Jaded humpmasters turn to women
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:
SYDNEY––Australian Camel Racing
Association president Kevin Handley on February
5 reportedly failed to win an exemption from the
Equal Opportunity Act which would have allowed
ACRA to recruit “young attractive female riders”
to race camels in the United Arab Emirates––at
invitation, Handley said, of the UAE ambassador.
According to Manika Naidoo of the
Sydney Morning Herald, UAE embassy officials
had “hand-picked” 20 Australian women, most
with no previous camel-riding experience, and
hope to recruit up to 40 more within two years.
“Handley told the Anti-Discrimination
Tribunal that applicants had to be attractive and
female because the idea behind the scheme was to
promote women jockeys and counter camel racing’s
male-dominated image,” Naidoo wrote. “He
said if spectators saw pretty young females riding
camels, it would destroy the popular view of the
animals as ‘untrustworthy, stinking, and arrogant,’
and of riders being ‘bearded and backward
beer-drinking boozers.’”