Being a parent nowadays is a constant battle of holding onto and trying to instill the best of your Generation X values in a world that is doing everything possible to rip them away. No, I don’t believe all the things that I believed in 1996, but some things just remain true, no matter what.
Here’s a great example. My daughter, Regan, is playing soccer this season on a pretty decent club team for a second year. I don’t talk about my daughter’s soccer anywhere near as much as I talk about my son’s, and that’s because she isn’t 1/100th as serious about it. She quit for a year when she was seven, but started again because she likes going to soccer camp in the summer and playing the fun games that they play. More than anything, she likes the social aspect of the game, and, of course, she has fun when they win.
She’s scored approximately 3 goals in the last three seasons combined. The most significant event that’s happened during this fall soccer season, according to her, is her acquisition of a pale blue, 40-ounce, wide-mouth Hydro Flask (sksksksk). God, I just linked to Vox. Anyway.
Of the nine girls on her team (they play 7-on-7), she is no better than sixth-best, and possibly as low as ninth, depending on the day and her motivation. She plays the fifty percent that is required by the club, but not a minute more, as the coach (rightfully) opts to play girls who are more skilled, focused, and intense about the game, and she doesn’t mind. But yesterday, she had a bit of a moment.
She was marking a girl on a throw-in, and this girl was easily half a head taller than Regan, if not more. The bigger girl, sensing that the slightly-too-concerned-with-her-hair girl guarding her might be an easy mark, shoved her hard and called for the ball. Something snapped inside of Regan, and you could see the look on her face change as she lowered her shoulder and charged directly into the other girl’s abdomen, knocking her off balance and almost off the pitch. I think the referee was too shocked to call anything. All of the parents gasped in unison, and then laughed and cheered for her.
That night, over a chocolate chip cookie, Regan informed me that “It’s fun to shove people!” and that she couldn’t wait for the next game to do it some more.
Girls need these moments.
They need to be able to compete on fair and equal ground with other girls in athletics. They need the chance to take leadership roles that will translate from the pitch to the boardroom. They deserve the opportunity to create healthy, active habits that they will carry through their lives, regardless if they ever play a sport past high school. They deserve to know what it’s like to have the chance to win championships, to hold the trophy high above their ahead and celebrate a victory into the small hours of the morning.
Unfortunately, there are a group of science deniers who seem to think that it’s fair to rob girls of these opportunities.
In Connecticut, the Girls’ State 100 meter and 200 meter championships were won by a biologically male athlete for a second year in a row. This athlete identifies as female, but still has male sexual organs, and typical male hormonal levels. The times this individual ran were quite fast for a girl, but would not even be close to the top male high school times in Connecticut (11.64 seconds in the 100 and 24.47 in the 200, compared to 10.77 and 21.45 in the boys’ championship).
For reference, when I was in high school, twenty-plus years ago, I consistently ran about 11.5 seconds in the 100 and 24.0 in the 200, with slightly better times as my bests. I wasn’t even in the top three sprinters in my school, much less a state finalist—but had I identified as female at that time, I would be the Connecticut state record holder for women with times that are twenty-three years old. I defy you to find a track record of any type that is twenty-three years old—nutrition and training are now far, far superior, and athletes are shattering times from that long ago on a daily basis. Last spring, a high school sprinter in Texas ran a 9.98 wind-aided, for God’s sake. So, in other words, 1996 Bark is still better than 2019 women in Connecticut. Does that seem fair on any level?
Also of note is the Connecticut policy on transgendered athletes. USA Track and Field requires hormonal therapy for transgender athletes, but Connecticut, along with the rest of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, does not. Feel free to click on the article to see pictures of these athletes. To the uninformed eye, they simply look like men with long hair. The athletes in question are 100% biologically male, yet are being permitted to compete against girls.
Unbelievably, there are a significant number of people who think this is okay. Like, a really large number of people, nearly exclusively from the party that shouts “SCIENCE DENIER” at anybody who might question the impact of man on the cooling and warming patterns of the Earth. I have seen several people say that any girls who complain about these results should just “run faster.” Never mind 17,000 generations of biological evolution—just run faster, girls! It’s easy!
(BTW, happy to say that a young lady from my alma mater was faster than the Connecticut athletes in question, running a 11.38/22.73 double at last year’s Ohio State Championships. Those times were the sixth fastest ever by a high school girl, only slightly behind runners like Marion Jones and Allyson Felix, both world champions—but she was still seven tenths behind the Ohio boys in the 100 and over a second behind in the 200. Man, Connecticut isn’t great at track, apparently.)
