Tuesday, August 6, 2013

What's your take - twitter silence or inspiring women?

Sign at Dollymount Beach, Dublin

Twitter has been talking a lot about women this week - you may have heard of the #Twittersilence hashtag to take on trolls. One of the parallel hastags is  #inspiringwomen

I see both points of view. Someone is behaving like Stone Age Man so you leave the dialogue and that takes away the fuel from his madness. It can work - if SAM has no-one to shout at, he will probably move onto a more visible target. 

The other option of yelling pride from the roof-tops can also be effective - you show SAM nothing he says has any grounding in reality. And hope he gives up under the avalanche and goes away. 

Unfortunately a lot of the discussion between women has drifted from SAM and onto competing between ourselves as to which approach is better. *sighs* 

Since getting involved in sport in  my early-20s I've taken both approaches. There really are times when silence is the best reply, a dignified silence I think is the term.

Like when a trainer says don't get in that ring because you will contaminate it and make 'my  boys' lose their next fight. Is there any response other than walking away and finding a gym with more tolerant attitudes - so you can train and fight and win? 
(an example from my youth BTW but still found in unexpressed form today) 

But on other occasions loud noise is appropriate - like when officials try to change the length of a women's fight because they say we can't last  the full five rounds. Regulation and legislation SAMs need to be fought - loudly and often. 

I was a bit saddened though to notice how few sportswomen got tagged as #inspiringwomen. That would be my gripe with feminism I guess - science, arts, politics are all moving centre-stage for the movement but sports are still seen as something it's OK to leave to men by many women.

Not on this blog though - we celebrate Inspiring Sports Women all the time here. Any thoughts on which approach you prefer - silence or inspiration?




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