To ask what you think about 'Grid Girls' no longer being used?

[Sallystyle]

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/42890261

I think it is a great thing.

Some people on my FB clearly don't.

To put it another way.

Should the F1 bosses who have made this decision, be forced to keep the grid girls just because the girls still want to do it?

I used to think grid girls & pole dancing and all that stuff was about freedom & taking advantage of wanders with too much money. But I've grown up to see it's not.

That's about the individual, zoom out & look at how women are treated in the street, in the workplace, sometimes in their own homes.

We are all taught insidiously that women are there to prop up men & make them happy - by looking nice, taking up as little space as possible, making their home comfortable, acquiescing to their needs and listening rather than speaking. Not just being ourselves & living how we want.

Grid girls are some of the most literal examples of this. Silent, pretty umbrella holders for the facilitation of men. Of course individual grid girl would be fine with it - it acknowledges her attractiveness, she gets paid, gets exposure, gets a good day out - I understand all that. But it's hollow and supports up the idea that women are merely props, in a world built for men.

Feminists didn't make this choice, but of course we would feel it's an acknowledgement of what we've been trying to say for years.

Lastindancing i think you summed that up really well. That's exactly how I feel and why I'm pleased about this.

It's about the bigger picture.

Perfectly put lastdancing

I don't care either way, seriously. But would you all feel comfortable with banning the burkha or the face covering, because it shows and standardises an image of women that is so the product of patriarchy it is sickening?
It is the other side of the coin. I know what I think, and I support my country on that, but I appreciate that the UK has a different opinion, quite well argued also.

Completely agree. How many other sports can you think of that have an equivalent? And 'girls'. Urgh. Indian cricket.
qz.com/401901/confessions-of-an-american-cheerleader-in-indias-glitzy-cricket-league/

Hopefully their owners will follow
Suite derxa

Olafrenchmimt again, grid girls haven't been banned. A company decision has been taken not to use them.

It's not really comparable to banning the burqa. Nobody is banning the grid girls from wearing nice dresses and cropped tops.

My understanding is that Islam doesn't require women to wear a burqa, it is people own interpretation. I imagine that there are cultural pressures on many women.

While I don't want to ban anyone from wearing what they want, I'd be happier if we lived in a society where women were truly free to wear what they really wanted, with no pressure to appease men.

“I don't care either way, seriously. But would you all feel comfortable with banning the burkha or the face covering, because it shows and standardises an image of women that is so the product of patriarchy it is sickening?“

I’m afraid I don’t understand this- could you explain a bit more? Banning the burqua because it standardises an image of women?

I don't see the problem. No one is making the girls do it and if they want to why not?

In a lot of the countries the girls don't wear skimpy clothing anyway. They do in the UK but I have seen girls in the street wearing less.

Also female singers seem to wear very little and some of their videos seem almost pornographic. That annoys and upsets me far more. Surely a singer should become popular because they can sing not because they have their bum and boobs on display?

The trouble is we are going to far now. So much is banned because of political correctness. I see they are talking about not allowing old Bond films to be shown because of how they portray woman. Are we not allowed any choice at all?

As far as I am concerned the best thing Liberty could so is reduce the price of tickets for F1. I am a big fan but it is so expensive to go to a race

Hopefully their owners will follow suite derxa
I highly doubt it.

As far as I am concerned the best thing Liberty could so is reduce the price of tickets for F1. I am a big fan but it is so expensive to go to a race

Well good news, they've got a few less people to pay now so perhaps those tickets will be more affordable. The grid girls weren't for your benefit anyway I imagine, but you were still paying for them!

RatRolyPoly, I can't see anyway that prices will be reduced. It is ridiculously expensive even just for race day. If you go for practice and qualifying too (which me and DH like too) you need to take out a mortgage

Yeah, it's nuts mydog; my dp's a big fan too (and I'm indulgent).

I'm expecting a DD (currently being overbaked in my tum) and bringing her into a world of duck face contoured scantily dressed insta filter girls and women is bloody depressing.

But then I get conflicted because I think no one is forcing said women to do all that, they might like looking a certain way and who am I to tut at the way they look.

But THEN I think well what has bought this on, the desire to look that way? They themselves look at social media, to their peers, then further out to their idols. The celebs and film/music stars. Society has said "this is the look we want for today" and it trickles down because that kind of glamour used to be for the stars but now it's accessible to everyone.

Anyway, rambling now. I for one would love it if there was a shift in society and the trend for duck face airbrushed filter crap went in the bin.

So, grid girls. Same sort of argument. No one is forcing them (I would hope) and they like doing it. But it's from a much longer standing tradition that society has said "we want pretty women to parade and advertise at sports". All that's happened here is society has now shifted and it's no longer the case.

