logitech104 wrote:why is it that whever they see a girl ride motocross or something "manly", their like WHOA!! NO WAY! - A GIRL?!?!? and then the news is all over it. Like if a girl beat a boy in a race, then he gets made fun of cuz, "he got beat by a
girl.
but still I'm proud of her. Show those men!
hmmm... in my mind your posting actually answers the most important part of the question/rhetorical response you pose. But since I have some time I'll throw a few other words out to es'plain dis perspective... it comes down to awareness really...
Maybe you havent hung around with men who epitomise this "manly" behavior 24/7. I have. It grows old quick, but it continues to filter throughout the population and dilutes very very slowly over time, and some cultures develop slower than others.
All this seems to be similar to racism, etc. People are worried about losing there "place" in the world, i guess. But people change...
I don't find North America as culturally progressive "on the street" as it is on TV
, and some people in Japan and India come to mind as being beacons of warning of the continuance of this behavior. They benefit from it, like in times of slavery in the USA, so without caring about the health, humor and welfare of other people, they find it easy to continue doing it. The men still have huge amounts of control over women in some countries to suppress them into servtitude. It's a cultural thing, like religion, or you might say it's promoted as a religion.. and SOOOOO this news article is a nice sign of changes...
First a little background on this story: You'll notice it's by Roadracing World & Motorcycle Technology, which is one of North America's best known racing publications. They also have run a multi-time championship winning WERA endurance team, raced AMA Superbike, etc., and the owner John Ulrich has been credited with discovering Kevin Schwantz, a Superbike and MotoGP (when it was 500GP) roadracing star
in the 1980's and 1990s, a name synonomous with Suzuki GSXRs, etc.
So this isn't main-stream media that's all over this story, and if you've failed to notice, many men have always had an ego issue getting beat by anyone, especially girls, and especally those macho (read sexist, read close-minded) "manly" competitive types. It's still a rarity in many sports which have been "protected" to keep from hurting men's egos for a longggggg time.
The mainstream are as usual oblivious to the Genuine Article most of the time, and this girl's accomplishments aren't mainstream and thus the attention is well deserved. She's not "riding motocross", but *racing* and winning in EXPERT level in roadraces and SuperMotard on a prep'd RM85. Big difference. To quote from the article, "blasted stereotypes and the rest of the competition to take 3 championship titles aboard her RM 85, one endurance race win and become the youngest female road racer in American history to ever win an 80cc Expert title!"
If you could name 10 (heck even three) other teenage girls in the Staes who can come close to this roadracing accomplishment and support, I'd be very surprised. In Western Canada there are only a couple women racing at local tracks most years and they don't stick around that long (for a variety of reasons). Over 15+ years I've seen less than a half-dozen women who are *reasonably* competitive and all of them were much older than this girl. Realistically not that many have the *killer* instinct (passionate desire and determination) to duke it out like this and win.
The fact that credible miniracing series' across North America have developed in which boys and girls can get the skills and experience is a huge change in the state of roadracing. When she's old enough to race AMA Pro (16) or whatever she chooses next she stands to have a legitimate chance to earn a living at this gig. All cool in my books.
nuf said for today. better off riding
