Let Bernie Talk!!!

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Dropping women into what is pretty much exclusively a "boys club" has proven not to work.

Don't think there have been enough women coming through to say that.

Putting them into a different series is wrong imho. It needs more of a change in thinking in racing management.

Part of the problem is that F1 is so dictated by money, it will be tough for women to enter. Sponsors expect instant gratification - best person, best results, straight away. That does not fit well with developing drivers who may not perform at best straight away. Answer is to get some of the money out of F1 - root of all evil , encourage more enlightenment in team principals, maybe even encourage Governments to sponsor programmes to get more women involved in engineering/racing and in s doing get a natural flow of women drivers will come through (as was the case in the 70s).

As for Mika...well....he was a pansy

I could not possibly comment (runs and hides)

[Max Mosley 2]

On a serious note, I don't see why getting more women into F1 matters that much. I think that although the discussion is well-meant there's an underlying sexist attitude that the way men behave is always better. Rather than "helping" women to emulate men's "achievements" we'd be far better off getting men to emulate women's, like the low rate of absent female parents.

[Kati 0]

Can u all imagine a woman, during her period, driving a car at 300km/h, with an engineer yelling at her?

[pabloh20 1]

Can u all imagine a woman, during her period, driving a car at 300km/h, with an engineer yelling at her?

I think you're on to something there - I think women would be better suited to being team bosses. I mean, as a driver, would you want to make a mistake when the team boss's reds are playing at home, not forgetting the 3 weeks of PMT/PMS prior to that?? Nope, me neither.

Somehow, I don't think it would be anything like 'Come on Fisi, you can't be 2s slower than Nando'

[Kati 0]

yeah! team bossing is way better!

[pabloh20 1]

yeah! team bossing is way better!

I thought you'd like that idea. It's like getting paid for doing something you love

[Max Mosley 2]

Something they love? Hmm.... you mean making themselves comfortable while men get all hot and sweaty and telling the men to drive home faster and harder?

[Magus Perde 0]

I'd rather watch the creation of an specific series, than having women in F1.

I think Katy H may be right here. Let's be honest how many people can name the last woman to race in an F1 championship? If you can remember that far back it was Giovanna Amatiand in 1993 (I think) and I remember clearly watching her get well and truly beaten in a Brabham car that was, I thought, totally unsuitable for her - a publicity stunt maybe? She was the other half of that well known Flavio Briatore and sometime test driver for Benneton before she took the seat at Brabham so who knows. What is interesting though is that she has moved on since to rather better things in the SR2 world cup proving that she probably did have talent.

If you're interested I think there have been 5 or 6 other women drivers in the past but the only other I remember seeing was the South African Desiree Wilton(?) who drove, believe it or not, a Williams. That must have been around 1980 I guess. I do know that she carried on racing for some while after that, although not in F1. What this proves is that the talent is there and, with the creation of an "all woman" championship, we could get to see it - who knows

[pabloh20 1]

Something they love? Hmm.... you mean making themselves comfortable while men get all hot and sweaty and telling the men to drive home faster and harder?

Nope. I mean slouching on the couch, watching trashy soaps, consoling themselves with the fact that reaching into a box of chocolates is real exercise and all the while chunnering incessantly either on the phone or to anyone who unfortunately happens to be within earshot. Perfect for a team boss

Time to make a quick exit me thinks

[monza gorilla 1]

If you're interested I think there have been 5 or 6 other women drivers in the past but the only other I remember seeing was the South African Desiree Wilton(?) who drove, believe it or not, a Williams. That must have been around 1980 I guess. I do know that she carried on racing for some while after that, although not in F1. What this proves is that the talent is there and, with the creation of an "all woman" championship, we could get to see it - who knows

Desire Wilson. The only woman to win a race in a Fomula 1 car (not a championship race, though. Aurora AFX series, possibly?). Not given a proper chance by Uncle Ken.

[Quiet One 15]

I think Katy H may be right here. Let's be honest how many people can name the last woman to race in an F1 championship? If you can remember that far back it was Giovanna Amatiand in 1993 (I think) and I remember clearly watching her get well and truly beaten in a Brabham car that was, I thought, totally unsuitable for her - a publicity stunt maybe? She was the other half of that well known Flavio Briatore and sometime test driver for Benneton before she took the seat at Brabham so who knows. What is interesting though is that she has moved on since to rather better things in the SR2 world cup proving that she probably did have talent.

If you're interested I think there have been 5 or 6 other women drivers in the past but the only other I remember seeing was the South African Desiree Wilton(?) who drove, believe it or not, a Williams. That must have been around 1980 I guess. I do know that she carried on racing for some while after that, although not in F1. What this proves is that the talent is there and, with the creation of an "all woman" championship, we could get to see it - who knows

The women in F1 were few and far between. And, like you said, they were hired mostly for publicity matters than because of real talent. That said, taking their bad performances as a sign of women's inferior ability to participate in F1 seems too much. It would be like using Ide to prove that men can't run in F1.

