Issue 99 - June 1997

Power, Resource and Responsibility

Women's rowing has long been ridiculed.

When I was at college it was referred to as assisted drifting. For a time during the last century women's crews were judged on style rather than speed. It has long been a secondary and quite separate sport from Men's Rowing. As we approach the new millenium, women's rowing is still struggling to justify an equal share in the resources available and to become a fully integrated sector within the sport. A lot of women, particularly those who have spent some time in administration or as elite athletes, would still agree that women's and men's rowing are different sides of the same coin, and to a great extent they would be right. There is at present great dissatisfaction amongst international athletes of my generation about the equality of resource distribution and the support available.

Unlike a few years ago women now expect equal opportunity; Sports Council policy insists on it; the Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport accepted by the Amateur Rowing Association claims that

'Resources, power and responsibility should be allocated fairly and without discrimination.'

Writing this last year I might well have suggested that this was the central issue. Having stepped out of the International team and into the realms of the Amateur Rowing Association, the men vs women issue is only one of the many conflicts in a sport where resources are limited, total commitment is essential and only real success is rewarded and (sorry guys!) I don't mean the other main issue is lightweight vs heavyweight!! For the international athlete the most important issues are immediate and personal. As athlete rep it really is very difficult to divorce oneself from the concerns and needs of the athlete on a day-to-day basis and look at the wider picture - in fact, I don't think that it is an athlete rep's job to do otherwise. One of the difficulties, real or imagined, of speaking out as an athlete, is the vulnerability you feel in relation to coaches, selection, funding and so on. 'Rocking the boat' is a very risky business, in more ways than one.

Having retired from the team I am now in the privileged position, at least for a short while, of being able to represent an athlete's point of view from a more secure position. But, stepping back from the role of athlete rep within the ARA brings into focus a whole spectrum of needy causes which demand attention: juniors, veterans, disabled athletes, clubs with no coaches, no boathouse and no equipment, all of which are complicated by gender. There are regions and divisions, commissions and committees. Confusing is not the word!

Somewhere in all this fits the current Women's Rowing Commission (WRC) of which I became Chairman last September. Today the WRC is only a shadow of its former self, and rightly so as its role has changed considerably over the last 30 years. Its aims today are to promote and develop all aspects of the involvement of women in the sport, at all levels of participation, all age groups and all groups with special needs. But why should the women have their own commission when the men don't have one? This is an oft asked question, and perhaps not surprisingly by men who may not see the inequalities inherent in a system set up by men for men. Much of the prejudice in our sport is unconscious and unseen, and is due to the historical merging of two governing bodies.

The history of the WRC can help gain an understanding of some of the issues surrounding women's rowing and help explain the differing attitudes of my contemporaries and those who steered women's rowing through the 1960s and 1970s. The Women's Amateur Rowing Association, set up in the 1920s, was taken under the wing of the ARA in 1962, and the Women Rowing Council, as it then became, continued to run their sport semi-independently. The Women's Rowing Council financed women's rowing, ran women's regattas and selected women's international crews.

It should not be forgotten that the merging of the WARA and the ARA was not merely an administrative change forced by FISA (who would only recognise one governing body per nation) but one that helped secure women's rowing financially. International women's crews benefited greatly, notably from the International Rowing Fund. In 1968 the Chairman of the Women's Rowing Committee, as it became, was invited to join the Council and attend the Executive Committee ex-officio of the ARA and in 1976 Pauline Churcher became the first woman to be elected to Council in her own right. To those of us who remember The Bay City Rollers this seems like only yesterday. It is crucial to remember how recent all these changes are when we consider women's roles in rowing today. Perhaps we should begin to start expecting some recognition and equality of opportunity.

The fact that the ARA's national manager and the chairman of the Executive are female does not fairly reflect the involvement of women throughout the ARA. There are very few. Those who are involved often have a number of commitments and are enormously generous with their time and money. Some women, as do many men, spend every spare minute coaching, organising and raising money for their rowing clubs. I was astounded by the commitment of both male and female coaches who worked 12, and more, hours a day at the recent General Training Weekend, without pay.

There is still plenty of room for women with less time to get involved on a smaller scale. However, over the last six months I have found it very difficult to raise enthusiasm amongst women to be proactively involved. Ways of getting more women involved in decision-making are needed, to prove that women are not only as capable of running meetings, organising, coaching and umpiring events as men, but probably more capable and more efficient.

Women's rowing cannot expect a fair share of resource and power until it is prepared to take its fair share of responsibility.

Annamarie Stapleton was a member of the British Women's Rowing Team from 1991 to 1996 and has been Chairman of the Women's Rowing Commission since September 1996.

© Copyright Anne-Marie Stapleton, 1997.