As it stands right now, there is literally nothing that would prevent girls from being wiped off the athletic map of New England. Any boy who wants to compete as a girl can do so. There is currently a lawsuit in the courts that is aimed at changing these rules, but it’s hard to say how any judge will rule in this matter. I imagine it will ultimately end up in front of the Supreme Court, and it probably should.
I don’t want my daughter to be robbed of her chance to compete. My son is eleven, and frequently plays against boys who are nearly six feet tall. Once puberty hits, God knows how big these kids will be. One can only imagine a normal-sized teenage girl looking at these huge kids and saying, “Nah, it’s not worth it.”
The SCCA has come under some serious heat from some members in the past for having “Ladies” classes in Autocross. With today’s power-assisted cars, there is no reason for these classes to exist—from a physical perspective. But from a participation perspective? It makes all the sense in the world. It provides a less intimidating place for women to enter into the activity (I won’t say “sport”), a sense of camaraderie among the participants, and when/if women feel that they want to compete with the men, they have the right to enter the “open” classes and do so. I’ve lost to a couple of women at the autocross, and there was no shame in it—but there was also no shame in the women who chose to participate in their own classes and had a great time doing it.
In short, for decades in this country, we have actively tried to encourage young girls to participate in sports. We know what the benefits are. We’ve written laws to enforce it. And now, some of the very same people who fought for girls to have these chances are fighting to take them away. Our young girls are being swallowed up by political correctness. It’s wrong.
This is not a “transphobic” position to have. I could not care less about the personal decisions people make with their own bodies, or how they choose to identify to the rest of the world, or what bathroom they want to use. What I do care about is protecting my daughter’s right to compete and enjoy sports. This is why we have segregated sports in the first place—to promote healthy, fair competition. Otherwise, we’d have had the boys and girls competing against each other the whole time. This is straight-up common sense. And yet, somehow, there are otherwise rational people who would suggest that it isn’t.
I will defend to the very end my daughter’s right to have a place to compete. It doesn’t matter that she’ll likely never be the biggest, strongest, or fastest girl on the field—it matters that she has an equal chance.
I have a cousin that switched a few years ago, and went from an okay bicycle racer to a podium finisher even though his/her times didn’t change. Now I use it as a teaching moment with my kids as a great example of a hollow victory.
These people are crazy. They want to destroy everything.
And unfortunately too many of them are now in a position of power.
Remember how they used to make Olympic athletes take genetic tests so they could stop all of the USSR ‘women’ who were really just men with a minor sex change?
I bet those folks are kicking themselves, because the Olympic’s has changed the rules and now those people can compete again.
Nothing as regressive as a progressive. 🙁
Same thing happened in the women’s WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP of cycling this week. Crazy.
My son and I were watching the UCI Downhill MTB race at Snowshoe, since he’s ridden there and wants to compete in UCI Downhill once he turns 16. He said to me… “Dad, the best women’s time is 3:43… the best men’s time is 3:03!”
All I could say was, “Life isn’t a Marvel movie.”
At least the Marvel movies give 115 lbs 5’5 foot female super heroes some sort of “super power” that helps explain why they can beat up much larger male and alien bad guys, but the more dangerous propaganda are the cop and adventure shows that show mortal 115 lbs 5’5 foot female leads single handedly beating the snot out of a team of rogue ex-Navy Seals lying in ambush for her, or successfully sprinting to chase down, tackle, and subdue someone who resembles Usain Bolt. Unfortunately, reality is something more similar to the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsCqrrfcmGc
As the father of a good high school and college girl athlete I totally agree. Also don’t forget about the bonding and empowering times that the girls have on a team that would be totally messed up by having a biological boy in their midst.
“It’s fun to shove people!” While important for girls this is doubly important for boys in this day of female dominated educational system who treat boys like defective girls. My son really did not like the academic part of school and was not much of football player (too tall and skinny). One day he came home from football practice in middle school and told me how much he hated being back in school but how he felt so much better after hitting guys in full contact practices.
