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Come Again?

Lauren

Idiot:

Ecclestone made news last week with his comments made in response to Patrick’s fourth-place finish at the Indianpolis 500.

Asked about Patrick’s success, Ecclestone acknowledged her strong finish, but then made an assessment about women racing with men that caused a stir, saying, “You know I’ve got one of those wonderful ideas … women should be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances.”

On Saturday, Patrick received a phone call from Ecclestone, in which he complimented her on her performance at the Indy 500, the Indy Star reported.

But Ecclestone caught Patrick off guard when he repeated to her his statement about women and “domestic appliances.”

“He told me those things, and I was like, I don’t know, I just didn’t make sense of it,” Patrick told the Indy Star on Tuesday in her first public remarks since the quote drew national attention. “I can’t believe that he would say that … directly to me.”

…The 74-year-old told Autosport racing magazine in Feb. 2000 that women would never excel in Forumla One. He added that if a woman did make it, “she would have to be a woman who was blowing away the boys. … What I would really like to see happen is to find the right girl, perhaps a black girl with super looks, preferably Jewish or Muslim, who speaks Spanish.”

via Brutal Women

15 thoughts on Come Again?

  1. Funny, I was discussing Danica with a friend who is a progressive man and an F1 fan last month, and we came to the same conclusion: that F1 was still permeated by old-boy sexism and a much more closed world than American motorsports. Progressive as Europe sometimes seems, it too has its enclaves of awful sexism.

    Patrick herself has said that she dealt with the most sexism racing Formula Fords in England.

  2. I think Patrick did a wonderful job at Indy and I’m not even a motorsports fan. But I have a few issues here.
    As long as we continue to seperate Patrick from the men as in “being a woman” she’ll never achieve the same level of success as her men counterparts. Also, do you honestly think that if Patrick looked like, let’s say Rosanne, she would be featured in FHM magazine looking very conspicuous? I think not. If she is really trying to make her name as a superb Indy driver then why would she present herself in such a way? I could care less how she chooses to earn her living but when people make comments regarding equality, or the lack thereof, I try to investigate their claims and usually find a double standard or two.
    I think the comment made by Ecclestone was pretty shitty and I in no way support such sexist flap. It sounds to me like he just may be a little intimidated with the emergence of women in men dominated sports. But I do agree that for a woman to excel in this sport, she is going to have to blow away the competition and do it without peeling off her clothes and posing for erection inducing magazines.

  3. There’s an idea for a T-shirt: “I am not a domestic appliance.”

    And if he had ever set foot in a kitchen in his life, he’d know that domestic appliances also come in silver and black.

    Jackass.

  5. Ecclestone is a fart. Period, said, and done. Much of the blame for the good-ol-boy mentality in F1 is on his shoulders (as is, incidentally, the disaster at Indy earlier in the week).

    Danica, on the other hand, knows she’s got it, and she uses it. Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but I think it’s really very reasonable to suggest that whatever part of her success comes through her sexuality in fact puts her quite on par with up-and-coming men in US motorsports. There can be no question that being generally attractive is a major incentive for potential sponsors to back a driver — and top-tier racing knows no other way than to follow the money.

    I mean, let me name names: Kasey Kahne and Jamie McMurray and Reed Sorenson and Sam Hornish Jr. and lots of those guys wouldn’t be where they are were they not attractive and articulate enough to read the cue cards for the TV commericals. I say that with no disrespect to their abilities; rather, with an understanding of the reality of the increasingly-commercial business of racing.

    I really think criticizing Danica for workin’ it (at least from a feminist standpoint) is the right approach. She ain’t no hollaback girl. The bottom line is she’s nearly outperformed every other woman to have run in an Indy car and done it in just a handful of races. And she’s beating the boys. Seeing her as “just another racer” will come, eventually, and maybe not even in her time. But it’s opening the door, for sure.

  6. erm. shit.

    “I really think criticizing Danica for workin’ it (at least from a feminist standpoint) is the wrong approach” is how that should read above. Sorry 😛

  7. Phil, I don’t analyze it that way.

    In most forms of sports and entertainment, there is a large pool of participants with talent, who under the right circumstances could rise to the elite level, but who may not get the chance. Motorsports is a great example of this: the driver is dependent in part on the car. If a driver never gets a competetive ride, s/he never gets to show his/her full potential. (Nor is driving ability susceptible to entirely objective analysis: there’s vigorous debate over who the “greatest driver ever” is in most forms of motorsport, and I can name at least five reasonable candidates in F1.)

    Danica Patrick clearly has real talent behind the wheel. So did Lyn St. James who, though attractive, got her shot in Indy cars much later in life, and only had a good team behind her once. There may be lots of women in open-wheels out there that you and I don’t know about. Certainly, there are lots of guys laboring in lesser series, and they may or may not make it to the big time.

