Women in Manitoba celebrated a milestone anniversary in 2016 – earning the vote 100 years earlier. Indeed, we’ve come a long way, baby. Gender equality has been a long fought battle. Yet I’ve never really felt like I’ve been on the front lines.
While I’ve always believed in the cause, supported it, and undoubtedly benefited from it, I don’t feel like I’ve ever really championed it. And I’m honestly not sure why.
Maybe I feel like others are doing just fine leading the charge, and don’t really need my help. Maybe I just don’t because surely someone else will. Maybe I don’t want to be labeled one way or the other. Regardless, I’ve always been grateful that many women carry the torch on behalf of all of us.
Getting in the game
Women have long been fighting for their place in sports, too, and earning the right to get in the game. The Olympics let women enter track and field events in 1928. The Boston Marathon allowed its first registered female runner in 1967. Full-court basketball welcomed women in 1971, and little league baseball added girls in 1974.
Jump ahead to 2016. Women in North America can pretty much play any sport they want. And since I love sports, I happen to play a few.
Curling was part of my culture growing up in small town Manitoba. Funny, though, I never actually tried curling until I was in my mid-30s – and quickly became hooked, mostly playing women’s leagues and bonspiels. When I was asked to join a coed team, I agreed. However, I’ve noticed an odd practice in coed curling on some of the teams.
Frequent male interference
It typically consists of a male skip running out of the house, down the surface of the ice, and jumping in to sweep a rock. And taking over a woman’s spot in the process.
One of my teammates who first pointed it out to me, and honestly, it didn’t seem like a big deal. A little strange, but no big deal. Then over the next few weeks, I noticed that it kept happening over and over. And it wasn’t just one team with an aggressive skip. Another team was doing it. And then a third team! What was going on?
I wondered how the women on those teams felt. Were they just expected to let a man take over sweeping a rock they were fully capable of sweeping? Step aside so a man could step in and do their job? Let a man squeeze them out of the game? It didn’t seem right!
A skip’s job is to stay in the house, watch the line, and call for sweeping. Not do the sweeping. What the heck was going on? I don’t know if this happens in all coed leagues, but it certainly happened in mine. And rampantly, too.
Last time I checked, curling was a team sport, with four positions. Each of the four has a job to do, and teammates typically trust each other to do their job. Sometimes we do our job well, sometimes, well, not so well. That’s called being human. And if we all curled perfectly, well, we’d all be on TV.
Respect for teammates
Teammates don’t shove each other aside because we think we can do better. Take someone’s spot because we feel more deserving. This belittles individual contributions to a team, and disrespects team structure. Not only that, but it’s downright annoying to watch men literally shove women aside, over and over, for two hours every week.
It dawned on me that, while it might be a small act, it reflects a much bigger issue – the age-old battle of gender equality. Women wanting the vote. Women wanting to get in the game. Women wanting to sweep their own damn rock.
Coed curling made me realize that yes, I do care if a man tries to take a woman’s spot. I do care that there are plenty of men out there who think they can do a better job than a woman. Just because they are a man and she is a woman. I do care that there are women out there who so easily let themselves be shoved aside by a man and have their contributions discounted.
Putting it into perspective
Suddenly, coed curling put it all into perspective for me. Making me realize that we women have been fighting for our spot for a long time. On and off the ice.
Yes, we’ve come a long way, baby. But we still have a longer way to go. While it may be more than 100 years since Manitoba women won the right to vote, in some houses, we’re still working on the right to sweep.