You bring up a very important point about team bonding and how the dynamics change when someone of the opposite sex joins in, but something totally ignored by feminists when it comes to breaking up “boys clubs” by forcing the inclusion of girls/women, particularly when they see the clubs as routes to status, glory, or “equal” pay. NYC is currently in another “crisis” because city firefighters don’t have the racial and gender diversity that reflects the demographics of the city (i.e. they are too male and too white). The feminists insist the physical requirements are sexist (aka too difficult) and unfairly keep women from joining the highly paid fire fighting profession in sufficient numbers, which means standards inevitably get watered down. Of course throwing women into all-male firehouses is going to change the social dynamics of the “team” even if the women would prove to be up-to-the-challenge physically, but throw in lower standards and all of a sudden male team members can no longer count on certain members to pull them out of a burning building, and start to complain about how the weaker members are getting promoted at faster rates to meet diversity mandates for women in the higher ranks, and in the end unit effectiveness at fighting fires is reduced in the name of “equality” and “social justice”. Unfortunately, the same “lowering of requirements” for “social justice” reasons is happening in the military and police forces and in STEM fields to the detriment of each. And of course, objective studies that demonstrate these detrimental effects to team unity, cohesion, and social trust are hidden or criticized as sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic, etc. because they threaten the “diversity is our strength” mantra being promoted in academic and political circles these days.
I was with you completely until the point justifying “Ladies’ Classes” in motorsport… nothing could be more effectively regressive and blatantly ironic than ladies-only car racing…
For any physical competition where human physique is a factor – sure, class by gender accordingly, and it’s supported by science. But not motorsport. It’s a car. It doesn’t care who’s operating it, who owns it, who dials it in, who puts fresh tires on it or who signs it up for a race. It doesn’t care if someone gave it a pep-talk, made it feel like a comrade, insulted it, or subjected it to microaggressions. It just needs a driver… male, female, or whatever there is in between these days. So calling all drivers…
To suggest otherwise fails every test of logic and application of equality. Should the ladies-only classes have smaller engines, or governors to limit top speed? What about outside motorsport? Should there be a ladies-only highway lane? A ladies-only only airline that operates out of ladies-only airports? Should there be ladies-only video game competitions? Ladies-only ATM’s? Ladies-only expresso machines? If that all sounds ridiculous, then apply the concept to ladies-only car racing.
Danica Patrick earned a lot of her criticism over her career, but one thing was undeniable: she was a working race car driver. Was she a champion? Of course not.. but she didn’t need a ladies-only environment to drive in because a stock car is just a machine and she was able to operate it at the professional level. In my NASA region, two women are regulars in Spec Miata. Are they frontrunners? No… but there they are, competing with everyone else, in their race cars that are just like everyone else’s. The idea that motorsport sanctioning bodies should create a different playing field to derive some sort of feminist-gratifying result is probably the most patronizing, and least empowering, thing we could do for women in motorsports… not to mention contradicts your very last sentence.
As a final thought: I know your post is well intentioned… but motorsport feels like the last refuge in a society consumed by the insanity of identity politics, where reality must quietly exist behind an ideologically-manufactured facade of merit. We need to keep that crap out of our motorsport, or it will destroy motorsport just like it’s destroying other sports.
In professional racing I’d be in agreement, but in an amateur setting I don’t see how a “women’s class” hurts anything. I think it is in the best interest of vehicle, driving, and racing clubs to be doing everything in their power right now to get people interested.
Bark made a good argument for it with “It provides a less intimidating place for women to enter into the activity”. Some women might not be too keen on racing in a co-ed environment, especially early on. The alternative is that the woman opts out of participation altogether. Which means one less person getting into driving and one less person advocating for the hobby when the government comes along to ban it.
“but in an amateur setting I don’t see how a “women’s class” hurts anything.”
…then I guess an explicitly men-only class wouldn’t hurt anything, either, right?
If you think men are staying out of the club due to a lack of a “men’s only” group, then yes one should definitely be created. However, if you’re just wanting to create a men’s only group as some sort of sour grapes gotcha, then that would be counterproductive
The continued existence of the hobby is more important than an ideological purity tests or a desire to rally against “identity politics”.
You’re calling a gender-based racing class “counterproductive” literally as you advocate for gender-based racing classes? Why is there a need for gender-based racing classes? Who cares what the motivation is, whether it’s “sour grapes” or feminist ideology or bleeding heart gender guilt? Shouldn’t people be drawn to motorsport simply because they find a passion in motorsport? Who’s denying women their passion for motorsport?
Why do you think the “existence of the hobby” hinges on some ideal proportion of female participation? That doesn’t make any sense… if you like cars, nothing is preventing you from participating… if you don’t like cars, nothing is requiring you to participate. I’ve been going to track days and racing for years, I’ve never seen one woman told to take her passion somewhere else, nor has any woman expressed as much to me. What club are you in that’s so hostile to female participation that you have to police the organization and segregate female racers into their own classes to make them feel welcome?