It was a good money job that came with a lot of travel and fun for those women and it's not nice that they will be out of a job. I'd be pissed too. But attitudes move on. C'est la vie.

As an ranty aside what I would like to see is society now bucking up their ideas about equal pay, because some posters have mentioned "Well men don't have the same opportunity to be highly paid grid boys do they" - my thought was "yes, but they get to be highly paid everything else don't they, especially when it comes to the big bucks jobs against women doing the same thing!"

As a past F1 fan, between 1984 and 2000ish I didn't mind them... I guess i just never really registered them...

And once, in a Formula Ford race in a European country, I ended up being an accidental grid girl... the organisers came round the stands and asked girls watching to go and help out. My sister and I loved it (i was 15 at the time or 16) and meant i got to go back to the grid, to the pit lane, talk to some of the drivers and take amazing photos...

I can't imagine how degrading it must feel to have someone look me up and down and judge whether my figure, my body, my smile is good enough to be on show! Yuck!!! NeedsAsock, how on earth did you even get through the interviews, have you no pride in yourself?

You just accept that nobody is looking at you to decide if your good enough or not they are looking at you to decide if you fit their preconceived ideals which are often not the same as good enough. In exactly the same way that anybody whose income is based on their appearance does. Nobody will appeal to everybody no matter what. It has never bothered me and is in no way linked to my pride in myself.

kala there are many areas of life where you opinion doesn’t count some of those will be employment related in exactly the same way that there will be many areas where it does count it’s just a fact of life

Amazing how people still continue to paint the paid objectification of women as liberating for women as a whole. Such utter nonsense.

Moving towards equality means that both men and women will suffer some loss of benefit in some areas. Several male members of BBC staff have taken pay cuts of 30% or more so that their female counterparts can be paid the same for the same work. A handful of women have lost a potential weekend's work so that another institution can move away from thoroughly sexist traditions.

Think of all those popular black and white minstrels performers back in the day - I guess it sucked for those individuals that society realised their acts were offensive and no longer appropriate, but that doesn't mean we should still have black and white minstrels on the TV every week.

LastOneDancing has nailed it.

In a lot of the countries the girls don't wear skimpy clothing anyway.

That's not the point. It's the message that men do the important, cool, skillful stuff and get to stand heroically on a podium whilst identikit women stand there silent and smiling, that people have a problem with.

And fwiw I’ve never needed to bag a man rich or otherwise I prefer doing everything I need to myself without personal life dependance on others where possible, I have a great deal of interest in encouraging women into STEM subjects to the point that I personally fund a unrelated female doing one at university (she’s sort of my step daughter, I say sort of because I haven’t even seen her dad since she was little). I’m a huge fan of public breastfeeding and have quite possible done more than most people to protect the rights of women and children in the uk and abroad. And I’m quite comfortable with my history.

As a bloke I quite like looking at scantily clad women. I also like F1 and motorsport in general. Grid girls no longer being a part of that will make zero difference you the sport or the amount of people that watch it. I don't think more women will watch now they're gone and I don't think fewer men will watch either.

If men do want to look at women there are still plenty of sources.

I’m interested that the reason I didn’t like grid girls hasn’t been mentioned - and that is that it said to me when I was younger ‘this is a sport for men to watch and you shan’t have an interest’. As an engineer this always really pissed me off.

It’s a bizarre anachronism and it’s time it went and I’m glad it’s gone.

BUT. I am bored of reading that the women involved are exploited and how dreadful it is that some people are just judged on their looks. I was born very clever. That’s just as much good luck as one of my friends who was born to be staggeringly beautiful (very unfairly she is also clever dammit). She has worked easily as hard to maximise those benefits as I have my brain. I find it enormously insulting that being an attractive woman is somehow a second choice and in any way using those looks (for work as a model) is somehow less of an achievement than me getting academic qualifications.

I also struggle a bit with ‘it’s all evil men making women think they have to look a certain way’ when the vast majority of airbrushed and scantily clad women are to be found in magazines written by, and aimed squarely at, a female audience.

The only argument people have made for grid girls is men like to look at them. What has it got to do with motor racing?

Why are people finding it so difficult to understand that grid girls have not been 'banned'. It was a company decision to get rid, much like how the likes of M&S and Sainsburys are axing jobs. I don't see any outrage about all those people losing their jobs.

I see they are talking about not allowing old Bond films to be shown because of how they portray woman. Are we not allowed any choice at all?

I haven't heard about this but of course you still have a choice, you can still buy them on dvd as far as I'm aware.