That is no genetics. That is just a cultural thing. A few years ago (and nowadays in some parts of the world) women were considered incapable of being in top positions on any company. Reasons? They are too emotional, they aren't as ruthless as the job demands for and blah blah blah. Does anybody seriously think that now? Of course, the first women to reach top managerial positions were...well, few. Most were not "interested" because they shared the same preconceptions men had. Slowly, through the years, more and more women escalated positions in many companies. Now they are a common sight.

Women in F1 at first will probably be few. Teams won't accept many, and most women would not even try. Many women will be chosen just because of their looks. Some because of publicity. But if they keep coming they will certainly match men and hopefully would be as common in F1 as big fat men in overalls are.

I don't see the big fuzz with all this.

[monza gorilla 1]

Why are we talking about this? Who are you people? Get out of my computer.

[Quiet One 15]

Why are we talking about this? Who are you people? Get out of my computer.

Off season is a nightmare!

[pabloh20 1]

The women in F1 were few and far between. And, like you said, they were hired mostly for publicity matters than because of real talent. That said, taking their bad performances as a sign of women's inferior ability to participate in F1 seems too much. It would be like using Ide to prove that men can't run in F1.

That is no genetics. That is just a cultural thing. A few years ago (and nowadays in some parts of the world) women were considered incapable of being in top positions on any company. Reasons? They are too emotional, they aren't as ruthless as the job demands for and blah blah blah. Does anybody seriously think that now? Of course, the first women to reach top managerial positions were...well, few. Most were not "interested" because they shared the same preconceptions men had. Slowly, through the years, more and more women escalated positions in many companies. Now they are a common sight.

Women in F1 at first will probably be few. Teams won't accept many, and most women would not even try. Many women will be chosen just because of their looks. Some because of publicity. But if they keep coming they will certainly match men and hopefully would be as common in F1 as big fat men in overalls are.

I don't see the big fuzz with all this.

You look for big, fat men in overalls Anyway, while I am getting me jumpsuit on, I may as well reply

One of the problems, I think, would be the knowledgeless media and believe me I have experience of this supporting Liverpool in footy! By, the way, have you had chance to watch Mascherano play recently? He has been superb, as he was on tuesday night. Anyway, I digress.

In the same way that every time Liverpool lose it is down to Rafa's rotation policy (though obviously, if we win, this is not down to Rafa's rotation policy), women would face the same stupid scrutiny in F1. If they made a mistake, it would be because they are women, if they struggled against a team mate, that would also be because they are women. Even though we know all drivers make mistakes and quite a few struggle against their team mate, I am fairly certain that is the spin the media would put on it.

[Max Mosley 2]

The women in F1 were few and far between. And, like you said, they were hired mostly for publicity matters than because of real talent. That said, taking their bad performances as a sign of women's inferior ability to participate in F1 seems too much. It would be like using Ide to prove that men can't run in F1.

That is no genetics. That is just a cultural thing. A few years ago (and nowadays in some parts of the world) women were considered incapable of being in top positions on any company. Reasons? They are too emotional, they aren't as ruthless as the job demands for and blah blah blah. Does anybody seriously think that now? Of course, the first women to reach top managerial positions were...well, few. Most were not "interested" because they shared the same preconceptions men had. Slowly, through the years, more and more women escalated positions in many companies. Now they are a common sight.

Women in F1 at first will probably be few. Teams won't accept many, and most women would not even try. Many women will be chosen just because of their looks. Some because of publicity. But if they keep coming they will certainly match men and hopefully would be as common in F1 as big fat men in overalls are.

I don't see the big fuzz with all this.

I don't either, but since we're talking about it, and I'm waiting for dinner..... Let X represent some task that humankind can perform, making dinner for example. Then almost always, some men are better at X than others. Presumably there is a distribution of ability at X that will roughly follow a normal distribution. The same will likely be true for women. It is not always the case that the average ability, nor the spread of abilities, will be the same between the sexes. In football for example, explosive power from muscles is very important, so women's average ability will be much lower at football. This isn't the case so much with F1, though I think men will still have a higher average ability, but even when ability distributions are similar, inclination distributions might not be.

Young girls don't want to spend all their childhoods racing cars round Europe, while their friends bond back home. This is not to say that men don't miss their friends, nor that women are incapable of being alone, simply that on average young girls value friendships more, whereas men value status and competition more, relatively speaking. There's a lot of evidence that this is the case. So I think that women are simply making a choice not to become F1 drivers, or anything else that makes one's life unbalanced for long periods of time, and as far as I can see, it should be men who learn from the common sense of the opposite sex!

