Male sailors still have work to do

The Mighty Mary movie has been getting a lot of buzz since its opening in AMC Theaters, and it does well to retell the story of the women’s campaign of the same name for the 1995 America’s Cup. Gus Carlson offers an observation after watching the film:

I once asked Dawn Riley, team captain on Mighty Mary, to speak to my daughter’s all-girls U-12 hockey team as a highly accomplished woman who broke the glass ceiling in global sports. She agreed, but only if the boys’ team was in the room as well.

Dawn’s logic: It wasn’t enough for the girls to hear that they could do anything they put their minds to; the boys needed to hear that about the girls, too.

I was reminded of that story as I watched the Mighty Mary film. It’s much more than a great sailing story and a great sports story. It’s a stark reminder of the neanderthal mindset of those at the top of our sport only 30 years ago and, more discouraging, how little things seem to have changed.

Many of the men involved in the selection trials who were interviewed for the film still exhibited the arrogance, dismissiveness, and patronizing tone they had toward the women aboard Mighty Mary way back then.

At one point, there was a suggestion that this generation of male sailors has evolved and is more enlightened than their fathers were, and that their sons will evolve even more. After seeing Mighty Mary, I’m not confident that is entirely true.

Much is made about cost being the biggest hurdle to growth in our sport. The commentary in Mighty Mary suggests that institutional chauvinism isn’t far behind.

And the film barely acknowledges the grit and resilience of what came next in the women’s effort. After falling victim to the infamously sketchy “deal” made by the men in charge in 1995 that gave Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes life after defeat in the trials, and eventually led to Mighty Mary’s demise in the finals, Dawn went on to create America True — co-ed and female led — that punched way above its puny budget to beat Stars & Stripes in 2000.

As a father of two daughters and a lifelong sailor, I encourage my fellow men to see the film. The malignant misogyny may make some cringe. It should. And that’s okay.

It’s those who still think it’s funny or quaint or ludicrous that ‘girls’ can compete against men at the highest levels we need to worry about. It’s clear that many male sailors still need to do some work to extract their heads from their rear-ends when it comes to equality.