“Why is there a need for gender-based racing classes? Who cares what the motivation is”
It is a numbers game. The “need” is to get people interested in the hobby that otherwise may not be. That is an important thing for the future of these activities.
I am not saying that women should be forced into “women’s only” groups, but I think that option should be available if it would increase participation. Do you disagree with that notion?
From what Bark wrote (and what toly arutunoff commented) it sounds like there are women that prefer driving in gender-segregated classes. If that is the case, then they should stay. If they don’t want that kind of thing then you have nothing to worry about.
“It is a numbers game. The “need” is to get people interested in the hobby that otherwise may not be. That is an important thing for the future of these activities.”
Exposing new blood to the hobby (taking your daughter to the track) is a fundamentally different thing than a detached segment of that hobby that exists “just for them”, just because they happen to be female (“welcome to racing, dear… there’s all the regular people who race… and then there’s a special group who race with your, uh, condition”).
“I am not saying that women should be forced into “women’s only” groups, but I think that option should be available if it would increase participation. Do you disagree with that notion?”
Of course I disagree with that notion, that’s the entire point of my contribution to the commentary. Why would you assume an aspiring racer would want to participate in a segregated group? Why does such a group even exist when here is no physical disadvantage for women operating cars? Why wouldn’t the draw of participation be driving her car on track like everyone else, within the same structure of classes as everyone else?
No, that’s not the draw. You may not be particularly familiar with how autocross works on the local and national levels, so let me explain why there’s a real need for a ladies’ class.
Let’s say my friend Marc and I build a car for STR class, and we invest roughly $50,000 into the car and the build so that we can co-drive the car on the national solo circuit (this is a true story, btw). It’s very, very difficult to compete at that level without a competent co-driver who can provide feedback on how the car is performing as well as warm the tires appropriately. In other words, you can’t really bring a scrub co-driver—they have to be good enough to get the tires up to temperature and diagnose shock settings, tire pressures, swaybar settings, etc.
Now, let’s say Marc’s wife has been watching for the last year or two and decides that she also wants to start driving. Well, too bad. She can’t, because you can only have two drivers in a car per class, and I’m sure as hell not about to give up the $25k I’ve invested in this car so she can get dead last at Nationals. Sorry, Mrs. Marc.
But wait, what if there were a class were she could drive, thereby introducing more drivers into the sport and increasing numbers for the club and the local region? Okay, we can let her compete in the Ladies’ class. Perfect. Now she can be introduced to the sport, we don’t have to buy another car, and she can even invite another friend to co-drive the car with her in the Ladies’ class.
That’s reason number one. Reason number two? Contingency.
At almost every national tour or ProSolo, you’ll see people asking for ladies’ class drivers to drive their cars at the event so they can win additional monies and equipment, mostly tires, for their cars. The standard practice is for the women to be able to drive the car for free or very little money with the understanding that all contingency prizes go to the car owner. Top ladies class drivers can essentially drive for free all year, because they’re literally winning thousands of dollars in tires for the car owners.
THAT is why you’ll see most men speak in favor of Ladies’ classes.
Now, that being said, I have mad respect for the women who participate in the open class. Lynne Rothney-Kozlak was a great example—she won an open class national title in F Stock back in the day, and she and I used to run very closely at events, with her beating me more often than not. She and her husband Paul were great friends and competitors for several years in A Stock.
We need a ladies class so men can win prizes? That’s your argument?
If there’s a ladies only class, there should be a mens only class. It’d be nice for men to have one thing we could do without women butting their heads in. What if some amateur guy who doesn’t want to spend 25k wants to race against the ladies?
And while I agree with the overall premise of “Men and women should get their own sports” I admit some schadenfreude over the ladies finally getting the logical outcome of forcing their way onto men’s teams.
It’s not an argument, it’s reality.
And there is some discussion of creating “Pro” and “Amateur” instead of “Open” and “Ladies,” but that kills off the contingencies. Nobody wants that.
When I hear about women getting cash and prizes just for showing up, I stop caring about their issues with competing against beta-males. Maybe we should all identify as native-American women like Elizabeth Warren did. It would level the playing field.
Danica’s career was all about identity politics. As Kyle Petty so aptly put it, she always had top class equipment and crews and yet she did very little with it in terms of on track wins/championships (yes – the same criticism could be made of Kyle’s career). No doubt she had some decent driving talent, but her relatively dismal performance given her equipment and team support is further magnified by the fact that she was 50 lbs lighter than most of her male competitors in a sport where millimeters of lower center of gravity and ounces of weight distribution can make a difference between contenting for the lead and back of the pack.
