female drivers in motorsport

[mep]

Regarding the comment of expensive that his wife a psychiatrist analyses us I think we should have a threat to discuss the role of female drivers in motorsport.

Why are there so few female drivers?
How does a female driver affect his male rivals?

Some machos might feel bad when they got beaten by them.
Some others might be just very kind to assist the helpless females.

Yea I know these high professional bla bla bla don't care bla bla bla.....
Deep inside them it will all look different.

(@xpensive: Please give your wife a own account here, she should be free to speak )

[WhiteBlue]

F1 drivers need a superior sense of spatial relationships, eye to hand coordination and reaction time. All three abilities are statistically more prevalent in the male than in the female form of the homo sapiens species. Naturally you find extremely gifted females that individually stick out from the average but their numbers are far lower than those of the extremely gifted males. So no big surprise that the Legges, Patricks and Lombardies are fewer than the Sennas, Schumachers, Prosts, Fangios, Clarks, Villeneuves, Rindts and Rosemeyers.

[xpensive]

F1 drivers need a superior sense of spatial relationships, eye to hand coordination and reaction time. All three abilities are statistically more prevalent in the male than in the female form of the homo sapiens species.

To quote yourself WB, source please, unless you wish to have my mistress' wrath coming down on you like a ton of bricks?

[marcush.]

in all honesty ,I don´t buy this.

I´d think it is more than anything buried in our life as such that boys are playing with cars and technical stuff ,are allowed to try themselves etc whereas the girls are directed into that princess scheme..for whatever reason. It may even be useful for the species yes but I would not think for a single moment that girls are less clever in anticipation or coordination two major points separating average drivers from outstanding ones.
Is it taking risks and chances what separates the boys from the girls? My daughter is much more confident when you can´t see any reason for it.. so I believe all this is myth and not very helpful .

What is fact: alot less women and girls get involved in motorsport ,maybe just because they have different priorities ,or they simply are kept away from it ..and just because of this the chances to find somebody really gifted is reduced dramatically just as you could say:there is not a single top driver coming from Iceland or Jemen ... and draw conclusions out of this wich are simply a farce.

If you are not aware and somehow stumbled upon the fascinations of matorsports
you are quite unlikely to get attracted by it and even less so if there is not a half chance to get involved ...

But for sure as a female driver it is much easier to find a drive and sponsorship without being a mega talent

[Giblet]

Boys are given Lego when they are kids, girls are given Barbie dolls.

Which one of those two puts a person into a more mechanical sense in life? Which might sooner steer a person towards the love of the automobile, where can often lead to motor sports?

[WhiteBlue]

F1 drivers need a superior sense of spatial relationships, eye to hand coordination and reaction time. All three abilities are statistically more prevalent in the male than in the female form of the homo sapiens species.

To quote yourself WB, source please, unless you wish to have my mistress' wrath coming down on you like a ton of bricks?

1.Carol A. Lawton, Gender differences in way-finding strategies: Relationship to spatial ability and spatial anxiety
Sex Roles, Springer Netherlands,ISSN 0360-0025 (Print) 1573-2762 (Online), Volume 30, Numbers 11-12 / Juni 1994

2. http://www.selah.k12.wa.us/soar/sciproj ... sicam.html

3. Adam JJ, Paas FG, Buekers MJ, Wuyts IJ, Spijkers WA, Wallmeyer P.,
Gender differences in choice reaction time: evidence for differential strategies.
Ergonomics. 1999 Feb;42(2):327-35.

Boys are given Lego when they are kids, girls are given Barbie dolls. Which one of those two puts a person into a more mechanical sense in life? Which might sooner steer a person towards the love of the automobile, where can often lead to motor sports?

Giblet, in the Schumacher come back thread you posted a table that shows female reaction time to light and sound stimuli much slower across all age groups than male.


Even more interesting than the recent scientific results is the following link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/y26686l6q46282u7/

To test the hypothesis that the magnitude of sex differences in simple visual reaction time (RT) has narrowed across time, a meta-analysis was conducted on 72 effect sizes derived from 21 studies (n=15,003) published over a 73-year period. The analysis provided strong evidence for the hypothesized change. .. Two factors–-participation in fast-action sports and driving–-are proposed as having been responsible for the decrease in the magnitude of the sex differences in simple visual RT across time.