[Quiet One 15]

I don't either, but since we're talking about it, and I'm waiting for dinner..... Let X represent some task that humankind can perform, making dinner for example. Then almost always, some men are better at X than others. Presumably there is a distribution of ability at X that will roughly follow a normal distribution. The same will likely be true for women. It is not always the case that the average ability, nor the spread of abilities, will be the same between the sexes. In football for example, explosive power from muscles is very important, so women's average ability will be much lower at football. This isn't the case so much with F1, though I think men will still have a higher average ability, but even when ability distributions are similar, inclination distributions might not be.

Young girls don't want to spend all their childhoods racing cars round Europe, while their friends bond back home. This is not to say that men don't miss their friends, nor that women are incapable of being alone, simply that on average young girls value friendships more, whereas men value status and competition more, relatively speaking. There's a lot of evidence that this is the case. So I think that women are simply making a choice not to become F1 drivers, or anything else that makes one's life unbalanced for long periods of time, and as far as I can see, it should be men who learn from the common sense of the opposite sex!

Are you serious?

[Max Mosley 2]

Yes, why?

[Quiet One 15]

I am never sure if you are being serious or is just another display of the (in)famous British humour.

Ok, let's just say we disagree a lot! :lo:

[Max Mosley 2]

Well it's a bit of both I suppose - I do like winding this forum up, it has to be said.

Anyway, we can agree to disagree, but I do think it's pretty uncontroversial to say there are differences between teenage boys and girls. Any good parent ought to be aware of them! This is another classic issue where society has been indoctrinated to think that all the differences are down to nurture, rather than nature, whereas modern science has made that untenable, but can't say it openly for PC reasons!

[Magus Perde 0]

I don't know why we can't take football as an example here. There are now many womens clubs and a good proportion are very professional, what's to say that womens' F1 wouldn't be just as professional? I would definitely watch it!

[Quiet One 15]

Well it's a bit of both I suppose - I do like winding this forum up, it has to be said.

I know you like winding this forum up, you flamer

Anyway, we can agree to disagree, but I do think it's pretty uncontroversial to say there are differences between teenage boys and girls.

I mentioned the sexual dimorphism in my first post about this subject. Men and women are different, there is no denial about that. The point is: which differences matter and which don't in regards with a specific issue? (In this case, F1). Differences are mostly physical and cultural. Physical are given by nature. Cultural don't.

Women are usually more fragile physically than men. Probably no woman will be able to set a world weightlifting record than no man can match. That's sexual dimorphism. That's nature.

Girls are more interested in playing with dolls than boys. That's cultural. When I was young, if you showed even the tiniest hint of interest in your manicure, being a man, you would have been beaten to death. Nowadays is rather common (not for me, I would still beat to death any guy that talks about his manicure ). Formula 1 was up until last year not for black people. For one side, because F1 didn't seemed too eager to hire black drivers. For the other, you could argue that black sportsmen usually veered towards other sports, like boxing, or the NBA. Does that mean that they should not compete in F1? That they are "more naturally inclined to boxing and the NBA" than to F1? I don't think so.

Again, I think we are just rationalizing prejudices here.

[pabloh20 1]

I know you like winding this forum up, you flamer

I mentioned the sexual dimorphism in my first post about this subject. Men and women are different, there is no denial about that. The point is: which differences matter and which don't in regards with a specific issue? (In this case, F1). Differences are mostly physical and cultural. Physical are given by nature. Cultural don't.

Women are usually more fragile physically than men. Probably no woman will be able to set a world weightlifting record than no man can match. That's sexual dimorphism. That's nature.

Girls are more interested in playing with dolls than boys. That's cultural. When I was young, if you showed even the tiniest hint of interest in your manicure, being a man, you would have been beaten to death. Nowadays is rather common (not for me, I would still beat to death any guy that talks about his manicure ). Formula 1 was up until last year not for black people. For one side, because F1 didn't seemed too eager to hire black drivers. For the other, you could argue that black sportsmen usually veered towards other sports, like boxing, or the NBA. Does that mean that they should not compete in F1? That they are "more naturally inclined to boxing and the NBA" than to F1? I don't think so.

Again, I think we are just rationalizing prejudices here.

Unless there is a danger of breaking a nail, of course.

[HandyNZL 1]

I think some are missing the point of a womens league (apart from knitting tips )

There is no reason to suggest that a woman can't handle the g-forces, or drive tidy lines, or attack the pitlane, but what is lacking is the confidence to run with the men. This is the same in many many sports. I was very actively involved in the running of mountainbiking in NZ, and we would have say 100-150 women turn up for a race even though they had their own class. However, if it was a womens only race, i.e. no mens division at all - they could only spectate, then we would get 400-500 riders. So why the change in numbers? Having asked many of them, the number one reason seemed to be the aggressive and competitiveness of males that put them off turning up to a "regular" event.

