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As a person who has from a very young age always been heavily involved in predominantly “male” interests and who also just so happens to be a woman - I am so sick of having to prove that I like the things I like.
Why is me liking motorsports performative? Why is it that if I like a driver, it’s because of their looks and not performance and personality? Why do people act impressed when I show the most basic level of knowledge about the sport, as if they do not think that someone like me is capable of so?
Why do I have to name the winning constructor of 1987 to be able to call myself an “actual” fan?
Why is it that my interest in the sport is invalidated purely due to the fact that it isn’t something I should be into because of your fucking prejudice?
Why is it that I am asked to recount entire championship fights and if I don’t do so - it means that I don’t actually know anything and only say I do because I want the attention.
I hate how this is normalised within communities. I hate how not many call it out, and I hate how men don’t think of it as a big deal.
Because it is a big deal. It’s fucking enormous. THIS is why you don’t have more women involved in motorsports. This is what discourages women from getting into it on a deeper level. And it’s fucking sad because this just causes the problem to spiral more and more.
Yes, I know that as of recent years the community has taken big steps to introduce more female lead roles and categories, which consequentially leads to more female fans. And I think it’s great. It really is.
But I think we are taking so many steps back at the same time.
The f1 movie, for example. Yes, obviously you need to have the one female engineer in the movie sleep with her boss. Of course. Great. Let’s push the agenda that women can only get into positions of power through sex, that’s not at all a very harmful and misogynistic idea! Which is being introduced the same year when we have our first ever full-time female engineer working in Formula One. Great. Just great.
I am so tired of shit like this.
And before I hear a singular thing about not all men doing this : no one has ever said that all men are like this. Yet somehow a lot, and I mean a lot of women have experienced this. And I really really doubt that these experiences are all connected to just one guy.
I rest my case