The data in this document represent survey respondents only and is not representative of NZ fencing. This survey was an informal survey. Credit goes to James Chapman-Richards for editing.

Introduction

I was surprised to hear that, in New Zealand, women make up 37% of affiliated fencers – that is certainly more than I expected! I have learnt a lot over the past few months, both about the wide range of differing perspectives about the sport within fencing itself, as well as about NZ sporting culture in general. Before proceeding further, I want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to fill in the survey and share their thoughts with me. Your support has kept me motivated to pursue my fencing-related goals and I hope to work with some of you this year!

Why I wanted to do a survey

As someone in a position of power, I know I can do something to help foster a more inclusive community; I just didn’t know what. As a statistician, I determined that the best way for me to figure this out was to simply ask as many people as possible about their attitudes towards the inclusion of women in fencing and what those in favour think we should do to make it happen. Having surveyed an acceptable number of people, I believe that we now have a solid starting point from which to work.

According to the 2018 Government Strategy for Women and Girls in Active Recreation, page 4, as well as research conducted by Sports NZ, “There are clear inequalities for women and girls when it comes to participation, and their wider involvement and visibility within sport and active recreation in Aotearoa New Zealand.” We know inequality exists in society in general and in sports in particular, but what does this look like in fencing and what can we do about it? The Government Strategy poses many thought-provoking questions to spark discussion and there is an abundance of resources online for sports in general, but I personally found it difficult to understand why seemingly minor comments of a sexist nature in sporting environments are so bad at first. The responses I received to the survey gave some concrete examples of what might be termed everyday sexism and helped me understand the issue a lot better. I hope you can learn something new here too as the social picture being painted by the data that I gathered is eye-opening and invites the average fencer to consider issues of sex and gender that they otherwise pass by unremarked.

Insights

Bad Apples

Unsurprisingly, there was a number of women who talked about verbal, physical, and sexual assault and harassment. This was sometimes discrete and subtle, like a coach sexualising his students during training, other men deliberately being brutal against women on the piste (and laughing about it!), or objectifying women’s bodies during training. Other times, it was out in the open and everyone simply turned a blind eye. Perhaps because the perpetrator held too much power, or because it was “too much admin” to black card someone.

I am hoping that rule changes and new policies in the near future will make a difference, but unfortunately I am a pessimist and don’t have high hopes about the bad apples in our community (I will be pushing for changes nonetheless!). For now, all I can say on this is that people notice. For the people in our community who use power to get their way or who treat women like a waste of time or as an object – we can see you. We can hear you yelling abuse at students and opponents, the parents can see you giving their daughters less attention than their sons, we can hear you making sexual comments or criticising women’s bodies during training and competitions. Importantly, other people with power notice you are not acting in the best interests of fencing. If everyone around you is an arsehole, perhaps look within. If everyone around you is an arsehole AND you’re hardly ever invited to national events or asked to help out (or worse – someone less skilled than you is invited instead!!!), it was probably deliberate. But it is not too late to change.

What we can all do

First, a brief story: I used to frequently use the word “retard” as banter in my teenage years until I had a discussion about harm.

A mentor and friend once asked me, “if it cost you little to nothing at all to alleviate some of the bad in the world, would you do it?”.

Me: Yes, I would.

Friend: How much happiness does using the R-word bring you? In comparison to using the word “stupid” or “dumb”, that is.

Me: I dunno. It’s funny to say, but I wouldn’t say it makes me happy.

Friend: How much would you suffer if you chose to stop using the R-word, and used “dumb” in its place?

Me: It would be less funny, but it would probably make no difference in my life.

Friend: Do you know there are people who feel really upset hearing that word?

Me: But they choose to be offended – I can’t control how they feel.

Friend: Does it matter if it is a choice or not? I’m not telling you to change – you yourself said you would choose to reduce the bad in the world if it cost you little to nothing at all. It would cost you little to nothing to stop using that word. To you, there’d be no difference, but to someone else, they wouldn’t get offended and feel bad around you.

My friends and I had a linguistic norm that involved using the word “retard” as a joke and years down the track, looking back and knowing what I know now about the harm that it causes, I find it hard not to be shocked that I ever considered it to be acceptable. I was right that I have no direct control over how others feel, but I was wrong to say that I have no control because how they feel is in part dictated by what I say.

