Comments on: Secret Diary of a Female Petrolhead: the Swimsuit Edition /2011/08/01/secret-diary-of-a-female-petrolhead-the-swimsuit-edition/ A feminist pop culture adventure Fri, 31 May 2013 15:17:28 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.6 By: Meg /2011/08/01/secret-diary-of-a-female-petrolhead-the-swimsuit-edition/#comment-1585 Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:32:33 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=6705#comment-1585 I read an article a while ago about NASCAR trying to shepherd female drivers because when the first female driver joined the circuit their viewership noticeably jumped. The women they’d found to invest in were mostly daughters of racers, which seems to be a common theme in male-dominated fields (it’s certainly one I’ve observed in programming).

In general, it seems to be a problem of sponsorship. Several women who had every opportunity and were outstanding racers have since moved into management because they couldn’t get the cash to drive.

There are some groups trying to balance the scales slightly (http://newestscholarship2010.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-scholarship-program-for-female-race.html) and such programs, along with a lot of hard work and perseverance from individual women, have paid of in significantly more women on the stock car circuit. It’s still not 50%, but since ten years ago people were still making “women driver” jokes (aside: which I’ve never understood, since on average women are better drivers in America than men) it is progress.

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