As you may know or not know, last week Danica Patrick won an Indy 500 series car race. It was the Japan 300, making her the first woman to win a major car race. Two years ago she won the pole at the Indy 500 and finished fourth, both firsts for women. After the race she became very emotional, understanably so, I think. In post race comments she apologizes for her emotions and said she got "a little girly". What bothers me is not her crying and becoming emotional, but the fact that she has to characterize her actions and put a label on them. Now I like Danica Ptrick and think she is a terrific driver, but why do women in male dominated sports feel a need to explain things like their emotions. We have seen Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan both cry when winning championships, both after the recent deaths of their fathers. I don't think they needed to apologized for their reactions. The recent winner of the Masters golf tournament, Trevor Immelamn of South Africa, also was emotional after winning this major golf tournament. NO aplogies by calling themselves "girly".
My question is do we still have to characterize emotions by women in situations such as this and put a gender beside their behavior. Could she have just said "I got emotional" or "my emotions got the best of me" and left it at that. How many of us look down on her, or any other person who has accomplished something like this and become emotional???
6 comments:
I agree, Danica could have said "oh, I got a little emotional," and left it at that. I don't believe she should have apologized for crying and "being girly!" Everyone cries!!!
The same situation happened with Hillary Clinton, when her voice cracked in a speech and she became emotional. Then all the news headlines came out that a woman president would be too emotional.
I don't understand why women have to be attacked for having emotions. Men have them too, but often neglect and overlook them because they're not masucline to have them!!!!! Come on, society!!!
While I believe Danica's comment should have been inherently unnecessary, I think that her reasoning behind the statement was the fact that she is still the minority in a male dominated sport. This means she needs to overcompensate for the fact that she is a female by being even more "masculine" to fit in. Thus, she apologized for her venture into "female behavior" because it drew attention back to the fact that she is in fact female when I believe she probabl wants to be recognized for being a great race car driver...not a great female race car driver.
to be completely honetst sports are viewed as a masculine domain. Like you said Tiger cried after he won after he father had recently deceased. Danica's accomplishment is one for the books, but she has to mask her behavior as girly, because winning alone shouldn't make you cry in the sports world. To add on another separate note, do you think she would have been admitted into the world of racing if she hadn't been so attractive. It sounds quite shallow to say, but if you look at every woman athlete who gets sponsors and advertisement deals, and are considered the top of their sport are always quite attractive? Amanda Beard(the swimmer), Maria Sharipova(tennis), I honestly believe if female athletes weren't attractive beyond normal standards, they wouldn't make it in the world of sports as popular as they have.
I think blogger 372 made a great point about wanting Patrick to be recognized in a male-dominated sport. I however would contend that distinguishing herself in this primarily exlusive male field if noting elsecreates publicity. Whether this is accomplished by getting emotional, or expressing her feelings it serves the purpose of drawing more attention to her as a female in this hypermasculine cocentrated sport. Fair or not, I think it's great for bringing popularity to the track, reaching a different demongraphic than it might otherwise.
I don't think that you can say that "every" female that gets an endorsement is "attractive". Did you ever see Billie Jean King or Msartina Navratilova, they had plenty of sponsors and quite frankly neither one of them is all that attractive. Sure it doesn't hurt, but if your that good, the endorsements will come, even in our society obsessed with looks. But I do think in Danica Patrick's case they have played up her attractiveness-both her and her sponsors(both racing and advertising). They all have benefitted.
I feel that it is perfectly normal for both male and female to get emotional in situations such as these. Who wouldn't after working so hard for something? In my opinion there is NEVER a need to apologize for emotions..it's a part of being human being!
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