So why did someone with such little on-track success (especially in NASCAR) succeed in continuing over many years to attract top money sponsors and get invited to drive for top-talent/equipment teams? The answer is that “woke” corporate sponsors were very happy to demonstrate their “commitment to fairness” by sponsoring a hot looking female driver who was sure to get lots of air time during race coverage by “woke” networks and media even when she was plodding along in 25th place because she was a hot looking female driver, and in NASCAR was sure to get additional camera time when she inevitably crashed while blaming some other (male) driver. Her sponsor’s no doubt thought they got their money’s worth, and the racing leagues and networks loved the fans and publicity she generated, but I suspect such sponsor/fan/network interest would be greatly reduced if there were mandates to have females in 30 to 50% of the cars, and they were perpetually at the back of the pack. Only then would you have the gender studies professors who never attended a race in their life and probably don’t have a drivers license swoop in and claim women are being held back by patriarchy and sexism, and demand that females be given more horsepower and stickier tires than the men in the name of equality and fairness.
“Danica’s career was all about identity politics. As Kyle Petty so aptly put it, she always had top class equipment and crews and yet she did very little with it in terms of on track wins/championships”
Absolutely. Agree completely about Patrick. She wasn’t a champion, or even a frontrunner, because most driver’s aren’t in racing. Junior also brought eyes to NASCAR despite having (relatively) little on-track success. That’s just part of being a pro driver… bringing sponsors to the team. The point is, Patrick was out there doing it at the highest levels of stock car racing (and IndyCar) . She wasn’t in the “NASCAR Ladies’ Cup”. The irony of others arguing for ladies-only race classes to include women in motorsport is that Patrick attracted legions of girls to the sport specifically BECAUSE she was out there racing with the men.
I don’t think there’s a legion of girls attracted to motorsport because of Danica Patrick. She was a bigger draw for men than women.
“I don’t think there’s a legion of girls attracted to motorsport because of Danica Patrick. She was a bigger draw for men than women.”
As an aggregate? Sure, more men were into Patrick than women. But there’s no question Patrick drew a huge interest from girls who otherwise wouldn’t have paid attention. The point is, I don’t think she would have done so from a ladies-only race class.
ladies’ classes have been there for as long as there’ve been championship autocross. do you dare ask the ladies if they want that class removed?
Do you dare challenge the fallacy that ladies-only car racing is somehow empowering? Do you dare to accept women as coequal participants and competitors? Remember… we’re not talking about a sport where muscle mass, or physical endurance, or height or reach is a factor. In such a case, I wholeheartedly agree – and common sense dictates – that competition is classed by gender. Race cars are classed by make/model, parity is ensured by hp:wt limits, set-up and strategy are thinking exercises, seats/pedals can be adjusted to different body types… Do you dare acknowledge the fundamental fact that a race car is just a machine?
…because if you don’t, then at least be intellectually honest and tell the world that you don’t think women are equal to men in the operation of machinery, and that you condone patronizing women by relegating them to “Formula Female” while the “real men” go about the real business of real racing.
I, for one, respect women enough to treat them like a real race car driver.
Women’s only driving classes are analogous to the feminist drive to get women into STEM fields, management board rooms, and top political offices (i.e. break the glass ceiling). The relative lack of female presence in each of these cases has obviously nothing to do with physical differences in muscle and weight, and therefore must be due to sexism/patriarchy/misogyny designed to keep women “barefoot in the kitchen”, because otherwise women and men are absolutely interchangeable in abilities, interests, and motivation.
Yet there is a great deal of evidence from the social and physical sciences (and simple observation) that men and women are wired differently in the brain as well and physically different in size and muscle mass. Relatively speaking women generally like working with people (and animals) and men generally like working with things (like cars), men are better at spatial reasoning tasks and women are better in verbal skills, men are more competitive and risk seeking, and women are more nurturing and risk avoiding, and men tend to have greater variance in abilities than women (i.e. men are over-represented at the genius and idiot levels of IQ, but also in other abilities such as taste and smell which is why the greatest chefs and wine tasters tend to be men, but also why most sewer workers are men). When you put it all together, these non-physical differences in men and women provide a very complete explanation on why men dominate car racing (i.e. they like things and they are competitive and risk taking), or corporate boardrooms (they are more likely to be geniuses, work longer hours due to competitiveness, and take on career making/breaking risky assignments).
Thus if you want to make a field more appealing to women, male dominated areas will need to feminize by making time spent in the activity more about social interactions and less about performance based competition, and reducing the time commitment and success required to reach the top, which unfortunately also will make the such feminized fields less interesting to most men and probably less valuable to society (i.e. more females in engineering will probably reduce the rate of innovation, more females in the boardroom will probably reduce corporate financial returns).
