Sexism?

[coldwaterjake]

Look at the industry as a whole. How many female cave instructors are out there? I am not picking on anyone in particular. I just have access to numbers from these agencies.

NACD, no female instructors. 0 out of 41 listed

http://www.nacdmembers.com/main/training/instructors/

NSS-CDS, 5 out of 51 listed

http://www.nsscds.org/instructorlist

GUE, Maybe 5 plus or minus, out of 138...its hard to tell by the name, so dont hold me to that.

http://www.globalunderwaterexplorers...ors/index.html

I think a good question to ask is, what barriers women face in becoming instructors? What percentage of cave divers are women?

I tried to check the TDI website but didn't find a complete listing. I searched for the state of Florida and found (several states) and 6/36 instructors appeared as female.
Is that an accurate ratio? I know it's not equal, but it appears better than I expected.
Does anyone have better information?

[Picea]

I'm affraid the figures for GUE are rather flawed. There's only 14 cave instructors, all male, but Dorota Czerny is a tech diving instructor. Out of all the instructors within the agency some 13 are women.

[Sly-vester]

I'm affraid the figures for GUE are rather flawed. There's only 14 cave instructors, all male, but Dorota Czerny is a tech diving instructor. Out of all the instructors within the agency some 13 are women.

Thanks for the clarification, I was afraid I wasent able to un-code the names correctly.

[sea_ledford]

I'm an old-ish diver, but a new cave diver and most of my dive cave diver partners have been women.
In cave class, it was me and two females as students (plus a female cave instructor apprentice), when I went to Mexico I had a guide that was female. When I dove on a Phantom Springs research trip is was 5 women to 6 men, I think.

For my work research trips off-shore, I regularly bring out more women than men, but it's pretty close to 1 to 1.

When I was working on dive boats in Maui, I had more female co-workers than male co-workers. We actually really enjoyed the one "boys day" we got a week. Now the customers were probably 75-80% male, but the bad divers were probably 80-90% male, so the guys usually got the "special treatment" over the women.

So my 20+ years of experience with diving is that it is about the LEAST sexist (at least in a professional capacity) arena. If I was forced to pick an insta-buddy between two identically certified divers, aside from their sex, I'd probably go with the female most of the time, since in my experience they will be better divers.


-Chris

[gschaut]

Maybe we need a calendar... "The Real Men of Cave Diving."

Ask and yea shall receive!

Here is your cover model:

[Xenia]

I do not think there is any sexism in cave diving. I am in a male dominated environment as a computer scientist. There is less than 10% women in the workforce and frankly even though I am in a younger generation there is still sexism in this work environment. I have personal examples where people thought I was the secretary when I was actually the software developer...

In cave diving though, people do believe that I can cave dive, even though I do not look like the average cave diver. I never felt doubts around me with dive mates and never had to prove something. Women that feel they have to prove something in my humble opinion in cave diving have their own personal issues and are not pushed by men to do this. Actually, I have been mentored by men really nicely, my first mentor was an amazing open water diver that introduced me to wreck diving in NC.

Now if some polite gentleman (or my Sponge Bobby) would like to carry my tanks, I honestly do not get offended. Not only do I let them carry my tanks but if they offer I let them carry my wing and fins! Bobby does this for me some times when I am tired and I do this for him some times when he is tired.. If people I do not even know offer to carry the weight, sure, and thanks!

[gschaut]

But to get back to your original question: How do I feel about female divers?

I'm scared to death of you ladies!!

I've seen you diving, I've seen you throwing double 95's over your shoulder like a handbag.

Between you, Shirley, Tracey, Becky and everyone else, I would not want to meet any of you in a dark alley.

[Greenwood_60]

Men deal with sexism in cave diving every dive we make. Men (real men at least) have to pay extra to dive just because women use less gas. We buy more gas, bigger tanks, and more stages... all of which makes diving more expensive. It's not fair! Dive shops need to adjust their pricing to deal with this injustice, and level the playing field for men and women.

[lv2dive]

I laugh at this every time, but in Mexico, almost every time we pull up to a dive site, whoever is collecting money asks my boyfriend, "uno buzo?" And I respond, "dos buzo!" And invariably it STILL takes many of them a minute to realize I am diving too!!! Lol

[Aotus]

I laugh at this every time, but in Mexico, almost every time we pull up to a dive site, whoever is collecting money asks my boyfriend, "uno buzo?" And I respond, "dos buzo!" And invariably it STILL takes many of them a minute to realize I am diving too!!! Lol

Funny. I took a trip to Costs Rica a while back with a woman friend. She told me at the end of a zip line tour that every time I got ahead to the next stop, one of the guides tried to make a case to her that she should marry him. We learned quickly that when traveling, we can tell other tourists that we're travel buddies, but we tell all the guides we're married.