Wow this is depressing.
When I was a kid, I beat one of my peers at the 50 yard dash. & He challenged me to race his older (by a year) cousin, who I also beat.
& Then I was told, by my teacher, that beating boys wasn’t something girls did. & Yes, it did kinda take the fun out of running for me; I stopped running competitively within a year or so.
& I’ve watched my nieces grow up & kick ass in sports, and it made my heart proud to hear about them getting a face full of mud in order to steal third. But then I read something like this & I wonder, at the heart of it, how much has really changed.
“Danica Patrick is in a category by herself since she competes against men. She is not even close to being the best in her sport, having won just one race, but got her endorsements before she won anything. She also has posed for SI, FHM and Maxim and is more celebrated for her good looks than her ability to drive a car.”
It depends on who you ask. She is on this weeks’ cover of Sports Illustrated. All of the pictures show her in her racing suit. The only skin she showed were her face and hands–and in one picture she had on zero make-up, a requirement when she’s driving. The story about her was totally about her racing–and how close she is to winning the Indy 500. There wasn’t one single word about how hot she looks.
but that’s quite a huge difference than before. her winning a race probably helped, hopefully.