is nothing more than a microcosm of what we experience in society more widely. A PADI Course Director and active technical diver said, “Sure, sexism is there… but I’m not sure it’s special to the diving environment. That is, I don’t think the non-sexist person suddenly changes stripes when they put on a wetsuit, or vice-versa. There are just more opportunities for it to arise in the diving environment… heavy equipment to be moved around, swim suits; lots of opportunities to show off ‘superior’ knowledge, skills, and strength.” A noted physician and very active
diver took it one step further saying, “I think it takes two to be sexist. First, you have to have the man with the attitude, and then you have to have the woman with the chip on her shoulder. I have never carried that chip, and it takes fairly egregious behavior to register as sexist to me.” A male poster from the cave
diving community felt there was no sexism at all. He said, “Seems to me like, at least in cave diving, we criticize folks - men and women - using the same criteria: are you a clean diver? Slow? Complain a lot? Whine? To be completely honest, I’ve seen more men throw emotional fits than women.” But as private messages landed in my inbox, another reality unfolded.
www.divermag.com 19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68