"Polo in Europe is so much more of a boys club than in NA"

[pajac]

Saying that imposing rules never helps just kind of lacks evidence. I do get obstructed a lot less ever since that rule was imposed on us - weird…

If you don’t see any differences between imposing a ruleset and imposing systemic discrimination I can give some… Just to mention one: protected characteristic - will to obstruct people on the court is not one of them. If you want evidence about how discriminating people work, there are enough proofs in the history of the last hundred years. There are also examples why bottom-up approach is better to build teams/communities etc. - David Marquet’s work is just on of many examples.

And everyone, specifically at the beginning probably makes shit experiences. But some definitely more that others.

You try to say that white males get less shit experiences than others - if not I am sorry I misunderstood. Is there some evidence? Or is it just anecdotal evidence? And how will discriminating that group make the situation better?

And the “silent majority” also lacks evidence. You might be right but you might just as well be wrong…

The silent majority is just a fact. You can compare the number of people debating it here and the number of bike polo players in Europe. What lacks evidence is what that majority thinks - and You can be wrong, and I can be wrong.

we try to figure out together how to move ahead. If you have good suggestions beyond the ones you don’t seem to like, shoot!
Saying “yeah everybody just needs to be nice and help a bit” obviously doesn’t cut it for everyone…so I can understand that people don’t like to hear that.

I said what can be done, and I didn’t say that we should just say: “Yeah, everybody …” - it’s not ok to ignore what someone says and reason against things he didn’t say. It is an inferior way to discuss things. There are a lot of things that can be done on the club level and more. You can organise mandatory mixed tournaments, influence others to do so, and convince others to do so. If you see that your club gives a harsh start to someone, react, educate, and inspire others. Make a mixed team for the entire season. You can propose something like this for the whole club. There are millions of ways to do so…

b) the fact it is not equally easy or inviting for everybody to participate (and if you don’t believe that, just openly ask your friends who are not white dudes)

Please, let’s keep personalities out of this. You don’t know me, and you don’t know how I treat my friends.

also, as a moderator I have to say I don’t really like your tone in the last message, last part.
you can get worked up for sure, but please try to stay respectful <3

You are right. I sincerely apologise for that.
I just want to mention that in a single post, you put words in my mouth and started with personalities. Is that ok, is that respectful?

On the final note: We’ve got some structures; we could democratise the process. If the majority will stand for mandatory euros, let’s do it. I will stick with my opinion but obey the result, as probably everyone will do.

Before I post my thoughts I said to myself that if I will get worked up, or it will get personal then I will just tap out. Both things happened so I’m done.

Have a great polo weekend you all

[sam]

1. I believe in the complete sovereignty of every club to organize their own tournaments under any rules and restrictions they deem fit.
2. I might not like every tournament variation out there, but I also don’t have to attend. I may voice my opinion (not trolling), but I will not try to force my opinion upon them.
3. We don’t have a governing body (nor do I want one) with the power to enforce anything.
4. I’m really happy to see, that more and more people come forward to voice their opinion disregarding being potentially ostracized by the community.

Now for the probably very controversial part:

I have no qualms with the existence of Polygones, Hell’s Bells and Mallet Dolorosa. I would also have no qualms if any club decides to create a counter part for white heterosexual men.

[flat_humour]

Boys boys boys…i hope you guys know you are hurting people by saying this stuff. In case you are still reading tho @pajac

1. I think you might have misunderstood or I dind’t find the right words- I wasn’t talking about how you treat your friends, I was trying to say ‚ask people, and listen’
   2)mixed doesn‘t exclude anybody personally, just certain combinations (teams)
2. about what you call ‚bottom up‘ - again, who is trying to force anything upon clubs?
3. tried to find your suggestions but cant really seem to- you want to do an awareness campaign…? I imagine you are doing the things you suggest at club level?

