Over the past year, USA Ultimate and the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) have been pushing for a mass movement towards gender equity in the sport of Ultimate Frisbee. And while organizations like Girls Ultimate Movement (GUM) have already begun efforts to promote the sport of Ultimate for young women, some players felt that USA Ultimate was just not doing enough.
This movement has been quick to claim the lack of women in the sport is due to the inequalities and inequities in the sport’s atmosphere. The AUDL remains an Open League to both men and women, however, only one women has ever played in the league. This amazing woman, Jesse Shofner, has led the recent AUDL boycott as well as calling for people to pull their support from the organization until they provide more opportunities and coverage of women’s ultimate.
Yes, there definitely should be more coverage of women’s ultimate. I believe a reason why there is a shortage of women in the sport is that of the lack of coverage and knowledge that it exists, however, I do not believe that the way this boycott and the way USA Ultimate has approached it is necessarily accurate.
The statement of the boycott reads, “I believe that women and men should have equal representation at the highest, most visible levels of our sport – including professional play. If the AUDL does not ensure that women and men have equal representation in 2018, I will not support it. This means I will not be playing in or attending games and will avoid consuming related media and content.”
Here’s where they went wrong. There is a distinct difference between equality and equity. The boycott supports the idea of gender equity in the sport, but only states they want equality. Equality means that the starting point or opportunities are the same. Equity states that the end result is the same. You can’t have both because at some point equity would overcome equality due to a few reasons. If the end results are the same, at some point someone else or a group had an advantage over the other in order to ensure that result. There can be no equality when there is equity.
In my experience with the sport, here is what I take away: there is definitely gender equality in the sport of Ultimate. As a woman who has played on all-girls teams, mixed teams, and an all-boys, or so-called open leagues, team, I can attest that yes, there are certainly challenges in the Ultimate community when it comes to women playing, but we do have a decently an even playing field.
All players have the exact same opportunity to try out for an AUDL team. That’s the equality factor. However, the AUDL has a lot to consider when adding women to their rosters. The first would be that this woman might not get a lot of play time. Scientifically, women and men are built physically different. That doesn’t mean that women aren’t fit, active, or athletic, it simply means that on a playing field a woman might not be able to out jump a man or outrun a man because men are typically taller and have longer strides. By all means, as a woman, I can attest I have outrun and out-jumped many men before, but there’s still the underlying doubt that a player might not be able to.
The goal of a game is to win, and if you aren’t playing your best line who can match up evenly with the other team, you are putting your team at a detriment.
Another point the AUDL might take into account, and how I have witnessed it, it also has come to my attention that women play Ultimate very differently than men. This is evident in other sports too. Women are more technical. They like the strategy and plan of the field. They like to use technique in how they get the disc up the field. Not to say men don’t, but playing in an open league and being the only girl at some tournaments, I’ve found that men tend to play faster and more “intense.” Their intent is to get the disc down the field as fast as possible. There’s a lot of hucking involved.
Another point of the movement is to possibly make the AUDL a mixed league or add a women’s league to it. And while making it a mixed league seems like the most viable option, and reasonable there are some barriers to this. Sadly, some sponsors of the AUDL might pull out. And while that seems inherently sexist, it also could contribute to the fact that also not as many people watch mixed Ultimate, and so views would go down on games, and therefore so would revenue. Adding a league also comes to the issue of money. That’s another batch of sponsors needed to be found, and a lot of women’s ultimate doesn’t get watched. For those reasons, we don’t know. We have no proof either to claim that because we are women is the reason they don’t watch. There isn’t enough evidence on the issue, and it should be looked into.
Lastly, the movement wants a one year plan to fix this all. It won’t happen. Money, at this large of a scale, doesn’t move that fast. So, while something might have mass support, there isn’t enough funding. Therefore, a plan should be thought out for maybe the next five years rather than having all this done in one year because it’s just not possible.
The AUDL is not the bad guys. They have done nothing wrong, so it’s wrong to demand things from them.
Do not mistake my stance on the equality/equity debate as my way to say I don’t want coverage of women’s ultimate or it to be promoted. Trust me, the idea of playing this amazing sport professionally is incredibly tempting and I’m sad that there isn’t any better or slightly easier path for women. However, there is a path, it’s just not the one women want, but we do for the most part have our equality in the sport of Ultimate.
I think that we as women deserve to have the equal playing field when it comes to the opportunities that men have because that is equality. So, something like a making the AUDL Open League strictly men and having a strictly women’s league, which as stated above takes longer than one year. But we should not have equity which is what I feel has been confused about in this argument. Equity means the end result is the same, but it won’t ever be. It’s been proven time and time again; men’s ultimate is watched more than women’s. If women aren’t going to bring in revenue why show it over men’s?
It’s sad, it’s very sad. But it’s the truth.
In conclusion, no matter what happens over the next few years with women’s ultimate. Even though, we can hope it’s happy. This shouldn’t divide the community. Ultimate has been blessed with this amazing Spirit that we always talk so much about, and lately, I’m not seeing much of it because of this boycott. Why does everything have to be pointing fingers at what happened and who has to fix it? We need to work together and move on from what’s happened and look to the future. And while I speak from my own experience in the sport, and can’t account for others, I feel that yes, we have the equality, and we should continue to make sure we keep it, but we by no means should be shown as more important or over men’s ultimate as a “you owe me” because of the lack of representation in the past years.
This shouldn’t divide our community, but rather bring us together. I hope USA Ultimate, the AUDL, and especially the boycott can figure this out and we can all just go back to playing the sport we love so much.
