When flicking through the sports channels on a Sunday afternoon one finds mostly football games or halftime reports of the various games around the NFL. However, if you search hard enough you will come across the fast paced, high risk, rough and tough sport of Nascar. (Personally I do not believe Nascar is a sport, but for the sake of this blog I am going to refer to it as one) This sport which consists of good ole boys racing their suped up cars at speeds of up to 200 mph around paved track has had an addition to its lineup in the past few years. This addition is the highly advertised, highly controversial, now sex symbol, that is Danica Patrick. Danica drives the #7/#10 Go Daddy car on and off in the Sprint Cup series, and is a regular driver in the Nation Wide series. This begs the question, can a woman compete in Nascar?
Danica Patrick's Photo Shoot for SI
After reading the article by Iris Young titled, "Throw like a girl" I started to think of females that are in predominately male sports. The first woman that came to mind was Danica. To summarize the article by Young, it basically talks about the instinctual characteristics that females have compared to men when it comes to physical activity and in particular, sports. Young points out that women tend to make themselves appear smaller when doing activities such as sitting, or walking where as men do the opposite. Young also points out that men have more of a tendency to go towards a ball in whatever sport they are playing, where as women are more likely to stay in their zone or designated space. I believe these factors of aggression, and sense of space play a key role in Nascar.
Danica has been in competitive racing her whole life, but it was not until 2005 when she got her first start in Indy Car Racing. As of 2012 she has won only 1 race in the Indy Car series. She has also raced in the Nation Wide Series and the Sprint Cup series. In the Nation Wide she has 1 top 5 finish, and no top 5 or top 10 finishes in the Sprint Cup. This begs the question, does she really belong in the sport?
Danica in front of her car
Personally, I think the only reason she still gets to race is for publicity purposes. She is a worldwide sex symbol, as well as a spokesman for women in all sports. Danica is sponsored by Godaddy.com which advertises using women in scandalous clothing as well. Having Danica in Nascar boots the attention of the sport because of the fact that she is a female, and because she is an attractive female. She has brought a ton of attention to the sport from fans who would otherwise not take any interest in it.
As far as her actual skill for driving goes, I think she is talented but lacks the aggression, strategy, and strength to drive the car well enough to win. Nascar requires such precision and timely maneuvers that I do not believe she has instinctually. This does not mean she can not learn them, but at this moment I don't think she is ready. Danica has a tendency to be involved in crashes very often, and rarely is able to steer out of them. Part of this is due to the physical aspect of Nascar. When the male drivers start to spin out of control, they grab the wheel and try to save themselves. Danica however does not. She lets go of the wheel and lets the car spin because she is not strong enough to hold the wheel while the car jerks around.
I think it is great that there is a female driver in Nascar now, because it opens the opportunity for other female drivers to pursue the dream of professional racing, and it brings new fans to the sport. I do however believe there is a large gap between the talent of male drives and female drivers, due to instinctual and physical differences. Danica doesn't possess the strength or precision that it takes to be a successful driver in Nascar, but she does however offer hope, and a great marketing campaign.
Danica getting in a wreck
Darren,
ReplyDeleteI am having trouble understanding your argument in this post. Because Danica is a woman, she is not strong enough to drive a car? And because she is not a high-ranking driver, she ought to leave the sport because her ineptitude certainly comes from her gender?
I think this is an awfully slippery slope.
Young does not posit in her writing that all females are inherently more feeble than men, but says that women raised in the roles of women tend to display certain tendencies. That does not mean, necessarily, that a women must display the tendencies of the physical stereotypes of a female- nor that a man must display the stereotypes of a male (I certainly don't).
Citing Danica's poor driving record has no connection with her gender. NASCAR standings (http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2012/data/standings.html) show that though she is ranked 62, drivers 29-80 ALL have no top-10 or top-5 finishes (with the exception of 5 of those drivers). That is a large chunk of the field that Danica is either theoretically tied with, or beating (as in those under rank 62). I think that to posit that she should leave the sport because her gender inhibits her is to ignore the fact that she obviously rose into the sport due to SOME talent that she possesses.
As for crashing, ESPN's NASCAR guide to crashing's first step is: "(1) If a crash is inevitable, take your hands off the wheel to avoid injury to your thumbs or wrists. If you're still steering the car, make sure your thumb doesn't close on the wheel. Leave it resting on the top of the wheel so it doesn't get jammed in the middle when you hit something." Taking one's hands off the wheels isn't so feminine, at least according to ESPN. While I will readily admit that I know even less about NASCAR than I do about biophysics (keeping in mind that I am a humanities person), many of your claims seem to be refuted by expert sources (ESPN article: http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?id=6104403)
I am not attempting to come off as harsh, but I think that people ought to be careful when attempting to postulate that a gender has a direct influence upon a person's performance in a sport or elsewhere in the world.
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ReplyDeleteDarren,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post, and wondered about the Danica situation for a while. I was very intrigued at how you were able to relate Young's article to NASCAR (and I agree, it's not a sport.)
Danica's case is interesting because she defies the three traditional feminine modalities on the track. By the nature of her "sport," Danica must transcend the modalities. However, off the track she couldn't make herself more of an object.
After reading Jeff's response, I also found it hard to agree that there is any correlation to Danica's performance. Personally, I don't believe that Danica's existence in the "sport" is beneficial to NASCAR. The audience of NASCAR is a pretty homogenous group, and I find it hard to believe that people tune into the races each week to watch Danica continually perform poorly. I am curious if there is evidence to back up the claim that Danica just lets go of the wheel when she crashes. I don't think there are any physical limitations that Danica experiences behind the wheel. Your claim that her letting go of the wheel leads to more violent crashes at first made a lot of sense. Then, after reading the relevant information that Jeff provided, it didn't. It appears that Danica may be doing everything that the male drivers are doing.
In my post I was not trying to make it seem as if I am against women driving in Nascar, and I apologize if it came off that way. My aim was to point out that I do not believe she has proven herself to be worthy of all the attention she receives from the sport. She has had very few wins in Indy Car, Nationwide and Sprint Cup, and I believe she was given the opportunity to drive in the Sprint Cup because she was a female, and not because she had earned it. As for the physical aspect of Nascar, I realize the guidelines for crashing state to take your hands off the wheel, but in reality this is not what most drivers do. I do not have any statistical evidence to back this up, just what I have leaned from watching the racers, watching interviews with the racers, and listening to the announcers analyze the race. I have however come across articles which discuss that Danica takes her hands off the wheel and occasionally closes her eyes upon crashing. (http://thestir.cafemom.com/sports/133574/danica_patrick_even_knows_how) If you were to watch a race and actually analyze the drivers strategies and performance you would see that Danica does many little things that disrupt the flow of the race, as well as cause harm to others. In regards to the Sprint Cup series, Danica rarely finishes a race, and if she does she is towards the end of the pack. Danica does display talent, but I do not believe she has shown enough talent to earn a spot in Nascar.
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