And finally- you seem very confident to be on the side of the majority. Majorities are very rarely oppressed…

[allegac]

@sam

I would also have no qualms if any club decides to create a counter part for white heterosexual men.

do you notice that you don’t need to do that ? This is already happening in polo and most of the fields. Specially if you give a quick look on who’s driving the power structures on this planet.

What you call “freedom” can be a way to cultivate an endless and ancient oppressive system. Because norms are still the mainstream.

When we say that we want to prioritise or impose FLINTA time-spaces (sometimes), we mean that we are in the need of being more visible, and feeling support from non FLINTA by giving us more space.
It’s quite simple actually.
We ask you to trust and believe this is a need from a minority. Believe us when we say, white cis male have privileges compared to others and we want them too. We want to feel legit whoever we are. Believe us when we say it’s not always soooo easy to be surrounded by cis men, even tho this is a beautiful blabla lovely blabla overkind community. You don’t know what we bring with us when we come on the court in this 90% white cis male lovely community. Definetly not a gun, but narratives.
This is the key => Talk with us, ask us, we’ll tell you what this is about. Not only about freedom.
WE NEED TO HAVE MORE SPACE, MORE DIALOGUE, MORE SHARING

If you call it discrimination, i just call it listening and solidarity.

i don’t know how we can say it more clearly so you get it.
if you read this, i thank you anyway to be in this exchange.

anne lise

i’m not speaking under the name of ALL the flintas.
we = some of us – but could be the majority of the minority. haha

[coolquentin]

@pajac

I’ve already pointed out the difference between bottom-up and top-down approaches. The first is more democratic, and the other forces people to do something. You can impose everything until you reach some level of disagreement that people can’t handle, but if they still can take it and do it, it doesn’t mean they actually want it. I am in a bit of a shock that I need to explain it.

I don’t get it, aren’t we the very bottom here ? Any suggestion that comes out of this thread may become a subject that could / should be discussed at EHBA level then submit to a vote to the community ?
I’m not saying this system is already in place and functional but at least there’s an existing structure that could helps making changes.
How counting votes is another subject.

I’m 100% with Anne Lise, what some people see here as freedom (or lack of it) is what is called solidarity. We are not in their shoes so, as friend, brother and polo player we should hear and listen and trust their voices and feelings.

Now, maybe jumping from 20% mandatory mixed tournament to 100% in one season could be problematic (?) we may think, if the community agree, about a like 2-3 years plan to make majors tournaments mixed.
Prioritizing, favoring mixed as evoked before.

I think the first thing we need to figure is : how decision at EHBA level are or should be made. No ?

[metriod]

This thread was supposed to be more of a platform for flinta-players to share their thoughts on the low participation at EHBPC/WHBPC. Especially since evidently (to me?!) we have been seeing rising participation of flinta players at tournaments apart from the two mentioned previously.

But I guess this thread has become more of a place to discuss the general topic of flinta inclusion and unfortunately a majority of the space is taken by non-flinta participants. I acknowledge this when writing the following:

I can understand that mandatory mixed championship might be a point that people disagree on.

However, flinta-only tournaments and pickups - aka safe spaces for flinta people - is where I have trouble understanding the viewpoint of those that oppose it {EDIT: Oppose is the wrong word - …understanding the viewpoint of those that regard it as discrimination towards non-flinta… is a better phrasing for what I meant to say}. This is not discrimination against non-flinta players. There is no need to compensate by hosting “man-only” events.

Vienna has a relatively large amount of flinta players. As much as I like to think our club has always been very welcoming to new players, it is only after Conny introduced flinta-only pickups that we started to really see a bigger and more sustainable influx of flinta players to the club.
I have no doubt that such safe spaces play a major role to increase flinta participation in polo and that it requires the support from non-flinta players.

Specifically to the discussion in this thread:

@flat_humour

Boys boys boys…i hope you guys know you are hurting people by saying this stuff. In case you are still reading tho @pajac

Pajac already hinted to this in the last paragraph of his first post. I think such type of knockout arguments (“Totschlagargumente”) are not beneficial to the exchange of thoughts.

