This thread was an interesting read.
Firstly, I have no comment on Val's situation as I have no facts.
Some posters seem to make no differentiation between fairness of "opportunity" vs fairness of "outcomes". Generally speaking, saying something like, "Women don't get as much in prize money or sponsorship, therefore the sport is unfair to women" is a fairness of outcomes statement. It's backward logic. We can only hold manufacturers, tournament organizers, and the participants in our sport accountable for actions that are discriminatory or in which a system, which I suppose in our case is the PDGA can be recognized as not providing equal opportunity. In order for me to point fingers at any company, group of people, or disc golf culture in general and say they are in some way "oppressive" or "discriminatory" toward women I would need direct evidence of such. I'm not saying it does not or has not happened, but outside of bathroom facilities being available, there is not one bit of evidence presented in the 30 or so pages I just read.
We can start with payout. Hypothetically speaking, if the PDGA our tournament organizers allocated cash, including added cash any other way than by division size, just to benefit a specific demographic (women in this case) that would actually be the opposite of fair. That is not equal opportunity. If you have an issue with this logic, just flip the script and imagine our sport was invented and dominated my women, then men came along and started demanding equal treatment, via sponsorship, or payout (This is for affect I don't really think women are demanding anything in disc golf). Our culture has had a long history of oppressing women, so it's hard to find examples of this, but the modeling example given by someone prior pretty much sums it up. Equality should be measured in opportunity.
The point I'm making above is I do not believe the very young sport of disc golf, it's governing body, participants, or even the companies that supply our equipment/apparel have been limiting or discriminative toward women, and in my experience it's quite the opposite. If that's not the case, then please present actual evidence. Making sure restroom facilities are available at any event is crucial, but unless this is a major and chronic problem I don't think we can chalk this up as evidence of an overall oppressive environment.
Why anyone is expecting private companies to be the catalyst to women's involvement in the sport does not make sense to me. To clarify, if your position is that Innova, or any other company have some sort of social duty to make sure more women play disc golf I don't agree with you. If you think it makes financial sense for a company to strategize in a way that they specifically markets toward women, which could include taking good care of their sponsored women player base, then I have no issue with that. Maybe there is a good case to be made from a revenue perspective for a company to get a strong foot hold on this "future" market. Future is the key word there. Speculating on when an actual viable market (from a company's perspective) of disc golfing women will exist is a separate conversation. As it stands today this move for a company would almost certainly not realize an ROI for quite some time. I'm not saying a company should not do this, but for people to expect it or hold them accountable for not making this type of financial decision is ludicrous.
Growth on the women's side needs to come from within. It makes perfect sense that women are less then comfortable in some scenarios out on the course, or at a tournament for various reasons. For a touring woman, it would certainly suck to put in equal time, equal practice, and equal travel all to cash a check less than half the amount of your male counterpart in their respective division. As much as that sucks, it's not unfair. If both divisions had equal participants and there were still a pay disparity, then we have a problem. This is a reiteration of the fairness of "outcomes" VS "opportunity" argument.
So what can we do? Val is maybe the best example we have of this. She is working to bring women together for more inclusive events. She started an organization dedicated to growing the number of women in disc golf. EDGE is not geared specifically toward young girls, but it does not have to be. Outside of private religious schools there is no real segregation of boys and girls, so they do a great job to exposing the sport to young women, which is crucial for growth.
One idea that comes to mind could be controversial, but is worth discussing. Would anyone have an issue with a representative going out into the community and specially raising added cash sponsorship dollars for the women participating. If the sponsors knew that is what the money is for - if the message was - "we are trying to draw women into the competitive side of our wonderful sport..." and sponsors were willing to sink $ into that message, would that be OK? I think so. If this were done separate from the regular added cash the TD is working on and as long as that TD allocated his/her cash as the PDGA requires (do they have rules on this?) then I see no issue. If someone hit the streets and gathered up some cash for the women's payouts then maybe we could see a smaller disparity in payout even with the much larger relative disparity in participation. After all, we are a long time away from there being equal or even comparable participation. Would men revolt???
To summarize, I have no comment on Val's post regarding Innova as I have 0 facts. It has been said both directly and indirectly on this thread that women are not being treated equally in our sport, and I have always felt the exact opposite, but could be wrong. Until I'm presented with evidence of actual discrimination, systemic limitations, or outright mistreatment I'm going to wish all women in our sport the best. To answer the question, "why is it so important we have more women playing disc golf?" From my perspective, because it means more humans playing disc golf. I want this thing to grow, and involving half our population in the game seems to be pretty important in achieving that. I also have a young daughter who I can only hope takes interest when she is grown, and the more women involved the better the odds.
I will close with saying that Val, to me, is the type of person I would want my brand behind, and if there was unfair treatment, it would seem to me like a bad move. The issue seems to be what people define as "unfair" and this thread shows that is a matter of perspective.