Only tangentially Women's Day related, car and planelopnik:

"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile)
03/07/2014 at 14:32 • Filed to: None

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Aerospace engineer, SCCA racer, first woman to compete at the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 ('77). Danica? Pffft. It's also Janet's birthday today.

DISCUSSION (11)

For Sweden > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/07/2014 at 14:34

Celebrating Women's Day

Booing Danica

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > For Sweden
03/07/2014 at 14:39

I'm always up for engineers who broke into racing in a Jag over thems what are whineypants.

For Sweden > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/07/2014 at 14:41

Being whineypants is what racing drivers do.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > For Sweden
03/07/2014 at 14:45

I'm less booing Danica than snorting at her. OH HAI GUYS SHE'S BREAKING INTO THE MALE-DOMINATED NASCAR WORLD

...35 years late.

That being said, I'd like to see the jockey rule come into play in US motorsport more: builders deciding to prioritize varyingly driver weight vs. driver strength and with a very wide range of competitors and appeal.

For Sweden > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/07/2014 at 14:45

I'll go tell Danica she's bad because she wasn't born decades ago.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > For Sweden
03/07/2014 at 14:48

Time traveling would instantly put her in my cool book instead of my "meh" book, I'll admit.

I do like the Force daughters, but Danica meh.

yamahog > For Sweden
03/07/2014 at 15:00

Doncha know, women are only cool when men approve of what they do and how they do it?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > yamahog
03/07/2014 at 15:38

Janet Guthrie was far more against the grain in her time than DP, and raised a lot of opposition, to the point A.J. Foyt of all people stuck his neck out for her. I was more "Pfft"ing people who ooh and ah over her than "Pfft"ing Danica herself- holding up Danica as the Great Heroine of the Way Forward is a superficial thing to do if you forget who came before... Isn't that the point of IWD, or any sort of similar holiday, to recognize contributions overlooked?

Janet Guthrie was a hard-set professional like many of her age - nobody was holding her up as eye candy, really, like the modern sport does now more than ever for both sexes. Isn't it supposed to be more about, if you'll pardon me, who people are and what they do rather than what people are and who they do?

If people took my comment as "women in racing suck unless I arbitrarily approve of them", it couldn't be further from the truth.

yamahog > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/07/2014 at 16:09

I just don't see why an otherwise wonderful tribute needs to bring another woman down by comparison and reinforce the toxic assumption that women always have to be cutthroat rivals. Maybe I'm jumping at my own micro-aggressions here, but just last night in jiu jitsu, a new woman came to class. So many of the guys were coming up to me (only other woman) asking me if I was going to be jealous or beat her up or whatever. Seriously? No, I trained with her as I know the feeling of being new and picked last and new girls are often less comfortable rolling around with strange sweaty dudes in pajamas right off the bat. Me being there first doesn't make her anything to be scoffed at.

I don't mean to pick on you because it clearly wasn't your intention and I do appreciate your post, but I just wanted to explain why a quick offhand comment wasn't sitting well with me.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > yamahog
03/07/2014 at 16:40

I need to find a way to "pfft" the Danica Cult for being a trifle ridiculous without *needing* to make it an issue of example/counterexample, since it was never meant as more than an aside in this post. The post was *supposed* to be about Janet. I have no personal sentiment that women have to be cutthroat rivals, but as an observation, when relatively isolated in a field - if they have a following - the fandoms of those women often are cutthroat on their behalf. Probably more blatantly so with the male elements of a fandom, and it's rare to see the reversal version (c.f. Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, mostly an anomaly).

No, I meant nothing by it outside "Those drooling after the Wonderful Danica Patrick® for no other reason than WO-MAN! WO-MAN! please be to growing up" as I was trying to say "grown ups" should not remember Danica to the detriment of Janet Guthrie. Trying to critique (in my mind) the sort of "room for only one woman on the stage" tendency one encounters, which I suppose is ironic compared to how it evidently came across.

For Sweden was right in that being popularly foibled as Danica has as "not hard enough" is degrading specifically if attributed to her being a woman, and male drivers are "whiney" in record number above and beyond Danica, but then, I'm not rooting for those dudes either... I can't be made to care in any such case, regardless the gender, about the driver, but I will admit to her fandom getting on my nerves once or twice just like her "sux because woman" Detract Club. Shut up and let 'em race. Hopefully they also will shut up - Kimi I'm looking at you.

I don't get the whole "let's you and her fight" you experienced, but I'm not a highly competitive guy, so sublimated competition urge of that kind is a solid "meh".

DrJohannVegas > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/07/2014 at 17:05

Go Blue! Guthrie is a full-bore badass.