F1′s Missing Heroines

Hey everyone,

I wrote this feature a few weeks back for a university assignment.

Thought some of you might be interested to read it.

It basically discusses the lack of women in F1 and top-level motorsport over the last 20 years, and possible reasons why this might be.

Any feedback or comments would be welcomed.

[danpaddock.wordpress.com]

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

Very well written Dan.

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[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central

Cheers Mal.

Seems like I had a lot of views which is great.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

Some factual corrections: As far as I know, it is perhaps only Israel that put female's in the front line of an organized military, but I am pretty sure they rescinded that in 1948. The Russians experimented with it in WW2, but since dropped it. As far as I know, no other national fighting organization has done this, and I don't know of any that does it today. The US certainly does not!

As to strength, take a look at these charts of strength development:

Strength Tables

If you take a look at exercises like Squat or Deadlift, which target full body strength and thus mimics the strain in an F1 car well, then a female weightlifter of 67 kilos has to reach elite levels to be comparable to a male of 67 kilos of intermediate level. That's the difference between a guy that has worked out in an organized fashion for a couple of years, and a woman that is at the level required for participation in professional strength sports. That would require many, many years of focused training. Not everybody will track according to this table. Some will advance faster, some will advance slower. Some will peak out their genetic potential before they reach elite levels, and some can go beyond. But this shows the massive difference in strength levels between the sexes. It is not something you just "overcome" by tweaking your workout.

Example: Say you pull a 5G braking zone. That means your body is pushed forward at 5 times your weight, and you have to resist that. Say the seat and straps take half of the load. Then leaves a 67 kilo driver to resist 167,5 kilos, which if it is comparable to squats, would require well above advanced training. A woman at the same weight would fall 62,5 kilos short of the task even at elite levels of training.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2013 07:33PM by Morbid.

Morbid schrieb:
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> Example: Say you pull a 5G braking zone. That
> means your body is pushed forward at 5 times your
> weight, and you have to resist that. Say the seat
> and straps take half of the load.

can you elaborate on that statement, please? i would've guessed that seat and straps are designed to withstand much greater forces than the forces that appear during a 5g braking maneuvre.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

That the straps are designed to break at much higher loads does not mean that they actually displace all the load that the human body experiences. Your seat belts don't burst when you crash your car, but they help distribute the load of the impact to places of your body that are better able to deal with them. If we translate this into a braking situation, then you have to tense up in the neck so your head doesn't pull to max extension of the HANS, leaving you looking at your crotch. You'd have to use your back and stomach to resist the pressure from the straps (the back wants to bend forward, stomach wants to collapse and this needs to be resisted, that is if you want to able to breathe and have your inner organs in relative comfort - try putting an 80 kilo weight on your chest and see how it feels). You would still need to keep your foot off the throttle (which means the weight of your leg needs to be restrained against the G pull. Moving the foot aside is probably not possible in the cramped conditions of the survival cell), and you would still need to modulate the brakes with the other foot (which means that leg must be lifted also against the G load, but this time with precision). The most easy task would probably be to grip the steering wheel as your arm would be supported in both ends of the arm (hand on wheel, arm in shoulder socket - like a bench press).

Edit: fixed some typos

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2013 02:23AM by Morbid.

ok, thanks for clearing that up

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Are men really physically stronger than women? The answer is “no” but some explanation is required. While women and men merit equal treatment, their anatomies are different. (We mean “biologically born” women and men here.) Women traditionally retain less fibrous muscle mass in their upper bodies than men who are able to build mass in their upper bodies far more quickly. Yet, even with this fact in mind, women may still gain the requisite upper body muscle mass to dead-lift objects just as successfully as men. For both sexes, intense preparation is required and, as many ladies and gentlemen find out through experience, many men are not as strong in terms of their capacity to dead-lift objects as they may appear. Women and men’s lower bodies are different too, yet here the skeletal and muscular differences have no direct bearing on strength as it is defined in our cultural mythologies. Insofar as women have denser muscle mass in their pelvis, upper leg and lower leg, it may even be the case the women’s ability to hold weight (lifting facilitated by knee bends) may be slightly greater than men’s. To accommodate childbirth, a women’s pelvis structure is roomier (for example, the pubic arch is a right angle in the female and the ischial spines extend out straight from the ischium in women). Despite these subtle distinctions of strength, the cross-cultural myth of male physical strength persists, even though women’ ability to bear great pain in childbirth must certainly rank them as the strongest of them all.

By and large though, I would tend to agree with Morbid ,,,,,,,,,,,,,


" Perfection is not a gift ....... it comes with practice."

Member of R.S.C.T Group



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2013 03:44AM by Isaint.

interesting write-up, thanks Ferrari2007!

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Very well-written and balanced article, nice work!

Susie Wolff is probably the best bet in the near future, and it'll be interesting to see if anyone else comes up the junior formulae at the same time.
Glad that article mentions Vicky Piria. Now I know about her I'll be checking out her... career progress. Hello!