Looking at comments of a sexist nature, to state that “men simply have biological advantages so do better in fencing” is a problematic statement for two reasons: first, it’s not really necessary to make that kind of statement in the presence of women who wish simply to participate in a sport, not necessarily become world champions; second, and more importantly, the statement needs to include the caveat “on average.” The importance of that qualifier I cannot stress enough because there is wide variation within gender populations such that it is not true that all men are better than all women at fencing: it is simply the case that, generally speaking, there is a statistical tendency towards male advantage, which says everything about population-level comparisons and nothing about specific individuals. From the survey, it can be seen that some women mentioned they dislike hearing this, that it feels like being told they’re not good enough or making them doubt their own abilities; in other words, it feels like a put-down.
An extensive Google search led me to a study titled “You throw like a girl:” The effect of stereotype threat on women’s athletic performance and gender stereotypes. This study found that, when participants were told that there was a gender difference in difficult tasks, women performed worse than men, but that they performed equally as well as their male counterparts when not told anything. I emailed the researcher asking if participants were told that “men were better”, or something else; she responded that participants were NOT told whether this gender difference favoured men or women, but that women doubted themselves anyway and performed worse, which raises questions about our subconscious biases. If simply saying “there is a gender difference” can cause women to perform worse, it seems likely that the default interpretation of the statement, “there is a gender difference” is that men are better than women.

In a similar vein, statements like “she’s a girl so you can beat her easily,” “women’s competitions are boring,” tacking “like a girl” on the end of a statement to mark it as an insult, distinguishing between “men’s competition” and “girls’ competition” (not “women’s”), describing the “the epee event” versus “the women’s epee event” (setting the male presence as default while marking female presence as abnormal), or simply reinforcing the idea that men are stronger/more capable/fit is highly problematic in that it is a persistent, pervasive social message that is disempowering of women. Indeed, it’s death by a thousand cuts, comments that, on their own are relatively harmless, but which together create a narrative where women are perceived to of lesser value and this needs to change.

I’m sure most of us can think of a club or two where an additional female fencer would mean a 100% increase in female participants. I’m not saying this is the main issue as it’s definitely more complicated than issues of female numbers and representation, but it’s fair to say that the lack of female involvement in fencing is at least in part symptomatic of its gender culture and gender norms. If we as a collective (and people in positions of power in particular) stopped comparing men and women, stopped talking about women’s events in a derisive manner, stopped using gendered insults, and asked for a “strong person” instead of a “strong man” when a physical task needs to be completed, I believe that the fencing environment would improve substantially for women. By way of example, we could perhaps label exercise routines as “standard version” and “challenging version,” giving people a choice of which one to do, rather than saying “easy push-ups” instead of “girl push-ups.”

At this point, the reader may be thinking that these may all sound like minor things and my response is that they are, but that’s actually important: first, harkening back to my conversation about the “r-word,” the changes that I am proposing are so minor that they’re hardly an inconvenience to incorporate into club culture but these simple, cost-free changes would alleviate a lot of the social harm that women have to endure in the form of sexism and a social narrative that consistently de-emphasises their value. Research and the testimonies from the survey shows that sexist language does have a negative effect on women (as well as men if they are the target of insults or negative gender stereotypes). I am not demanding change, nor do I want to judge anyone for opting out of any change initiative or slipping up if they do buy in (call me out if I do!); I simply want to ask you what my friend asked me all those years ago:

  1. If it cost you little to nothing at all to alleviate some of the bad in the world, would you do it?

  2. Does saying these things improve your life? Would it be difficult to change? If you choose to stop saying it, how much worse would your life be? How much better would it make other people’s lives?

Simple structural changes in addition to attenuation of problematic language.

  • Club/team/national uniforms are often “unisex”. They never fit me and apparently many other women feel the same way: the clothes are made to fit men. Women’s bodies are not the problem, the lack of consideration of the female form is. Proposed change: introduce female uniforms.

  • Women’s events are often pushed into a lower quality gym, again reinforcing which event is more valuable. Proposed change: hold women’s events in venues similar to those of men’s events.

  • Sometimes, women’s finals are held concurrently with men’s finals and/or given a “trainee ref.” Although this could make sense in terms of scheduling and/or the availability of refs, the men’s event becomes more valued from an organisational as well as a spectator’s point of view. Proposed change: always schedule men’s and women’s events at different times and ensure that some equally qualified referees are available to adjudicate women’s events.

  • Sign-up forms can be more inclusive to non-binary individuals, whether that be for clubs or for affiliation. Proposed change: update sign-up forms to be more gender-inclusive.

  • We need female and non-gendered toilets and changing rooms. Although most clubs already have this, some do not; perhaps offer the use of staff toilets to female fencers who feel uncomfortable with shared bathrooms? Proposed change: ensure that female-only bathrooms are available in clubs and other fencing venues.