We can conclude from the evidence that there are gender differences due to evolutionary gender roles. With the practise of women participating in fast reaction sports and driving cars the gender differences are being leveled over time. So in some years the differences found in men and women might become much smaller.

[marcush.]

is reaction time a key to being a quick and famous driver? not sure.
I always had the impression that on raw ability to drive a car quick some maybe more gifted but to keep it on the road when it counts is a far more important ability if you want to be WDC.Jean Alesi,Gilles Villeneuve spring to mind.Also the ability to engineer your career -see Niki Lauda,Michael Schumacher,Mika Hakkinen is something you just have to have...Coulthard ,Berger, Patrese,Trulli,Barrichello all lag or lagged in that area or might say they had bad luck .No.You create your luck .

[ISLAMATRON]

keep them in the kitchen not the cockpit

cooking in high heels and a two piece bikini

[WhiteBlue]

is reaction time a key to being a quick and famous driver? not sure.
I always had the impression that on raw ability to drive a car quick some maybe more gifted but to keep it on the road when it counts is a far more important ability if you want to be WDC.Jean Alesi,Gilles Villeneuve spring to mind.Also the ability to engineer your career -see Niki Lauda,Michael Schumacher,Mika Hakkinen is something you just have to have...Coulthard ,Berger, Patrese,Trulli,Barrichello all lag or lagged in that area or might say they had bad luck .No.You create your luck .

I think that reaction times matter. Most commentators in the Schumacher age thread thought so. I repeat the table here.



It suggests that on average women react 13% slower to visual stimuli.

Even more important is the proper reaction to dynamic spatial relationships and the confidence you have in dealing with that. If you exit the pit lane accelerating and you see two cars on the start finish straight (a back marker being lapped and a competitor) it is a very difficult task to correctly call that situation immediately with good accuracy. The research suggests that currently women are neither as good as men nor as comfortable as men doing such things.

keep them in the kitchen not the cockpit

cooking in high heels and a two piece bikini

Naugty boy, Islamatron! Are you Bernie in disguise? He compared women to household appliances.

[marcush.]

to all of my knowledge no top driver will rely on his reactions to drive fast .I well remember word from Gerhard Berger about the turbo generation in F1 in qualyfying when he stated :It was not possible to react to anything these beasts did ..you sort of had to anticipate what was going to happen quite a while before things actually did ..only this way it was possible for him to handle these cars at qualy power levels..
Senna seemed to be extra gifted in this .

one of my drivers told me once .handling traffic is like quickchess ..you just have to take anything into account what si going to happen in the next corners ,taking into account the competitors ,you know what they will do as you have studied them,and you give your input to trigger events as you want things to happen..
bagged two championships with him

any female chessmasters around???? that one makes me think...

[andrew]

I don't need anyone to read my comments. I know I'm certifiable!

I take this view, if a person is good enough to be in F1 then they should be and have every right to be in F1. If they are not good enough, then they shouldn't be in F1. Race, colour, creed, religion, sex, hairstyles, planet of origin are all irrelevent.

[ISLAMATRON]

@WB on BE:Yes I remember that, it was terrible, but quite funny.

women just dont have what it takes to be top level drivers.... but who says they should... they were not designed by the creator for that purpose, just as the sun was not designed to be a comfortable vacation spot.

[WhiteBlue]

Why is it that air forces typically retire their fighter pilots at age 42? The most significant physical ability that they loose with age seems to be reaction time.

[andrew]

@WB on BE:Yes I remember that, it was terrible, but quite funny.

women just dont have what it takes to be top level drivers.... but who says they should... they were not designed by the creator for that purpose, just as the sun was not designed to be a comfortable vacation spot.

Eh? I tought the "creator" (if you choose to believe in that) created everyone in his own image or something like that.

Male or female is irrelevant for all jobs.

[marcush.]

Why is it that air forces typically retire their fighter pilots at age 42? The most significant physical ability that they loose with age seems to be reaction time.

in army almost anyone will be retired at a fairly early age as far as I know..and it will not stop you competing at reno air race as long as you are able to pass the medical test.
I understand that you will be retired after using the ejector seat more than once?
would be a similarity to drivers losing their edge after big shunts?