My angle is surely sound.
If no-one made a thing of grid girls for twenty years and they just remained or even appeared on some tracks, but not others, then this would not make an impact at all.
Just because something has been around for a long time that doesn't mean it's the best way of doing things. I don't even need to
begin to provide examples of that being the case.
If F1 had a problem with what the grid girls contributed to the sport why didn't they attempt to expand the role they did rather than banning them. It's almost like F1 is reinforcing the much mistaken belief that they were good for little else. I guess women who don't do much should be done away with then?! That's going to send a great message to all the girls watching the sport, now there are NO women on the screen!
Sure - let's have them all changing the tyres. I'd be happy with that, but maybe they've been exclusively hired for their looks, and maybe that's the
entire discussion here?
I absolutely understand what your saying but is being a grid girl such an undesirable thing? There's this sentiment that it's somehow a disappointment that someone's daughter ends up doing it. It's a serious role that has opened the doors for many girls to build into all sorts of things, not just modelling.
You're missing my point.
If someone's daughter wants to grow up and make use of their looks to get a job, more power to them. But that role shouldn't necessarily be the prominent role of women in the sport - which it is right now (all the people screaming CLAIRE WILLIAMS! should probably consider how little she's really featured on an average F1 programme. Perhaps if the team was winning every race she'd be more prominent, but we're still talking about a fairly small thing here).
And to state the obvious, not everyone has the looks to become a grid girl. We're talking about a pretty small sub-section of society here yet it represents the biggest role for women in the sport.
Just through being in that environment and meeting the right people there is the potential to move across into the sport in a more hands on capacity such as being in team staff where you see quite a few women. If you enjoy the sport I would say working in it in any capacity should make you happy and proud, seeing grid girls should make girls watching feel proud.
This seems a bit disingenuous. How many grid girls really go from standing there looking pretty to some important role within the industry? Like...
really?
TV shouldn't be the only conduit for their aspiration. Yes there is gender inequity on TV, underrepresentation all over the shop (now even more thanks to F1) but as a parent kids need to know that there are plenty of things going on off camera that offer maybe a better angle or way into that sport. Also you should be honest and explain to them that things still have a way to go in certain areas but there are always the trailblazers that make it happen.
While I fully support any parent convincing their child that while things are crappy for them now that they could be the one to change that state of affairs, that message is easier to reinforce if the barriers to entry aren't so high in the first place.
You either forgot about or are choosing to discredit all the female mechanics, team leaders/principals, drivers, presenters, interviewers and so on, there are numerous high ranking, prestigious jobs other than and arguably better than being a grid girl.
I didn't "forget", because of course there are.
But this
entire conversation I've been using the term "high profile". How much screen time to F1's female mechanics get? How obvious actually is it that there are any women in the sport at all beyond those who stand on the grid holding race numbers or smiling at the winning drivers on the way to the podium?
The only retorts people have had have been a bunch of female drivers that aren't even in F1, and CLAIRE WILLIAMS!!!11! who, while a great role model, did have the benefit of getting into the sport because her dad founded the team and still doesn't get a lot of screen time because the team isn't doing that great in the first place. (And also probably won't be around for a bit anyway given she's recently had a baby).
As for firing them all, couldn't they have just adjusted the outfits and/or their job roles? Nobody deserves to just lose their job without having done anything wrong, in any industry, at least give them something else to do. I really can't agree with "They'll easily get another job" comments, that's just avoiding the matter. Losing any job can be depressing, I can't see why they'd need to put anyone through a harder time when there are other less drastic solutions available.
It's funny that several of you are suggesting F1 find them some other role. I'm sure they would if they could but they have
literally been hired for their looks. That is what a grid girl
is and that's the root of the whole debate here. The entire role of the grid girl is to add some glamour to the sport with attractive females.
It's not like there are a bunch of tyre engineers and aerodynamicists going spare so the sport might as well dress them in fancy clothes and send them out to stand in front of the cars...
I seem to remember the name Claire Williams for some reason, you know...
Could be a pointer to the 'role models' nonsense, but could be nothing.
I'm sure you're merely being facetious calling something quite important like role models "nonsense", but sure, she's F1's one role model that isn't a grid girl. I'm sure we're good to go from there.
