Gender Equity in Swiss Ultimate

Projects & Ideas
1

Output from the Gender Equity Workshop at the first SM Round in Basel.
There were 39 participants from different Clubs, thank you!

INTRODUCTION

  • USA has a big focus on gender equity right now (AUDL Boycott, USAU promoting Womens and Mixed Ultimate by streaming more Women’s and Mixed Games than ever before)
  • But what does gender equity mean in Switzerland?  That is what we are going to discuss today
  • Gender equity = equal opportunities  most people can agree on that, but we do not always agree what that means, how far we are from it, or how to get to a place where everyone has equal opportunities. And that’s ok.
  • THERE IS NO “RIGHT” ANSWER to gender equity, we are allowed to disagree about the details while still agreeing that everyone having equal opportunites is a great idea
  • Gender equity is a big messy subject that is about a lot of different things

DISCUSSION
We started the discussion by identifying barriers for Women in Ultimate. And those are the barriers, which the participants choose to work on (you find them on the attached picture as well):

  • Roles in Mixed Ultimate Teams
  • Focus on men’s final
  • Self-Expression
  • Playing style & physical contact
  • men & women do not find the experience of playing mixed equitable
  • Sky Bowl final → women’s & men’s final should be same amount of time
  • Tournament schedule (Change order of final, both have early morning games etc.)

Each group had to pick out one barrier and present solutions for the barrier. The solutions could be for individuals, clubs, national governing body.

SOLUTIONS (see picture below)
National Governing Body

  • organizing mixed clinics in different regions of Switzerland
  • in mixed teams should be a man and a woman in the coaching → empower and support more women to coach teams
  • more workshops
  • responsible person for gender equity

Clubs

  • create an environment to allow an open communication
  • esponsible person for gender equity
  • promote ultimate for girls
  • promote ultimate for woman
  • at least 1 female & 1 male captain

Individual

  • encourage confidence & be confident by recognizing the good things people do
  • support each other
  • work together
  • more women in the boards (club or association)

Thanks again for participating! Looking forward to your feedback/questions:-)

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1 Like
2

I think it would be great if we could try and aim to have at least one person (ideally maybe 3-6 people) per club that actively work on this topic.

3

Has there been any follow-up on the proposed solutions?

4

Only thing I’m aware is that the SUA is trying to use more woman than man pictures in publications and in text to use both, either the feminine and masculine term, or the feminine term only…

5

I noticed that in the lastest newsletter. It’s a good start.

6

Thanks for your questions, suggestions and answers!

@lsmith it would be great to have a person or persons responsible for Gender Equity in the Clubs. Do you have any ideas, how we - as the SUA and also as the Swiss Ultimate Community could support/promote?

What we did last year - for the first time ever - the Women’s Final came after the Men’s Final at the Swiss Championships. So we are gonna alternate every year (this year will be Men’s Final last). It was very well received by the community.

I will discuss the idea of a responsible person for gender equity in the SUA Board at our next meeting in March. I’ll keep you posted about this.

I’m very happy to hear your ideas and inputs about how we could keep the Gender Equity Discussion going in Switzerland!

Cheers

Olivia