Comments on: A girl gondolier? Not so fast

By: Erla Zwingle

Erla Zwingle — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:58:28 +0000

I wouldn’t have thought she’d gotten what she wanted; she’s still not a licensed gondolier. It’s nice to know you had a good time, though.

By: Linda

Linda — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:49:13 +0000

When i was in Venice i had a gondolier ride with Alex, she was amazing, very knowledgeable and told us lots of history. I had a amazing time, pity’d the poor people going with the men, who most of them were talking to there friends or convoying. Alex took me and my friend around only passed about 2 other gondolers the entire hour. highly recommend her if you go to Venice. good on her for going for what she loves and fighting for 10 years to get it.

By: Krystyna Sibielak

Krystyna Sibielak — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:26:48 +0000

Yes.

By: erla

erla — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:47:52 +0000

Sounds like everybody could use a refresher course in basic non-sexist thinking. It wouldn’t have to take long, but the participants would, in fact, be required to listen.

By: Krystyna Sibielak

Krystyna Sibielak — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:35:45 +0000

Well you’ve guessed it exactly! I really said “For the same reason men do it.”
Then I added that in Venice women row too, and that it’s normal.
BTW the interviewer was a woman.

Well, so today I saw it on TV, in the Viennese local news, around 2-3 minutes. The footage is nice and it was kinda special to see us rowing on the big TV screen.
But it seems they didn’t even listen to the things we were telling them. What the speaker said was quite stereotype and included emphasizing several times that in our club “women are allowed to row”…

By: erla

erla — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:09:48 +0000

I wonder what the interviewer thought could make the sport so difficult for a woman. Standing up? Staying awake? Holding a piece of wood in both hands? Breathing? Perhaps the interviewer hasn’t heard that women ride racehorses, sail single-handed around the world, climb mountains, pilot rescue helicopters, and so on. Now that I think about it, though, rowing a boat around is so, so much harder than any of that. I hope you just smiled and said, “For the same reason men do it.”

By: Krystyna Sibielak

Krystyna Sibielak — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:31:31 +0000

Thanks for in-depth reporting.

Here in Austria, I’m often surprised how much the image of the male gondolier is engraved in the peoples’ minds.
Yesterday, people from the TV came to our Venetian rowing club in Vienna. We were rowing around in our small boats and they were filming us. We didn’t use the gondola. By purpose we wanted to present ourselves as a sports club, and not feed the “gondolier cliche”.
But then, at the interwiev, the first and big question they asked me was: “How come does a woman do this sport??”