Think you know sports? Prove it.
Listening to that level of entitlement and privilege made my blood pressure rise palpably.
Think you know fencing? Prove it.
That is the challenge I face every time I set foot in a fencing salle. Sometimes it is tacit, an atmosphere or an attitude. Yet there are still occasions, 35 years after I started fencing where people, almost exclusively men, are arrogant enough to say it to my face.
Even now as an experienced coach in my mid-forties, producing and supporting international athletes, there is no escape.
I am not alone, this is the challenge for all the women and girls in my sport; athletes, coaches or referees every time they set foot in a salle or go to a competition.
Fencing is a male dominated sport and my main weapon is sabre. Sabre was not accepted as a woman’s sport until 1998 by the FIE (our international governing body) and was not in the Olympics until 2004.
It remains a struggle to be a woman in this sport. Even though I am no longer a frightened teenage athlete building up the courage to walk into a club; knowing I would not only be the only woman sabreur but very likely the only woman in the whole room that night.
I was in the Great Britain squad and one of the top five woman sabruers in the UK at that time, but I was still made to feel like I wasn’t good enough.
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Even writing this article, I feel the need to qualify how good a coach I am, including how long I had been fencing, including being an international fencer. There are male coaches who have never have never been on the GBR squad, who only started in fencing a few years ago, who have not produced a single athlete of quality. They still have more authority, legitimacy and recognition than I do.
So what is it like to have to ‘prove it’, every single time you fence?
From the perspective of an athlete, it’s often a case of having to avoid certain clubs because comments get made just loud enough when you walk in: ‘unnatural, waste of time, never be any good’. I often have to make a choice:
Is it worth it tonight? Do I feel strong enough to go and get my head down, am I able to let the hostility roll off me or is it going to leave me hollow and worn out the next day?
These comments echo around my head.
I feel that if you do go, you’ll never be fast or strong enough to beat them. Even if you are a better fencer, they’ll still peacock around because they won even if you though you might have the fight of your life.
There’s no prizes for quality, no recognition of the brilliance that got you to 15-14 against someone often twice your size.
You have to walk a tightrope; you can’t fence too well though. If you get a good hit you better be ready for the next point when they’ll come thundering down the piste to smack you as hard as they can to prove their point.
It feels like they can’t be shown up by a girl. If you are too good, too successful, if you shine too brightly, you must be punished.
How can women and girls feel confident and comfortable to learn if they have to suffer through a fight with someone who you know is just going to hit you as hard as he can fifteen times.
It’s frowned upon to refuse a fight and you’ll just be labelled as moody or not a good sport. Though how allowing yourself to be assaulted in a way that would be criminal if you weren’t on a piste improves anyone’s game is a mystery to me?
I still see this situation at clubs in the UK; one woman I witnessed literally stood on the en garde line and just let herself be hit fifteen times. She didn’t make any effort, she didn’t put up a fight, she let the man get what he needed – to feel like a man – and then she could get on with her evening.
Just get it over with.
She didn’t want to have to ‘prove it’ that night but there was no escaping his need to prove that she didn’t know fencing as well as him.
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