I'd take her to a race and get her to meet some of the grid-girls and other women in the sport. Touring car races are friendly enough places, and there are plenty of women that are there in other capacities. I'd then see if that sparked her interest. Perhaps then some of the grid-girls could explain their entirely worthwhile full-time jobs, part-time jobs, or studies that are not related to standing around in lycra holding stuff, and how it's just a fun experience and a way to earn a couple of hundred quid extra from time to time... I mean, you could wait for the media to do that for you, I guess - but if you take her now, it'll be free entry, in a few years, it'll cost!
It's odd that people think the media has no role to play in this whole thing and it's solely on the shoulders of my hypothetical parent to inspire the hypothetical little girl. I'd fully support parents taking kids to races to meet those in and around the sport, but there's so much more to it than that. Grid girls may well have other roles, they might be doing a degree in engineering at university and holding race numbers to help cover the costs (though anyone at that stage in life would surely be an intern in one of the pit garages at a BTCC meet rather than standing on the grid in lycra, but I digress), but it doesn't take much to look around the sport and see that virtually everyone in it doing something exciting is a bloke.
It's a long-term thing. No grid girls today doesn't mean more female mechanics, drivers etc in the sport tomorrow, but it may well be the first step to giving women a less aesthetic role in the sport in future.
True, but there's nothing wrong with being a model either.
I didn't say there was. The entire point is that models are currently the sport's defining female role - not the drivers.
So the opinions of the grid girls themselves don't matter, interesting.
Nor did I say that. It's undoubtedly a shame that some very pretty people will lose the opportunity to stand on some tarmac for a couple of days a year (among all the other worthwhile things they apparently do according to some of you) but their individual loss for those couple of days a year for the few years they're attractive enough to get the gig (I hope nobody thinks being a grid girl is a lifetime career? Just to be clear on that...) comes at the potential benefit for generations of women that follow.
Unfortunately true. So why not try steering daughters in the direction of race engineers and other things?
Because it starts with the daughters themselves.
My hypothetical eight-year-old might grow up not to be interested in F1 at all and go on to do something else entirely. It's not really right for her parent to steer her in the direction of something she might not want to do. But if she does want to get into motorsport in some capacity, it's undoubtedly a better environment for her to do so than if she can see that her best chance of getting into the industry as a women (and only if she's pretty at that) is to be a grid girl.
That's my entire argument here. The potential benefits of grid girls not being the female representation in F1 outweigh the negatives of men seeing a bit less thigh on TV.
Hold on a second because I'm having trouble comprehending this. I mean, sure I can see this argument coming from some of the people who live in an F1 cocoon, but you're not one of those people. Those names I listed have done far more than hover around the top flight, they are the top flight.
Brittany Force is the 2017 NHRA Top Fuel Champion.
Courtney Force and Leah Pritchett are regular contenders in the same series.
Christina Nielsen has won the past 2 GTD championships and finished 2nd the season before (and she missed 2 races that year!).
Leena Gade is the first female race engineer to win Le Mans and will be doing the same job for James Hinchcliffe in IndyCar this year.
Now will any of them still be around in 5 years, who knows. But I find your undervaluing of their accomplishments far more damaging than any grid girl.
I'm not undervaluing their accomplishments. It's quite appropriate for the argument in fact that I'd not heard of most of them before that post - it's illustrative of the fact that you basically have to go out of your way to find women who are actually anywhere near the top level. Winning in drag racing is pretty cool, but I'm sure you'll appreciate that F1's profile is vastly, vastly bigger worldwide than drag racing, which is why we're discussing it at all.
So in other words...
You can either sit on the sidelines and wait for change to come, at which point it will probably be too late for your daughter. Or you can nurture her interest and let her be the trailblazer.
No! You've literally turned an argument with shades of grey back into one of black and white.
Of course parents should nurture their kids, but that's much easier to do if the general zeitgeist is gives them a more positive environment in which to do so. Telling your kid they can do anything in life and them then seeing very much otherwise on TV is a lot more to fight against than telling your kid they can do anything and them not seeing that their only role in a sport they enjoy is an aesthetic one.
I'm done here. Have a nice night.
