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.

Feminists are getting far too much credit of late.

You think if we all had this much influence, we'd have sorted out FGM, gender pay, domestic violence, sexual harassment etc everywhere a long LONG time ago.

You think if we all had this much influence, we'd have sorted out FGM, gender pay, domestic violence, sexual harassment etc everywhere a long LONG time ago.

Yes, all of that before we get on to grid girls.

I have a feeling F1 didn't lose grid girls because of their overwhelming desire to treat women better. I think it was probably out of self-preservation and an acute awareness of the current wave of awareness regarding sexual equality.
There's also a very ironic twist that it may also be influenced by a desire to increase F1 popularity in predominantly Muslim nations.

TheBrilliantMistake is probably right. A lot of high profile companies do spend time and money on working out what might be an issue before it breaks. "Is there any part of what we do that might be hard to justify in the press?" question gets looked at.

"Grid girls" fail that question. "How do we justify this if asked?" is an important question these days for many companies and organisations.

"There's also a very ironic twist that it may also be influenced by a desire to increase F1 popularity in predominantly Muslim nations."

I think we have a winner!

Give the grid girls more clothes to wear, or get rid of them altogether? Choices, choices.

I've never heard any of my friends say they've been felt up etc as a grid girl. Obviously doesn't mean it definitely hasn't ever happened but knowing them (I am especially close to three of them) as assertive and intelligent women I really can't see them having had that happen without challenging it and it being something they would discuss. And also, I agree that this isn't really feminism It's F1 not wanting possible repercussions etc. I also agree about the why shouldn't a woman who looks a certain way use it to earn, same as anyone selling other assets, talent, skill, experience etc.

I also agree about the why shouldn't a woman who looks a certain way use it to earn, same as anyone selling other assets, talent, skill, experience etc.
Because in this case, it reduces women to mere decorations. It has an effect on how women are viewed in society: their role and importance are diminished.

i think it's great that in a country where people are regularly traficked for sex and held in sexual slavery that we have managed to end the scourge of women willfully working in gainful employment

i'm not a fan of formula one, the darts or boxing. one of the (many) things that puts me off formula 1, aside from it being crushingly boring is because i don't really like all that grid girls kinda thing or that cheesy exuberant kinda image it portrays.

so i dont watch it

PC gone mad I'm afraid.....

Melinder Messenger on Loose Women talking about this now. It's refreshing to hear someone backing the 'ban' and putting their point across well. She gets it.

PC gone mad I'm afraid

No it isn't. It is a simple moving of the times. Or indeed a cost cutting exercise. I do wonder how much parents will pay for their kids to be on the grid.

I'm openly laughing at the people who think the decision had anything to do with 'PC culture' or 'feminism.'

I do wonder how much parents will pay for their kids to be on the grid.

Considering the F1 have said the children will be already involved in junior motorsports and chosen by their local motorsport authority, I don't think the parents can have too much say.

I think the comparison was possibly being made to football mascots who usually have to pay for the privilege.

I'm openly laughing at the people who think the decision had anything to do with 'PC culture' or 'feminism‘

I know. Someone on twitter today saying feminists should be ashamed of themselves. Emily Davison threw herself in front of a horse and actually DIED. You lot getting grid girls banned are an embarrassment.

Well, where to begin. They aren’t banned. Feminists didn’t do it.

And Emily Davidson may not have wanted to die if she thought 100 years later women were being objectified as walk ongirls/grid girls/podium girls.

We have accusations of how we’re after a puritanical society, and seeing women dressed ‘inappropriately’ as a sin.

Oh and, the winner is, why don’t they all wear burkas. Hashtag sharia law.

Do I laugh or cry 😂😭

I cry.
And seethe - sometimes more quietly than other times

100 years (only!) that women have had the right to vote because our lady brains just did not allow us to make rational decisions etc... Come on!!

It's less than 100 years since black people were told to walk on the other side of the street, to use different toilets and different entrances to buildings.
Humankind and mankind in particular, has some startling examples of brilliance and horror.
To put a man on the moon and fail to see a woman as an equal. To create life in a glass, yet terminate the lives of millions without impunity.
In that regard, it really is little surprise we are still miles away from equality despite some very welcome steps in the right direction.

I had no idea what grid girls were or that they even existed until the free newspaper on the bus told me they're getting the boot out the door.

Why are people so happy that a bunch of women just lost their jobs? What about their families? How are they going to support them now?

Maybe their husbands could go and become grid boys to keep the income flowing?

Sorry did you just try to compare abortion to something here?

You were a little quick to jump to that conclusion. It was in reference to the holocaust.

@NotAnotherEmma. It's one day's work, not a livelihood. There will be other work available, as there is for anyone where the company that hires them decides to change what it does.

They didn't lose their jobs. The jobs never existed. They were pretty faces hired to adorn the F1 circuit to portray the illusion of glamour.
Their 'job' was a bs role invented to legitimise it.

What about the millions of women around the world who aren't paid equally or are offered lesser roles as a result of perception about women, exacerbated by precisely this sort of 'dolly bird' imagery?

They were paid to keep quiet and look pretty under the false pretence of holding a bloody grid position number or an umbrella - in an industry that prides itself on cutting-edge technology, but couldn't find a better solution for these two tasks?

It’s not an ongoing career or job with stability Emma
It’s booked via agency on adhoc sessional basis
Plus F1 is seasonal it’s not 52 wk a year

Also, I don't think anybody suggests these particular girls were inappropriately touched etc (although I am damn sure plenty of men will have approached them in a less than satisfactory manner). They were at the top end of hospitality. Their role though is a symbol of the thousands of other women who exist at the lower levels of hospitality who are touched up / groped / subject to far less sophisticated approaches.

F1 got out before they were called out.