From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Tue Oct 30 18:12:14 2001
Received: (from daemon@localhost)
by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.11.6/8.11.6) id f9UI72F04342
for britdisc-outgoing; Tue, 30 Oct 2001 18:07:02 GMT
Received: from daffodil.csv.warwick.ac.uk (root@daffodil [137.205.192.30])
by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id f9UI70X04335
for <britdisc-real@pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 30 Oct 2001 18:07:00 GMT
Received: from mps1.leeds.ac.uk (mps1.leeds.ac.uk [129.11.16.8])
by daffodil.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id f9UI6xC20117
for <Britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 30 Oct 2001 18:06:59 GMT
Received: from arts-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk (arts-01.leeds.ac.uk [129.11.124.2])
by mps1.leeds.ac.uk (8.11.4/8.11.4) with ESMTP id f9UI6xv17226
for <Britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 30 Oct 2001 18:06:59 GMT
Received: from LUCS-H22/SpoolDir by arts-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk (Mercury 1.48);
30 Oct 01 18:07:01 GMT
Received: from SpoolDir by LUCS-H22 (Mercury 1.48); 30 Oct 01 18:06:46 GMT
From: "Anna Winter" <eng9aw@ARTS-01.NOVELL.LEEDS.AC.UK>
Organization: University of Leeds
To: Britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 18:06:35 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Subject: re: women
Reply-to: eng9aw@leeds.ac.uk
Message-ID: <3BDEEC2A.7389.27F295B@localhost>
X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c)
Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk
Precedence: bulk
Leanne and all,
Encouraging women to stick with the sport during and after
university would certainly mean that there was a larger pool of
female players in the UK, although it isn't the only way to get more
women playing, obviously.
I thought about this quite a bit when starting the regional student
women's team, the aim of which was to encourage more women of
all standards from more universities to play. I thought if women
across the region got to know each other better they were more
likely to form friendships, join together to form new teams and be
more likely to stay playing. It also would provide an opportunity to
improve skills without the scrutiny of the lads (we love them, but
surely I'm not the only women out there who feels under twice as
much pressure with blokes around because I feel like I have
something to prove to them as well as having the game to play). If
every region had one or two women's teams at least this would
guarantee some kind of national student competition for women
each year, with enough teams to make it viable.
In terms of co-ed student games... (and this may well start a
row)... the problem we had playing co-ed as a student team was
that the blokes all handled, played homeboy and looked off the
women for the most part. I know that that isn't how it should be but
I think until the skill gap between male and female players at
student level is bridged somewhat it is hard to compete together.
They don't throw to us because they don't trust we'll make the
catch (this is horribly "them and us", but please look beyond that!),
we don't get the disc much and so don't improve, they don't throw
to us because we wont make the catch... and so on. A vicious
circle.
I don't disagree with what Leanne has proposed - the more
Ultimate the merrier, but at student level I really think women need
something specifically for them to make them feel like there is a
real potential for them as players, the opportunity to play and
something to play for, because it isn't winning Student Nationals for
most of us lasses.
Sorry to any graduates who had to suffer my student rant, I'll grow
out of it (hopefully).
Cheers,
Anna.
BAPS - Northern Student Women.