Great comment. Spot on.
“Thus if you want to make a field more appealing to women, male dominated areas will need to feminize by making time spent in the activity more about social interactions and less about performance based competition”
Exactly. This is my fear of letting feminist crap dictate racing classes in motorsport. Race classes are about competition, and race cars are just machines. I respect women enough to treat them like real race car drivers… BUT with that respect comes the expectation that you must rise to the level of competition that everyone else operates within. It’s the ultimate equality…. there is no facade of merit. Anything less is the true threat to the future of motorsport.
You’re really under the presumption that women’s classes in autocross, an amateur, entry-level activity, is threatening the future of autosport?
“You’re really under the presumption that women’s classes in autocross, an amateur, entry-level activity, is threatening the future of autosport?”
Do you call “winning” contingency money and tires because of the gender of the driver “autosport”?
..to the greater point, you admit women have no physical disadvantage in driving a car. Why would is there a need for a ladies-only class then? I would hope NASA female racers would be highly insulted by the creation of a “ladies class”…
But there is a physical disadvantage. The size difference in male and female brains is almost entirely due to spatial abilities. This physical characteristic is important for any sport that involves processing and co-ordinating motion at high speed, and is the reason you will likely never see a female driver who is competitive with the top male drivers.
I am unsurprised to see yet another article of self-interested liberal rationalization for a “conservative” goal while steering clear of any talk of tradition, virtue, or truth.
Fighting the enemy in their arena on their terms is no way to win. Actually, this is not even fighting, but the rich “conservative” tradition of hoping to concede to slightly less additional loss in order to pretend a victory has been achieved while continually losing with no fight.
screw “empowering.” it’s a sport to have fun with. ask the participants if they like the class. they’re the ones who matter. and women can run in any class the car is eligible for
never mind “empowerment.” if women don’t want a women’s class it’ll go away by itself. they can run in the ‘regular’ classes right now if they want
Why does your organization think so little of women as competitors that they create a class separate from the “regular” classes? My organization simply assumes women can – and will want to – compete in the “regular” classes. My organization figures that’s all the option any aspiring racer needs – male or female.
dunno what your organization is. some women newcomers like the idea of a womens’ class. leave it up to the competitors, not organizational theorists. have classes for bald guys if they want ’em. it’s supposed to be a sport, and sports are for fun
Um, my organization races cars. We are organized by race cars. It’s pretty fun. The women race, too.
women’s races went away a long time ago. women’ classes in autocross are still around. women didn’t care for womens’ races so they disappeared. I’m betting women’ autocross classes will be around for a long time: look at the participation numbers in the SCCA championships. all along I have been referring to autocrosses, not wheel-to-wheel racing. I wouldn’t forbid a group of women asking for a women’s race though, although I have a feeling you wouldn’t like the idea. whipping the steering wheel around in autocross takes a decent amount of upper body strength as opposed to finessing a race car through a turn, which is why there is still sex differentiation in autocross. I’ve mentioned ‘my’ organization; will you mention yours? a friend and I designed an a/c that got the award as best a/c in the sediv of scca probably before you were born. I’ve been an scca national champion (thanks to the rain) and president’s cup winner. I’m one of the founders of the Oklahoma libertarian party. I oppose mandatory unisex bathrooms; libertarians generally don’t like mandatory anything. I most generously give you the last word. and by the way maga 2020,,,,,,,,
I said in my first comment that I drive in NASA. Congratulations on your pre-1980 accolades?
Of course I wouldn’t like the idea of a women’s only race. In NASA, the women racers are real race car drivers because there simply is no separate standard for race car drivers. They earn their place like everyone else does. In NASA, you don’t “win” contingencies because you’re a girl…. you just have to, uh… win them.
I can’t speak for NASA’s female drivers with absolute certainty, but my guess is our women would roundly reject the idea of ladies-only race classes or a women’s-only race. After all, they’re already real race car drivers.
The movement of transgender “females” into female sports is just following the general Leftist trend in granting rights to the mentally ill. As also demonstrated by the “homeless crisis” in many major cities, the enlightened Left believes the mentally ill should have the right to decide when and what they should medicate themselves with (which usually means they don’t take their prescribed medicines, but do prescribe themselves liberal amounts of alcohol, weed, and opiates), when and where they can live and defecate (which is usually on the street or someone’s front porch), and whether they should be institutionalized (funny how they never seem to think they are crazy enough for the funny farm). Thus it is only natural that the Left believes biological men who feel like women should definitely be able to run, jump, wrestle, and punch with the girls, because to not allow them to compete in the socially constructed gender role of their choice would be discrimination, unfair, and damaging to their self-esteem, and if you don’t agree you are some deplorable Fox News watching transphobic who should be locked up with Donald Trump.