Data summary (NZ respondents)

Response summary North Central Mid-South South Fencing NZ Other
Affiliated women* 27 4 13 3 47 16
Unaffiliated women 25 7 10 3 45 9
Total women 52 11 23 6 92 25
Total response 60 13 25 7 105 26
Actual affiliated** 248 470
Actual affiliated women** 82 176

*estimated based on competitive status response

**Actual number affiliated obtained from FN. If you have the numbers for other regions, please share if possible.

From the survey results, I found that most people have very positive experiences within NZ fencing: the day-to-day community is supportive of each other and welcoming of new people; that has been my experience too as the people I encountered are amazing and fostered a great sense of belonging.

In general (noting again that this is not official), those who held power within fencing (with some decision-making ability), were more inclined to have felt heard and/or valued by FeNZ and regional bodies. This is contrasted to those who simply held a volunteer position (no decision-making ability), who were more inclined to have had negative experiences. Those who made up the middle were fencers not involved in admin.

For sabre, adult fencers tended to disagree or strongly disagree with the above, while secondary school sabre fencers had a more positive experience. There didn’t seem to be much difference for epee and foil.

In terms of region, Fencing Mid-South made up about half of the negative experiences. Of all those who strongly agreed to this question, only one was from Mid-South. There was otherwise a good mix of South, Central, and North fencers who strongly agreed.

Women in Fencing

I only had 14 men fill out the survey (not shown in above graph), 13 of whom either selected “never” to this question or indicated that being treated differently based on gender “Hasn’t really affected me at all/don’t really care” or that it was always positive treatment. One person said they don’t like hearing female foilists scream as their experience of sexism.

Of the women and non-binary respondents, about a third selected “Hasn’t really affected me at all/don’t really care” while everyone else reported negative experiences and feelings, many of whom were able to give examples. This is also in line with the infographic produced by sports NZ - men or men’s events were often prioritised by coaches and organisers, men had more opportunities to progress, women were sometimes spoken over or simply not listened to. Some women and non-binary people who filled out the survey specifically mentioned sexism and negative interactions as the reason they left the sport.

In spite of the above, I am really happy seeing coaches take on more female students or coaching at girls’ schools. Thank you for giving women the opportunity to fence in the first place!

120 out of 131 (92%) who completed the survey indicated that they’re in favour of more female representation and 67 out of 105 (64%) NZers want a women’s only training camp or competition too. After speaking to Women and Girls representatives from Sports NZ, I believe there are simple changes that we can make within the fencing community to make it safer for and more inclusive of women. We don’t need to come up with anything new in this regard as NZ sports organisations like squash and table tennis already have plenty of resources and success stories that can easily be incorporated into fencing.

A more controversial one here. The general trend is that women should be allowed to fence in the male-equivalent event but that this should always be optional. There should be a refund for those who do not wish to fence in mixed events.
I have personally reached out to Women in Sports Aotearoa as well as the Women and Girls representative of Sports NZ. The former responded with:

We always start by recommending that organisations invest into and develop their women’s competitions, rather than run mixed competitions. Our position is that women deserve equal funding and resource and that mixed competitions are sometimes used as a ways to provide a quick solution, but are not always the most preferable as they do not always create a sustainable development pathway.

Rachel Froggatt, CEO Women in Sports Aotearoa.

Luciana Garcia, Women and Girls Lead from Sports NZ, agreed with this, adding that mixed events can help growth when numbers are very small. Over zoom, she said that mixed events are a good temporary way to facilitate women’s participation but that we should focus energy on ensuring there are separate events with a good number of fencers each where possible.

Research shows that it could be beneficial to both men and women: “Mixed-sex sport events may be organised to achieve certain social aims, such as boosting female participation in sport, as a form of exercise, or to improve social harmony between the sexes.”

In Auckland events, men’s epee are usually 2-3 times that of women’s epee (the women usually only get the one pool) and some respondents have said that it gets boring after the 5+th competition fencing the same people. Foil and sabre do not have enough women to run separate events. However, even if there were enough women to form a single pool, it will likely be the same 4 or 5 women from the same club at every event. I believe that more fencing is always better for everyone involved and giving women the option to fence in the men’s equivalent as well as the women’s event will keep everyone coming back for more; women who do not wish to fence in a mixed event could have their own event and women who want more fencing could have more fencing.

Final word

I want to reiterate that most people in fencing are great people. However, like in any organisation, there are a few bad apples, some of whom hold so much power that attempting to air concerns and incite positive change feels like a futile exercise. Coaches who make sexual comments, officials who turn a blind eye to verbal abuse, and club administrators who don’t notice (or don’t want to notice) their peers being acting inappropriately all diminish the enjoyment that some members gain from fencing, which diminishes the sport as a whole. Fencing is a place for sport, not open or covert discrimination and we will all benefit from the establishment of policies and protocols that affirm the dignity of and respect for our members, regardless of their gender.