Here is a question for the lawyers out there.
Do FINA regulations supersede US federal anti-sex discrimination laws?
Granted, I am not sure I know what the latter are. However, if I were to show up at a USMS swimming meet, wearing a perfectly legal women's swimming suit, one of the zipper-free kneeskin type models that also covered my ample boobage, and the officials rightly disqualified me for wearing this get-up because it is against the FINA/USMS agreed upon New Order, could I then turn around and sue under some federal statute prohibiting discrimination because gender?
In my mind, the new FINA rules are going to end up making swimming even more of a dying sport for boys in the US than the unintended consequences of Title IX, etc. Girls, especially in the younger age groups, can often beat boys in swimming, and in fact our own Mr. Qbrain got a top 10 time in the men's 30-34 LCM 1500 this summer. His wife, if I am remembering correctly, beat his time but failed to make the top 10 in the women's category.
If anything, it is we men who are now at a disadvantage. I say make the dystaff gender wear thongs and let us wear body suits fashioned to look like very streamlined tuxedos.
Suits for women now remain pretty much unchanged by the new FINA ruling, with the exception, that is, of getting rid of zippers and getting rid of non textiles. But that means women can continue to swim in what are still arguably very fast suits--FS1's, for example, that are very close to the short john types that helped loads of people get their best times. Men are prohibited from wearing anything but jammers.
Chicks, in other words, get 2004 technology; guys are back to the 60s. Why not let us go back to the 20s instead, when Johnny Weismuller wore a full body suit, albeit of wool?
So, in the spirit of Larry David, who recently concluded an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with the line, "I'm Larry David, and I am comfortable in women's underwear"--I propose that any men who want to join me in the latest civil rights battle of our time show up at nationals this summer in women's suits and accompanied by our class action lawyer, and join me in echoing in a collective voice that rings out in natatoriums all across the fruited plain:
"I am a male USMS swimmer, and I am comfortable wearing women's suits."
Provided I can find an esquire who will agree to take the case on a contingency basis, I say this to the USMS sexist powers that be:
See you in court! Suckers!
There seems to be something very different about what Southerners actually do when they go outdoors. I think they mostly sit on the porch and eat+drink.
That's only 2/3 of the equation. It's actually "eat, drink and blow s**t up."
Jimby, the reason ambulance chasing shysters are not beating down your door to take your case is that it seems to have 3 problems: It is supported by neither the facts nor by the law; and most fundamentally, there's no money in it. In my experience, clever lawyers are troubled not a whit by potential problems with the facts, the law, or both, and are happy to explore the possibility of workaround solutions in the courts, to the frequent frustration of the hapless defendants caught in the litigation maelstrom. But no payday at the end is fatal.
Any decent lawyer will pat you gently on the head, smile patronizingly, and tell you that the full analysis is too complicated for you to understand, but that the same lawyer will happily painstakingly research the issue and draft a memorandum explaining in painful detail, citing irrefutable legal precedent dating back to Lord Coke and the Magna Carta, that you are sol -- provided, of course, you pay the lawyer's time at $350 per hour for the several days or so of work the project entails. Because I am both a magnanimous fellow and slightly bored, I will try and give you the short (brief? jammer?) version.
First, no law applies. You don't have a Title IX claim, a Fair Housing Act claim, a Civil Rights Act claim, or an Equal Pay Act or any other employment related claim. Because FINA is a private governing body, there is no law or governmental action which is affecting you in this case. I did think of Casey Martin successfully suing the PGA to allow him to use a cart in tournaments, but Casey had a toothy little law called the American with Disabilities Act on his side. As an aside, I suppose if Mandy Beard developed a rare skin condition on the upper part of her torso which prevented her from wearing fabric on it, she might be able to find some lawyer somewhere to succesfully sue under the ADA to allow her to be able to compete clad only in a jammer.
I'll pause briefly here to allow you to reflect on what we've covered thus far, or just to search once again for those pics Mandy did for Playboy and Maxim.
Nor do you have a good factual argument. Regrettably (at least to me), our societal norm requires women cover the *** below the top of the areola in public. Therefore, women are required to wear at least two piece suits, and a rule allowing them to sport a full torso suit is reasonably tailored to accomodate that societal standard. The law will generally allow distinctions between genders based on those differing societal norms. Your claim, based on what most would characterize as reverse discrimination, rings hollow (or if you prefer, totally whiney), coming from a member of what is normally the stronger, faster gender. Although I will concede that there is many a woman out there who can kick your sad, sorry, saggy-moobed *** from one end of the pool to the other.
You can still swim; you can still compete; you can still swim faster than at least some women. You are simply prohibited from wearing full body coverage while doing so. You have no monetary damages, and any emotional distress you sustain results solely from your evident personality disorders.
My advice: Develop a rare disability which requires you, solely while competing in FINA-sanctioned swimming events, to cover your entire body in a non-permeable, non-textile fabric developed by the Yamamoto company. Then we may have a case.
I'll forward my bill under separate cover.
Actually... In my first open water event (May 1995), one of the guys was wearing a woman's "tech" suit (Not sure what it was , but it was "tech" at the time.). His rationale was that having more tech fabric would making him faster and if women could do it, he could also. Coming from racewalking, a sport with some of the oddest people on the planet as participants, this didn't bother me at all. Some of the other swimmers, however, did see this as weird.
In the words of Arlo Guthrie: "And they all moved away from me on the Group W bench, giving me the hairy eyeball..."
-LBJ
i'm not sure that "get outdoors so i can shoot somethin i'm not related to" counts.
Dave,
Next time you come down south, we will help you swim faster in the open water than you ever dreamed of doing. My way will make a tempo trainer look like child's play.
I will get Geek, Elise and myself to get in a fishin boat to pace you on the swim. Anytime you start to falter off the pace that we decided, one or all three of us will open fire into the water. Geek, being as old as he is, will use his muzzleloader. Elise can use whatever gun people in alabama prefer and I will use a shotgun. That way I don't have to be accurate, just in the ballpark of where I am aiming.
I promise, this will make you faster than phelps. If it doesn't, don't worry about it. The three of us will restock our used bullets on your credit card and then have a nice dinner, since you won't be needing it again.
wook, if thats what it takes to get you in/near some OW, i'm all for it!
LOL. Hey, I am all for whatever swimming events it takes to get people involved in the sport...pool or open water. If need help with tampa or MIMS, I would be willing to do whatever support ya need.
Wait I'm confused:
You're all yanks to me, so it beats me why you want to waste time arguing over it...
Briefs: You can have mine if you're prepared to come and get them...until then. I'll wear what I want. Sometimes a jammer sometimes a brief...depends how my BMI is doing...
In the long run, you are probably right about this. However, I am not sure when you resumed masters swimming. If it has been within the past year or so, chances are you haven't racked up a bunch of times with various speed suits.
Actually, yes, and that very point hit me last night after my post. I'm just getting back in and not even back into competition, so you're right. It doesn't matter to me, but I'm in an atypical situation.