And after the Left fixes the transgender rights problem, they will no doubt look after the plight of child molesters (why shouldn’t they have the right to adopt children you bigot!!!), and the anorexic (just because the scale says you weigh 75 lbs doesn’t mean you are not overweight and shouldn’t cut back on eating – especially eating meat that is also killing the planet).
Males and females are different. It’s been that way since the beginning of time, it will be that way until the end of time.It doesn’t matter the species, there are differences. Anyone who chooses not to notice these differences is only deluding themselves.
Let boys be boys, let girls be girls and remember; “you are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t.”
“So listen up buster and listen up good, stop wishin’ for bad luck and knocking on wood…”
Wow, just had total recall of the lyrics.
Signed, Noisemaker.
John Prine for the win.
God this post annoys the hell out of me. Seems like our world is bending around the “needs” of a small group of confused people (and how others are ready to take advantage of the situation).
I ran out of “reply” prompts. To be completely fair, I’m pasting the post author’s comment in full…
“No, that’s not the draw. You may not be particularly familiar with how autocross works on the local and national levels, so let me explain why there’s a real need for a ladies’ class.
Let’s say my friend Marc and I build a car for STR class, and we invest roughly $50,000 into the car and the build so that we can co-drive the car on the national solo circuit (this is a true story, btw). It’s very, very difficult to compete at that level without a competent co-driver who can provide feedback on how the car is performing as well as warm the tires appropriately. In other words, you can’t really bring a scrub co-driver—they have to be good enough to get the tires up to temperature and diagnose shock settings, tire pressures, swaybar settings, etc.
Now, let’s say Marc’s wife has been watching for the last year or two and decides that she also wants to start driving. Well, too bad. She can’t, because you can only have two drivers in a car per class, and I’m sure as hell not about to give up the $25k I’ve invested in this car so she can get dead last at Nationals. Sorry, Mrs. Marc.
But wait, what if there were a class were she could drive, thereby introducing more drivers into the sport and increasing numbers for the club and the local region? Okay, we can let her compete in the Ladies’ class. Perfect. Now she can be introduced to the sport, we don’t have to buy another car, and she can even invite another friend to co-drive the car with her in the Ladies’ class.
That’s reason number one. Reason number two? Contingency.
At almost every national tour or ProSolo, you’ll see people asking for ladies’ class drivers to drive their cars at the event so they can win additional monies and equipment, mostly tires, for their cars. The standard practice is for the women to be able to drive the car for free or very little money with the understanding that all contingency prizes go to the car owner. Top ladies class drivers can essentially drive for free all year, because they’re literally winning thousands of dollars in tires for the car owners.
THAT is why you’ll see most men speak in favor of Ladies’ classes.
Now, that being said, I have mad respect for the women who participate in the open class. Lynne Rothney-Kozlak was a great example—she won an open class national title in F Stock back in the day, and she and I used to run very closely at events, with her beating me more often than not. She and her husband Paul were great friends and competitors for several years in A Stock”
No, I was not particularly familiar with how autocross works. Although, now I see how it works. So in a hobby that’s very expensive, and takes a lot of time and financial commitment, women get to compete in SCCA autocross “essentially for free” because they are women. They “win” contingency money because they’re women?
I was somewhat interested in autocross, but my commitment to road racing in NASA put autocross on a lower priority. But thanks to this insight, I’ll definitely never, ever spend time or money “competing” in SCCA autocross. Tell me, is this same feminist bullshit in SCCA road racing, too? Maybe I’ll just steer completely clear of SCCA if there is a pervasive mindset of engineering competition with identity politics.
“Now, let’s say Marc’s wife has been watching for the last year or two and decides that she also wants to start driving. Well, too bad. She can’t, because you can only have two drivers in a car per class, and I’m sure as hell not about to give up the $25k I’ve invested in this car so she can get dead last at Nationals. Sorry, Mrs. Marc.”
By the way… this makes no sense. Why can’t “Mrs. Marc” just start out in entry-level/beginner classes like everyone else? Why does it have to be a “Ladies class?” NASA doesn’t put women in “Female HPDE” when they want to get started in racing…
Perhaps there are females who WANT to compete against other females. I suspect if there were none interested in the class, it would die of it’s own accord.