The womens only day's were by far more relaxed. Of course there were still the fifteen or so ultra-competitive women there, and they of course diced it out for the glory, but the rest were there for the participation.

Men always will be competitive by nature so that we win the fight for the mate and don't have to put up with sloppy seconds (historically - these days we do this stuff to win a game, a bet, or a beer). Women, by and large, never will be.

So the environment needs to change for numbers of women in any motorsport class to increase. And that environment needs to be geared towards them, and until they are confident enough to mix it with the boys, then they need their own series' (for instance I only ever knew about a dozen girls in the whole of NZ that would really mix it with the boys out mountainbiking).

So, it's about nuturing women in a way. But the current environment of sink-or-swim doesn't work for women athletes. It's not how they operate. It has nothing to do with their capabilities.

[Kati 0]

what? you saying women are not as competitive as men?! uuuh u know nothing bout us...

[Max Mosley 2]

I know you like winding this forum up, you flamer

You're always keen to calm disputes down. You should have been a mediator or diplomat. (I'd be some war-mongering dictator... or General Chang in Star Trek VI, which you might not like, who loves his Shakespeare and his Armageddon equally.)

I mentioned the sexual dimorphism in my first post about this subject. Men and women are different, there is no denial about that. The point is: which differences matter and which don't in regards with a specific issue? (In this case, F1). Differences are mostly physical and cultural. Physical are given by nature. Cultural don't.

Women are usually more fragile physically than men. Probably no woman will be able to set a world weightlifting record than no man can match. That's sexual dimorphism. That's nature.

Girls are more interested in playing with dolls than boys. That's cultural. When I was young, if you showed even the tiniest hint of interest in your manicure, being a man, you would have been beaten to death. Nowadays is rather common (not for me, I would still beat to death any guy that talks about his manicure ). Formula 1 was up until last year not for black people. For one side, because F1 didn't seemed too eager to hire black drivers. For the other, you could argue that black sportsmen usually veered towards other sports, like boxing, or the NBA. Does that mean that they should not compete in F1? That they are "more naturally inclined to boxing and the NBA" than to F1? I don't think so.

Again, I think we are just rationalizing prejudices here.

Yeah I know you do! But I think the situation is more complicated. For example, not all physical differences are purely down to nature. Men tend to play more sports when young, which is probably partly cultural, and getting lots of exercise when you're growing almost certainly has at least some bearing on how you ultimately turn out physically. Conversely, imho not all behavioural differences are purely cultural.

There's really convincing evidence that men and women are different, and think differently. Obviously culture still plays a big role, but no one would deny nowadays that there is a biological component to behaviour. As Kati says, women can be very competitive. In fact, we can predict how competitive they will be based on the stage of their monthly cycle! I find it hard to believe social pressures fluctuate for each and every woman precisely in-step with her individual hormone levels, and I can't imagine any woman denying that her hormones affect her behaviour/mood. Lest anyone think I'm poking fun at women (me?), men's hormones vary over an annual cycle, not to mention our life-cycle, and our behaviour changes in step with that too.

A long and quite thorough summary of research done in the area, written by a woman psychologist, gives all sorts of additional info. For example, by changing hormone levels before a (human or animal) baby is born, and then returning them to "normal" before birth, you can radically affect the baby's preferred type of play/fun after it is born, and its behaviour for the rest of its life.

There are huge physical differences in brain structure between men and women that are as profound as the difference in height between men and women. Why say the muscles on your arms are down to nature, but the one in your skull is entirely down to culture? After all, if most of men and women's bodies evolved slightly differently to specialise in particular roles, it would be bizarre if our minds didn't specialise too, at least to some extent, imho. Nature abhors PC-ness as much as myself.

Also, if gender differences in behaviour are down to culture, how come we see the same pattern throughout the animal kingdom? Male and female rats have been shown (in that summary above for example) to navigate through mazes very differently from each other. Presumably the female rats have not also been socialised to think they can't read maps? (This damn patriarchy gets everywhere - like vermin ho ho ho.) Interestingly there are a few species where males do the child rearing, and in those species we see the gender differences reversed!

Anyway to conclude, I think it's a huge mistake to think that it's a bad thing if women make different choices than men. All the evidence to date suggests (contrary to the PC assumption that was fashionable until very recently) that they probably do so, at least in part, for biological reasons. And most importantly its sexist and damaging to everyone (women too) to assume that traditionally male activities are automatically the way to go. Personally I think it would be better if we could somehow make men behave more like women, rather than the PC reverse.

what? you saying women are not as competitive as men?! uuuh u know nothing bout us...

It's hilarious how little men and women understand about each other, even though we each tell the other the truth (at least some of the time!). I once told Zati that I'd rather have 2 women than 1, and she said in amazement "ewwwwww what kind of man are you?" (I half suspect women just pretend to be shocked though. Haven't figured that one out yet. )