Do I think some of the recent posts came from a position of privilege/ignorance? Yes
Do I want everyone to be able to voice their opinions and thoughts (regardless of whether I agree or not with their stance) as long as I can sense a genuine interest the discourse? Yes

[metriod]

Off-Topic to flinta-inclusion but On-Topic with regards to “inclusion”:

@allegac

male-only ? wwouhlééé this is brave… i have to say that if a club organises a “white-only” , “male-only” , “boomers-only”, “bolos-only” kinda of tournament, you can be sure a bunch of people from our community will troll this event. count on me LOL.

Coucou Anne Lise
your take on “boomers-only” surprised me.
Why would you feel the need to troll an event catered to “boomers” (old players?!) only.

Inclusion is a broad term. To me it also means enabling and supporting older players to continue playing polo even though existing injuries, fear of “reckless” polo by younger players , family commitments, etc might discourage them.
It is why I wanted to host a masters tournament in 2016 even though I could not have participated in it, because I started noticing older players stop playing polo. It did not work out in the end for organizational reasons but I am very glad Nürnberg/Andy took over this idea. It brings me joy to look at the teamlist of that tournament every year and see names of players that do not (unfortunately) participate in other tournaments any longer.

Why would you oppose this or do I misunderstand your boomer comment?

[allegac]

omg
nooo boomers are not necessary old people
sorry i shouldn’t use it without defining it
even if it’s blurry, the way we use it in french it’s mainly connected to people who deny climate change, who are against inclusive writting for example. generally very privileged people.
even if it comes from “baby boomer” generation expression, There is no need to be old.

SO
i apologize here for creating grrrrrr or confusion about this term.

i will not delete it but don’t take it as a anti old people term.
my post was not a threat about trolling elders.

i’m old already
soon i’ll be happy millenials organise a grandma’s bike polo tournament

[Alca]

@metriod

However, flinta-only tournaments and pickups - aka safe spaces for flinta people - is where I have trouble understanding the viewpoint of those that oppose it. This is not discrimination against non-flinta players. There is no need to compensate by hosting “man-only” events.

Maybe I missed something but from what I’ve read no one seem to be against flinta-only tournaments. Some of us are just stating that it should remain on organizers to decide what type of tournament they want to host.

[metriod]

Right, I did not phrase it correctly. I edited my comment.

[flat_humour]

Accepting the refs call. Apologies for that

[OGxBENJI]

just on a quck note pajac , you can do both bottom to up AND announce that , 2024-2025 season will be mixed mandatory, and the goal of boosting flinta player will be reached.

to balance these decisions, there should be something done to keep non flinta / non mixed groups interested and not feeling “discriminated” , although this word sounds wrong , its something we have heard constantly in this dialogue , and i think it just translate to a feeling of frustration and ostracism by male players that are scared to end up unable to participate.

so lets chill , there will be enough courts for everyone, at some point. lets not be afraid of tweaking the settings a bit to see what comes out of it.

we are lucky enough to be our very own federation and have impact on what we want to see to happen very quickly , its just about putting everyone on the same page.

[haski]

ok, so as a flinta person i am seeing a few red flags in this discussion and i think a lot of other flinta players as well…

first of all, it is not reverse sexism and reverse racism when the privileged group is asked to share those privileges. even though anti-feminist backlashes and harsh border politivs indicate that it is very scary…
i really would wish to not go into this direction in a discussion, please listen to those who are being oppressed. i know cis men also suffer from patriarchy, but this is not topic of the discussion here.

second, making championships mandatory mixed as a try out (no one said forever!), might be just the same as trying different formats, squad or bench… and anyways, as in every mixed tournament, majority (2 thirds mostly?) will be cis male anyways… and you know what, maybe there is also frustration by flinta players cause they will not get asked to play the euros or whatever.