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I read this a couple of days back, but I forgot to say this: great article, Dan! It was well balanced and reasoned.

Personally, I think Beitske Visser is the best bet in the future for an F1 drive, and she's just won her first race of the year in ADAC Formel Masters.

Every time Vicky Piria is mentioned, I have to mention this fact: she and I were born on the same day. Yeah.

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

Good shout on Beitske Visser. If she's got Red Bull backing that's a massive plus for her.

That's rather an awesome Birthday coincidence you've got going on there. But... Yum!

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I think the only place where F1′s Missing Heroines is really miss is a kitchen sink. And Vicky Piria clearly has talent in only one thing - in erotic photoshoots.

Cmon look at the football or basketball or tennis or boxing or whatever any kind of sport (even CHESS)... There's leagues for males and females. So are you ever wondered why it is so? Have you ever wanted to women played in Manchester United? Or do you know any girl who would be able to play on an equal footing with Lebron James and Kobe Bryant? Or you ever wanted Mike Tyson to boxing with your mother-in-law... huh, I wanted but whatever...
Sigh... I'm waiting for the suggestions to men's competitions in speed sewing or dressmaking contest, or the cook the soup contest, or the advertising the bra's contest.
Females have beach volleyball. It's quite enough for them.

___________________________________________________________________________
For a list of EVERY download for GP4, look here:[docs.google.com]

Mr. Soutsen, your world view is offensive and sexist to say the least. This thread on a well written article does not need your comments denigrating women.

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[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central

@Soutsen

Quote
I think the only place where F1′s Missing Heroines is really miss is a kitchen sink.

Your comment is what I would term as 'venomous'. Sad little ignorant boy

Oh come on 'The Addams Family' in the full assembly... Hypocrites!
You've better argue with my postulates or my contentions and not insult me! Did I wrote there a lie? Vicky Piria never participated in the photo-shooting? So it is gonna be me who made the fake images with photoshop. What do you disagree? Well and you two gonna be pleased to watch some female football... Yep, for sure - all the planet enjoys to watch the female Soccer World Cup (sadly in real life nobody knows when it happening. And nobody even cares). And you wanna see the men who wears bra's as the gay parade... HA-HA-HA
TYPICAL RAGEPOST hahaha) I am affraid it's ban for me here today lol))) Cmon this post is all just a joke :-P PEACE AND LOVE EVERYBODY

___________________________________________________________________________
For a list of EVERY download for GP4, look here:[docs.google.com]

I do believe you totally missed the point.
The point of this thread was the article in the first post. It looked at the possible reasons as to why there are too few women participating in F1. Which by the way was a very good read.
Your response was to state that women belonged in front of the kitchen sink, and that they could play beach volleyball. That is a fact.
I am sure that many of the emancipated males here would agree that those words are sexist and derogatory comments and have little place in an intelligent discussion.
It is my view, and no doubt the view of many others, that one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, we will see a woman on the F1 grid. This of course will only happen when people who believe a woman's place is in front of the sink learn something about equality and the rights of women to be treated as equals and not objects.
As for Vicky Piria doing an erotic photo-shoot, so what? More power to her. It certainly doesn't make her any less of a person as far as I'm concerned. She is talented and I wish her luck.
I rest my case.

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[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central

I'd really like to see some medical scientific research that backs this up. Sources, please!

Isaint Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are men really physically stronger than women? The
> answer is “no” but some explanation is
> required. While women and men merit equal
> treatment, their anatomies are different. (We mean
> “biologically born” women and men here.) Women
> traditionally retain less fibrous muscle mass in
> their upper bodies than men who are able to build
> mass in their upper bodies far more quickly. Yet,
> even with this fact in mind, women may still gain
> the requisite upper body muscle mass to dead-lift
> objects just as successfully as men. For both
> sexes, intense preparation is required and, as
> many ladies and gentlemen find out through
> experience, many men are not as strong in terms of
> their capacity to dead-lift objects as they may
> appear. Women and men’s lower bodies are
> different too, yet here the skeletal and muscular
> differences have no direct bearing on strength as
> it is defined in our cultural mythologies. Insofar
> as women have denser muscle mass in their pelvis,
> upper leg and lower leg, it may even be the case
> the women’s ability to hold weight (lifting
> facilitated by knee bends) may be slightly greater
> than men’s. To accommodate childbirth, a
> women’s pelvis structure is roomier (for
> example, the pubic arch is a right angle in the
> female and the ischial spines extend out straight
> from the ischium in women). Despite these subtle
> distinctions of strength, the cross-cultural myth
> of male physical strength persists, even though
> women’ ability to bear great pain in childbirth
> must certainly rank them as the strongest of them
> all.
>
> By and large though, I would tend to agree with
> Morbid ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

Okay can't remember where I saw it .... but will search for it.


" Perfection is not a gift ....... it comes with practice."

Member of R.S.C.T Group

While you search for that, I'll present a layman's article, that is built on research, written by a woman, that contradicts you:

[science.howstuffworks.com]

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2013 04:41PM by Morbid.