If you want to see women competing head to head with men in racing, look no further than the NHRA. Women having been going head to head with men for decades. Some have been quite successful; Shirley Muldowney, Angelle Sampey, Lori Johns, Erica Enders, John Force’s daughters Courtney, Brittany and Ashley and Leah Pritchett to name a few.
“If you want to see women competing head to head with men in racing, look no further than the NHRA”
GREAT example… I wish I had thought of that myself.
There is no entry-level class in Autocross. Autocross is, in and of itself, an entry point activity. Now, there are some people who take it incredibly seriously (ahem), but that doesn’t change the fact that it is driving at slower than the speed limit around cones in an empty parking lot.
“There is no entry-level class in Autocross. Autocross is, in and of itself, an entry point activity”
…then it makes even less sense that the SCCA offers a ladies-only class. If it’s all the same entry point, and there is [direct quote from you] “no reason for these classes to exist—from a physical perspective”, then why does the organization automatically assume women need their own class? Do the male competitors in SCCA discourage women from racing? Is it less fun for women in SCCA to race with the men? Or is there actually a physical disadvantage for women in autocross, contrary to your assertion above? In that case, I retract my entire argument and concede the need for a ladies-only class.
I guess I’m just a naive hick that assumed racing cars was just racing cars, and that no sanctioning body would try to woke-engineer motorsport because it’s not really motorsport anymore if drivers “win” prize money for their gender. I admittedly don’t win a whole lot of contingency money… I won a measly $100 in Toyo Bucks and $70 in Hawk Bucks last event….. but it was EARNED. The great thing is, when women win contingencies in my organization, they actually earn it, too… not “earn” it.
You’re picking a really interesting hill to die on. How is this hurting you or anybody else?
Nobody is “woke-engineering,” unless you think that people were “woke” in the Seventies. And to answer your question, yes, of course women have been discouraged from participating in Motorsports, directly and indirectly.
Approximately 150 women or so entered Ladies classes at the National Championships this year, so I’m guessing they like those classes. Those who don’t entered the open classes. Again, nobody is hurt by this.
Why wouldn’t we be encouraging participation in an amateur sport? Why does this threaten you so very much? The classes exist because people like to participate in them.
Mark ;
Sadly many men are simply _afraid_ of women .
They’re usually pretty easy to spot .
I’ve been talking to some progressive minded women about this situation and they all agree with you and I here .
-Nate
“Sadly many men are simply _afraid_ of women .
They’re usually pretty easy to spot”
Huh? Are you confused? I’m arguing AGAINST separate race classes, and arguing for the inclusion of racers of all genders to compete as equals in the same class. I’m saying it’s regressive to separate competitors by gender – unless women are physically disadvantaged somehow. How in the world did you interpret that as me being “afraid of women”? I’m literally arguing to compete directly with women, not relegate them to other classes…
Women’s sports: The one place where Democrats want white men to have an advantage!
Bark,
Not to side track, but thanks for explaining what the hell a Viss-Ko Girl is.
My daughter is in middle school, and as part of spirit week a while back they had “VSCO Girl Day”. She tried to explain it to me, but every girl in her school pretty much looks like this all the time, so it was very confusing.
I guess subcultures still exist?
That’s amazing that there was an official VSCO girl day. I didn’t know what it was, myself, until my daughter started hinting that she wanted one of those Hydro Flask bottles.
Not surprisingly the usual responses from the usual people .
I’m with Bark/Mark here and I have only sons if that makes any difference .
-Nate
there’s a ‘women driving America’ seminar or two at the Hilton head concours, make of that what you will
for whatever reason there’s been a lot more ‘sensitivity’ in sport coverage. in ’55 when vuky was killed at indy, it was in 2 consecutive–different content besides this–newsreels in our movie theater. in the late ’60s, a Saturday afternoon tv program was interrupted by an announcer saying they were going to show a fatal wreck that happened at Daytona minutes before; they advised having kids leave the room. think anything like that could happen today?
” they advised having kids leave the room”
EVERYONE GET IN HERE…..NOW!!!!!
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If women didn’t vote for the Pedocrats then this would have never happened.
I think the phrase “for the Pedocrats” is superfluous. Repeal the 19th!
Any dude should be free to pretend he is female. But any dude who pretends he is female in order to athletically dominate females should be ashamed of himself, and is deserving of mockery and ridicule from his peers.
*THIS* in spades .
-Nate
Who are his peers?
It shocks the conscious that this even needs to be said.