i have the feeling a lot of change happened in the last years in bike polo and i am happy about it, i also think there are now so many strong flinta players out there, without the empowerment through flinta only tournaments and allies, that would not have been possible. but i think there is much more to do in education and respect and support… as i said, claiming space as a flinta person or any minority group does not mean that the space of the privileged group is gone forever, but, can you move a bit maybe? and acknowledge flinta players as bike polo players, talk to them, team talk with them if you are playing in mixed teams, include them, see their strength and weaknesses, but also yourself, stop using discriminating language, etc. etc.
it’s not too much to ask for, is ist?

[Cleftintwain]

My hunch is that as a proportion just as many FLINTA/FTWNB players oppose mixed mandatory as males… There were extended discussions about these issues when mixed mandatory entered the zeitgeist in 2016 on facebook and my sense, having re-read those dicsussions very recently, is that opposition was quite balanced between the genders. I have no reason to believe this has changed. There are good faith arguments against mixed mandatory, especially in it’s current 1/3 form, that have nothing to do with reverse discrimination or maintaining existing sexist norms. I am interested in critically assessing these objections however that has not been the focus of this thread so I have largely divested.

For reference, I support the trial of mixed mandatory as a general idea. However, in consideration of the many reasonable criticisms from a diverse range of stakeholders in the community I think the berlin mixed 1/3 orthodoxy could be greatly improved.

I would welcome a new thread that aims to deal directly with the objections to mixed mandatory in a pragmatic manner in the hope that we can reach a better consensus on the advantages and disadvantages of the various possible top down inclusion strategies.

Discussions about bottom up change to address systemic social dysparity in all its forms are no doubt incredibly important to our sport and I am not suggesting that the top down and bottom up strategies should be forever split into two separate and distinct categories of discussion however I have noticed the tendancy in this discussion to end up focusing on bottom up issues to the detriment of having clear and open dialogue about the various top down strategies and their relative merits.

Big hugs. D.

[Jojo]

Hello ,

We have made a survey about European polo FLINTA players and what they think about mandatory, we have some interestings opinions.
By now I can share you that we had 76 answers and i am pretty sure we can have more.

At Do you think that Championships should be mandatory mixed ?
We have 65,7% YES / 20% NO/ 14,3% NO IDEA

Do you think that Championships should be mandatory mixed _.pdf (23,9 Ko)
In which country do you play _.pdf (27,7 Ko)

Also now if EVERYONE/TOUXTES could answer and share this survey it would help having a concret worldwild opinion about it .

WHICH BIKE POLO DO YOU WANT TO PLAY?

Thanks a lot !
xoxo

[Jojo]

OK here it is to contextualize this survey;

it started after a tournament in Rouen ( world famous “Epiphanie”) that was a mixte between “mixed gender team priority subscriptions” then oppened to anyone.
The tournament was running perfect as every other years till the final. Then in the final we had a “combat de coqs” between 6 worlds champs males players and the atmosphere was not reflected every other games before.
From that the french community started to have discussions about MIXED GENDER MANDATORY TOURNAMENT. This discussion became european cause we share opinion on the poloverse topic

“Polo in Europe is so much more of a boys club than in NA”

One of the principal argument against mandatory mixed was number of FLINTA players around Europe and their level.
Then Elena suggest me to make a survey to have a more concret idea of FLINTA number in Europe, their level and their volontee or not to make championships mandatory mixed gender.
The survey is more specific about championships because it is where EUROFLINTA are under represented ( you can see that also in David Barthod topic after Wolrds in Perpignan: WHBPC 2023 - Statistics

docs.google.com

FLINTA representation in Euro Bike Polo

We (some euro FLINTAs) created this anonymous survey to better understand where the community stands on mandatory mixed.

