...Boogie Nights: hold my beer a minute...

Now then, anyone with eyes and a vague interest in magazines over the years will have seen somewhere on those magazine racks is a whole smack of yachting and boating magazines. But open their pages and you're in for a limited world view.

Recently a friend brought round a small bundle of yachtie rags and said "here, fill your boots with these"

my boots are filled - my cup runneth over

I'm pretty sure he didn't intend on releasing my inner feminazi, but here we go, "I said don't get me started", he said "looks like you already are, crack on" the engine is revving and I'm ready to unleash venom. Beware, liberal amounts of potty mouth coming up.

Oh Yachting World. a world of yachting. Yachting. World. You promise so much with your big colourful covers and sporty looking design. That high gloss finish that repels water, you tempt me. But open the cover and I am not sure if this is a time machine, taking me back to the 70s or 80s when women knew their place. That place wasn't at the helm of a boat. Or anywhere doing anything much. Other than looking pretty.

No.

Instead we are treated to a singular mascine world view.
I actually really quite like men. I genuinely do like them. BUT, for FUCKS SAKE, women are cool too. I want to be inspired by some of the most rocking, kick arse women there currently are, out there, in the world of fast yachting. They're out there.

give me fucking strength - and a pair of boobs, one for each hand.

In the spirit of backing up my assertions and chagrin of mono-gendered magazine bullshittery, I did a bit of analysis and points scoring for the two visibly identifiable genders, with my apologies to anyone who is gender neutral or non-binary, you have your own issues but that's a much bigger discussion for another time. Anyway, here's how it works:

5 points for a column
1 point for each image of an identifiable person
minus points for gender cliche such as a woman in a bikini sunbathing while a man steers or woman holding a child or woman in a galley (these are cancelled out if a man is also sunbathing in his mankini, holding a child or also in the galley.)

Yachting World May 2017 issue
Women 21 points (they lost 3 points for women gratuitously wearing bikinis)
Men 117 points. (none were found gratuitously wearing a mankini sadly)

this is two ladies gratuitously wearing hats and neck tubes.

Yachting World July 2017 issue
Women 27 points (they lost 3 points for a woman holding a child, another used as a barely clothed model in circumstances that didn't require it and another was wearing a fucking swimsuit for no reason.)
Men 144 points (6 columns of manly guff compared to just 2 columns of professional lady-ness. Sad)

A man, in the galley. Gasp. He even looks happy. Double gasp.

Yachting World August 2017 issue
Women 18 points (they lost 3 points for a woman holding a child again, a derogatory caption by a picture of a lady helming and another fucking swimsuit shite ad. )
Men 170 points. fucking-Americas-fucking-Cup. There's a lot of testosterone in this one. Boring.

A woman, working on an engine. Don't chip a nail with your delicate lady fingers there...

Yachting World September 2017 issue
Women 28 points (fucking get in, there's three columns by the women, yes three, I am almost beside myself with interest! Though they lost 3 points again, that Beneteau Oceanis swimsuit ad is back, you cunts, then there's another pic of a woman looking wistfully through a window while a man steers outside and why would you choose a group picture of the women all dressed for hula? I dunno. Surely there was better pics than that?
Men 94 points. No man was seen holding a child, working in a galley or staring wistfully through any window, or gratuitously mostly naked except for a small strip of white fabric covering his cock. Disappointed.

gratuitous pic of half naked man running up a beach. It has no relevance to the blog post really, I just wanted to share it again. Because ya know, he's a nice chap. (thanks Jerry for this enduring image)

This is the closest I can find to a man holding a child from my own archive.

Out of those 4 magazines, there's a total of 8 female columns featuring expert views compared to 19 columns written by the blerks.

94 women visible compared to 525 men.
(of which 3 women were helming, one hauling a line and the other on a winch.)

Is that the best you can do YW? It's not good enough.
Sort your fucking pages out and get the content balanced up you cunts. You've got a female fucking editor for fucks sake. The myth that women don't sail fast or hard is perpetuated by the fucking media. We're out there, doing it. We aren't the exception, we are the rule.

let me just demonstrate what a woman helming looks like >>>

woman on helm

woman on helm - racing

woman on helm - still racing

woman on helm

woman on helm - woman on main sheet - double the danger

and when women aren't helming, staring wistfully out of windows, holding children or wearing swim wear in unlikely situations... women also do other stuff >>>