Protest Westerly Yacht Club's gender bias
A sampling of local yacht club members and boating enthusiasts from throughout the region called Westerly Yacht Club’s recent vote to continue excluding women as full members appalling, pathetic, horrifying, ridiculous and sad.
We might add a few more choice words to this list, including astounding, backward, insulting and ignorant.
The vote seems to spring from some time warp, harkening back to an era when women were expected to be more concerned about getting their laundry white than in pursuing careers as, say, president of the United States.
And as if harboring some misguided sense of nostalgia for an era when inequality reigned isn’t reprehensible enough, the men who on June 15 voted to keep females as second-class yacht club citizens also may have opened up to a discrimination lawsuit what is arguably one of the most popular social venues in Westerly.
Examples of successful legal challenges to single-gender clubs are plentiful, says Jane Barstow, the wife of a yacht club member. She wasn’t ruling out that possibility in Westerly, which is reportedly the only yacht club on the East Coast to still bar women from becoming full, voting members.
“People are starting to get angry,” she said. The June vote is not the first time members turned down a proposal to change the club’s bylaws to admit women.
Starting to get angry? Given that a men-only policy went the way of the corset long ago at most local yacht clubs, seems as if the time for anger is long overdue. Consider that this is not only about gender equality per se at the 600-member club — it’s also about making discriminatory judgments that are illegal in the workplace, housing and most facets of U.S. life. At the Westerly Yacht Club, legally married lesbian couples cannot be admitted, for example, nor can the female half of a male-female member couple that gets divorced.
Westerly Yacht Club Commodore Scott Howard, who favors the change along with the club’s other leaders, is determined to bring the issue to another vote before the end of his term in March. If about the same number of members turn out for a subsequent vote, the minds (and votes) of more than 80 members must flip to approve the bylaw change. The June 15 vote was 207 in favor and 171 against admitting women, short of the required two-thirds vote.
Those 171 men, along with the wives who apparently see nothing so harmful about this shameful vote, need more than a nudge and some harsh words. Perhaps they could move past their yearnings for the Good Old Days of men-only smoked-filled clubs if the women who now organize fundraisers and events and in other ways support the club, instead refused to volunteer. Perhaps couples who know the club must move into the 21st century can boycott it, taking their dues with them, until changes occur.
Members must be willing to take action to insist that discrimination is not acceptable in any form. Simply scheduling another vote is not enough.
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