Then non FLINTA wanted to give their opinion on a survey too so we had the idea to make it also worlwilde because it could really help next big championships organisations to suggest format that could satisfy a majority.
May also motivates more FLINTA to be part of championships organisations and descisions taking…

Woods and I made the new survey which is here to indicate what everyone think. I know it is not perfect but it is still a good INDICATIVE tool.

I will share results from now then let other people answering too and give finals results friday the 15 of March.
It is ONE answer by person and you can come back to your account to change your mind…

docs.google.com

WHICH BIKE POLO DO YOU WANT TO PLAY?

Collecting WORLDWILDE opinions about formats and mixed gender bikepolo teams in championships

[pajac]

Thank you Jojo, for your effort :)

Just a bit of a feedback:
The answer set for the “Would you like these championships to be mandatory mixed gender?” question is quite ambiguous.
Given that we want to find an answer, “Do we want to make obligatory mixed teams on Euros?” it will be hard to classify the answer “I’d prefer an alternative where…” as clear yes or no. It will be even more complex with other hand-written answers that people gave. Like “yes but gradually” - what it can exactly mean in terms of this year championship? etc. etc.

Anyway I think that poll will give us a lot of valuable informations :)

[mironova_e]

just to add more context: initially the mandatory mixed idea emerged during the flinta meeting post berlin 2023. And somehow the circumstances bring back this idea again and again.

About the questionnary: before the sheets will be available to everybody, the votes will be totally anonymised.

More personnally:

It seems to me that the discrimination in polo is a vague term that needs to be defined concretely, which would allow to understand better why some measures against it are necessary.

Now I see the mandatory mixed for next worlds and a clear measure against the main type of discrimination in polo. The only measure that is concrete and is simple to implement.
With the target of changing the attitudes towards the non-cis males in competitive polo.

[Bouchaaaaard]

Sorry, but I don’t agree at all with this and I’ll say it once for all :
“it started after a tournament in Rouen ( world famous “Epiphanie”) that was a mixte between “mixed gender team priority subscriptions” then oppened to anyone.
The tournament was running perfect as every other years till the final. Then in the final we had a “combat de coqs” between 6 worlds champs males players and the atmosphere was not reflected every other games before”

I’m not discussing any other topic here, so please don’t consider I give any opinion on something else than this, but this context IS SO wrong.
First it all not started in Rouen. Maybe some discovered all these matters in Rouen, better late than never. I even think that this matter was european before it was french, or swiss.
Then, the tournament DID NOT RUN perfectly before the 2 last games at all. I’m not blaming anyone here but other things happened in Rouen. There were issues like only 3 refs for the whole week-end, no ruleset available, difficulties to find goal refs etc etc etc… These things are usual and once again, I’m not blaming the organisation, I don’t do much better when the tournament is at home. Just saying that there is a way of improvement here.
Also, there were other games with a pretty bad atmosphere and some “nice words”. For example, I was (poorly) reffing a game and after a crash, one male player, from a mixted team, came to the player who provoqued the crash and who was still on the ground. He stood above him, pointed at him a threw a nice “Do that again and I f*** you up”. This is to me a beautiful example of what a “coq” can do.

I’ve already said what I had to say about this finale, and I’m still sorry it ended up like this and still take FULL responsibility for my actions (with a “s”). However, as long as I remember, nobody has been verbally threatened during these 2 (3 because winner bracket finale has to be included) games. So please, stop putting the whole responsibility of all the shit that happen in bike polo on these 5 guys and me. It’s way too easy looking at this, ignoring the rest and then give as a conclusion “Mandatory mixted will fix this kind of behavior”.
To me, the only proof Rouen gave us is that these kind of behavior is most of all a matter of individuals (male apparently) since it happened with a mixted team too …

[mironova_e]

salut Boubou <3,

these lines incite me to a question I d like to ask you.
what do you see is targetted by the proposal of mandatory mixed?
and why even this proposal could arise?
( we both agree that individual agressive behavior between 2 males is out of mandatory mixed aims).

P.S: love mongrels forever!