    Danica Patrick has crossed that barrier: she has a long-term contract with Rahal Letterman Racing, which has lots of money and good mechanics and will keep her in very fast cars. Now all she has to do is win. But if she weren’t Danica Patrick, beautiful woman, she might be driving Toyota Atlantics or Star Mazdas right now instead of IRL.

    Now, giving men erections will not prevent her wins from counting, and in fact will only help get her sponsored. If she drives well, she’ll be taken seriously as a driver.

    The real danger is that her willingness to market her sex appeal will become the standard, and prevent women who will not play that game (or who are not conventionally attractive) from moving to the highest levels of motorsports.

    I don’t blame her for using her sex appeal to get a break — how would it feel if you knew you could be great at something, if only someone would give you a fair shot? That’s why waiters slip demo tapes and scripts to their customers in Nashville and LA, respectively.

    Now, I don’t really know, and I think we can never truly find out, how she feels about the FHM photos. I know it is probable that she gritted her teeth and did it for her career, and I’m sorry she had to do that. Somewhere in my heart, I hope (and it is possible) that she did it just because, for a pint-sized tomboy from Illinois, having a bunch of air-brushed bikini photos of herself in a magazine made her feel beautiful. I wish we lived in a world where that’s the only reason she would do it.

  9. Excellent points Thomas….when I was growing up I wanted to be the next Shirley Muldowney, she for me was the first woman to really compete and win in the “man’s world” of race cars.

    I think Patrick will go far if she continues to excell at racing and if her looks help her become one of the “total packages” that sponsors like? More power too her…..

  10. There’s an idea for a T-shirt: “I am not a domestic appliance.” And if he had ever set foot in a kitchen in his life, he’d know that domestic appliances also come in silver and black.

    And harvest gold.

    (Avocado, however, is a problematic image.)

  11. As I stated, I dont really care how Patrick makes her dough. If she wants to strip down butt-naked-more power to her. But I thought this was a “feministe” blog and I also thought that those with the feministe mindset would think that Patrick posing semi-nude in a men’s magazine to help promote her Indy talent would be one small step backwards for progressive women trying to sell their abilities and not their ASS-sets.

  12. F1 is very sexist and it’s grating on me all the time and this just made me so mad I took a stomp around the house. I know a lot of women who love motorsports and they don’t deserve this attitude as fans. He’s being a fuck and defensive.

    And Thomas is right–male athletes exploit parts of themselves not directly related to performance to gain fame. Think Dennis Rodman. In MotoGP, Rossi’s managed not to get a backlash against him because he presents as a charming and delightful young man who is hard to hate, unlike the more reticient powerhouse Schumacher in F1. Patrick is beautiful, but on top of that she presents as an even-handed person and that will serve her in the long term in the volatile field of racing. She should be commended for playing the PR game well instead of criticized–it’s a big part of racing. The driver is the face of the team.

  13. The driver is the face of the team.

    Thanks for pointing that out, Amanda. I always forget that there is a slew of people behind that driver with just as much at stake in these races.

    Personally, I don’t have much interest in sports anyway, but at least when athletes play the PR game they have real skill to back up their pretty selves, in other words, their social worth and entertainment value are far greater than their looks. Subjects, not objects.

  14. The FHM thing was pure promotion, but it didn’t work on me. I just can’t respect her as a sex object after she did those Power Block bumpers- she was awkward as hell (but she must have been 19 or 20 at the time), whoever dressed her should be kidnapped and forced to live with homosexuals until they gain some fashion sense, and whoever did her makeup never found that happy medium between “oversubtle” and “whore paint”.

  15. F-1 is a joke and Bernie is one of the reasons. Europe and the U.S. DO have a real problem with women participating in motorsports.

    As for Danica, her real test in motorsports comes not this year, but next. Any mis-steps — on or off the race track — can be attributed to “rookie” mistakes. The “novelty” of being a woman will carry her this season.

    Next year, however, that excuse won’t be accepted. Not that she won’t be a veteran — it takes more than one year of experience to be called a veteran in my book, especially in Indy Car racing.

    Mistakes, if any are made next year, will be attributed to her sex. And I say that as a proud (no, PROUD!) father of a female race driver. Not a lack of experience, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time…no, any mistakes she makes in year two or three will be because she is a woman racing in a “man’s” sport. And that’s how many will take it.

    If, on the other hand (and my wish), is the exact opposite. If she continues to improve, demonstrating her talent with the race car AND the sponsors, you will see a handful of teams in a variety of leagues and levels actively court female drivers. Racing is a monkey-see, monkey-do sport. If Team A is winning the sponsorship and race battle (in that order, I might add), Teams B, C, D and E will want to get a piece of the action. We can only hope!

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