Danica Patrick A Bitch?

Recently in February 2012 on the local Fox news network in San Diego, there was a news report on the race driver Danica Patrick. The sports news anchor made an insulting sexist comment towards Danica Patrick. The comment was made in reference to an interview she did, in which she questioned why female athletes are almost always described as sexy and nothing else. And questioned whether or not other words can be used to describe her. 

Just because she wanted to be acknowledged as an athlete, does that mean she is a b****?

Danica Patrick is a perfect example of deviation from constructions of how women should behave, because she does not conform to performances of gender. And because sexy, beautiful, powerless and weak are used to describe femininity, Danica is viewed as challenging representation gender. Thus she was viewed as a bitch.

 Traditionally sports have been exclusively for men because they are constructed as masculine spheres, but within the past two decades there saw an increase of female athletes (2009, pp. 18-19). This becomes confusing because athletes require skill, strength and courage, which are almost exclusively used to describe masculinity. Danica Patrick, for example participates in the most rugged sport of all; car racing. And as a result Danica is identified as not being a “real” woman, because she deviates from constructions of what femininity is. 

So female athletes alike have to perform ritualized displays of gender in order to prove that she is a real woman. And to communicate her heterosexual femininity (2009, pp. 19). In order to perform ritualized displays of gender, she posed for men’s magazines such as Maxim, FHM and Sports Illustrated. In all of these magazine spreads, she is shown in the most defenceless and sexually available positions that normalizes her in the eyes of culture (2009, pp. 19).

As you may notice in the news clip, one of the co-anchor questioned why Danica presents herself in sexually provocative advertisements when she does want to be viewed as sexy. If he truly wanted to understand why, he should be questioning the constructions of how we should perform our gender. And if consumers of media such as himself would stop objectifying women then these images would not materialize. So Danica Patrick is not to blame here.

-Angus Yeung

(2009). The Codes Of Gender: Identity and Performance in Pop Culture. Media Education Foundation, Transcript, Retrieved Februrary 9, 2012, 
from http://www.mediaed.org/assets/products/238/transcript_238.pdf

 Fox5 San Diego Sports Anchor Ross Shimabuku calls Danica Patrick a Bitch [Video file]. 
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4lzRgNUkaw

Danica Patrick Sports Illustrated 2009 [image]. 
Retrieved from http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/swimsuit/modelfeatured/danica_patrick/2009/danica_patrick/index.htm