It’s a Guy Thing: The Experience of Women in Canadian Sports Car Competition

Abstract

Jane Jenkins laughed when she related that childʼs remark to me. As a history professor, she is now in her element in the classroom. But as a college student herself, she had been equally at home behind the wheel of a Datsun 240Z, hurling the car through a twisty slalom course. In 1986 she was the Saskatoon Sports Car Clubʼs Rookie of the Year in auto slalom racing. Professor Jenkins was not the only or the fi rst woman to race a car in Canada. Many Canadian women have been involved in all aspects of auto sport since the dawn of the twentieth century. That said, relative to men, few of them competed and none have yet made it to the top: Indy Car or Formula One. So that childʼs reaction to Jane as “racer” was understandable and common. Our society does not naturally assume that women do car racing. Likewise, the scholarly and popular literature on women in sport is extensive, but there is little on their role in auto sport. Why, then, is it so hard to conjure up the image of the female racer? Because, like the so-called mainstream stick and ball sports, auto sport is overwhelmingly a male activity, played by men and almost exclusively run by men. Until very recently, all of its “superstars” have been men. The primary audience is young men, and the sponsors (automakers, breweries, and tobacco companies, for example) tailor their advertising to appeal to that market. And above all, auto sport uses the quintessentially male technology: the car. Sports cars, in particular, have been promoted as “toys for boys.” In short, “Itʼs a guy thing.” In that respect, it differs little from other sports. Still, to leave the story at that would be a “double fault.” First, the social portrait of the sport would be incomplete. Second, and more important, it would not do justice to the many women who refused to be constrained by prevailing attitudes and who successfully broke into what was otherwise an exclusively male activity. The historical record makes an important point: that women have competed—and excelled—at all levels and