The 1956 Italian Grand Prix was won by Stirling Moss, followed by Fangio and Collins, who handed over the car to Fangio during a pit stop. There’s a fun fact for you whenever you get questioned about the authenticity of your F1 fandom again. As a woman, you probably have been. How dare you not know about every single race winner in the 20th century. Have men been questioned about their sport fandom as much as women? Research says no.
I found a book about the phenomenon of women sport fandom, called “Women Sport Fans. Identification, Participation, Representation” by Kim Toffoletti.1 Turns out, the above mentioned phenomenon is one that has been discussed in social sciences for a long time. I will apply our dear friend Kim’s research to F1.
It all starts with the beginning of sport fandom. Sport fandom has long been seen as the natural domain of men. It has been for men, and it still pretty much is for men. Men have decided the norms for what it means to be a sport fan. White, heterosexual masculine fandom is the norm. This type of fandom includes knowing facts and numbers, attending games (or races, which as a norm is classist too, attending races is expensive), prioritising watching sport over other social activities, and an (aggressive) commitment to one team. Every fan that does not fit into these forms of fandom is seen as inauthentic, but, even if a woman does display all these characteristics, just because she is a woman, she is immediately scrutinised. By virtue of being men, their sport fan credentials are rarely scrutinised. Have some slightly controversial F1 opinion as a woman on Twitter and you can bet not even three minutes later you have been called a “DTS fan”, of course the worst insult in the book. A woman being an authentic motorsport fan? Maybe, just maybe, if she follows this rulebook that’s thicker than the one the FIA uses for the races. She definitely can’t post selfies though.
It’s not just individual fans reinforcing those stereotypes. After Toffoletti wrote about how she did a google search to “female sport fans”, I did the same. I googled “female F1 fans”. Some cute pictures turned up, of women on the grandstand or taking pictures with their favourite drivers. Not even five pictures later, 40% of the pictures were of grid girls. Women are not just a consumer of sport, they’re also an object to be consumed. I know, among women as well, the opinions about grid girls are divided. Maybe some see them as empowerment, something DTM tried to sell to us in 2020, with their “power girls”. I’m not buying it. A search of “male F1 fans” did not result in pictures of men in short shorts, just grandstands full of fans, stats and memes. No grid boys.
What do we do with this ‘othering’ of women, this exclusion, that does not only exist within fandom culture, but also when Italian F4 has pink trophies for the two girls driving in it, or when Emma Kimiläinen (granted, it was 11 years ago) was asked to pose topless in order to get an IndyLights seat? How do we make journalists see that Norris fans are not all interested in if he has a girlfriend, but like him for, sure also his personality, but definitely his amazing racecraft? I don’t have the answer. Kim Toffoletti doesn’t either. But she knows that there are women creating spaces for themselves, both as women groups, and within these male spaces (on social media). Women are taking pleasure out of questioning the norm. We’re here, we love F1, F2, Indycar, FE, all sorts of motorsport championships. In 2019, F1’s former Director of Marketing and Communications, Ellie Norman, revealed that 44% of the fanbase in that year was female.2 The drivers and teams may not look like us yet, but we’ve invaded the fandom and we will not be stopped.
1 Women Sport Fans. Identification, Participation, Representation by Kim Toffoletti
2 https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/life/work/ellie-norman-659716