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Jewish World Review July 6, 2005 / 29 Sivan, 5765 Danica Patrick's on a road less raced By Kathryn Lopez
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's absurd when smart, talented people want to be victims more than
victors.
The most obvious example comes from this past academic year, when
feminist hysterics followed Harvard president Larry Summers
hypothesizing about "innate differences" between men and women and
how these differences might explain the lower number of women in
science. One Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, Nancy
Hopkins, walked out of his lecture — she couldn't even listen to
it. She would have "either blacked out or thrown up" had she stayed.
So professional.
There will be no smelling salts needed on the racetrack, however.
Danica Patrick is no Nancy Hopkins.
And that's pretty refreshing.
Patrick is the chick race-car phenom. The first woman ever to take
the lead at the Indianapolis 500, the 23-year-old rookie driver came
in fourth in the Memorial Day weekend race this year.
Patrick can speed to the head of the pack. And her success is
killing feminists because she won't cooperate with them.
After the Indy 500, Patrick was immediately linked to Title IX, a
gender-equity law that is commonly and harmfully considered sacred.
The topic of Title IX may just be the point where most sports fans
flip to another ESPN channel, but some male athletes only wish they
could turn it off. The 33-year-old law, which originally intended to
simply assure fairness in education, has become a tool for quotas in
high school and college sports through a series of Clinton-era
add-ons. Senseless proportionality requirements have ended more than
one boy's wrestling and track dreams.
Feminists wedded to Title IX quotas "Bronx cheer" the Bush
administration as it dares to consider reforming the law and
actually leveling the playing field a little. (Which, contrary to
the impression feminist critics would give you, the Bushies have
been in no rush to do — making only minimal changes to date.) The
village of twisted sisters would rather raise a generation of
victims, girls who were told they could get ahead by undercutting
men — and cry foul if they don't get their way.
Some women athletes cooperate, happy to become poster girls for a
we-girls-would-lose-without-Big-Brother attitude. When the U.S.
women's soccer team won the World Cup in 1999, Brandi Chastain's
stripping down to her sports bra served to "validate" Title IX, as
one sportswriter recently put it (in a Danica story). But the World
Cup victory can't be so easily linked to Title IX, many of the
players having benefited from private club sports, not
school-sponsored extracurriculars. And they're not the only gals for
whom Title IX and its current quotas are irrelevant. Afraid George
Bush is going to clobber your daughter's hoop dreams? Don't be.
There are 64 Division I gals' teams in the NCAA and they all existed
before 1979. Never mind 1996, when Title IX became brutal. Talks of
a Republican "attack" on women's sports are the fantasies of women
glued to false victimhood.
Instead of getting a clue, feminists rather also ludicrously whine
that women athletes get "second-class status" in the media. The guy
who came in No. 3 at the Indy 500, who didn't get front-page
treatment in The New York Times the next day, might have a different
opinion.
Who wouldn't rather their daughter look up to a sports star who
works hard and plays fair than one who is so lacking in
self-confidence that she thinks insists on special rules — a tilted
playing field — to win?
As for Danica Patrick — would you be surprised to learn there
aren't a whole lot of racecar competitions on college campuses?
Outrageous!
The truth seems to matter to Danica Patrick, who refuses to play
these typical women's sports victim games. When a Newsweek
interviewer recently asked her "Are you the Gloria Steinem of
racing?" Patrick replied, "The what? I don't even know who that is.
Is that bad?"
Far from bad, Danica — you're doing fine without her. Patrick's a
good driver and she knows it. To her credit, Patrick's success has
been without the help of any watered-down rules. And, sure, some
guys will give her a hard time, as some have. So what?, she says; it
"doesn't really matter because I'm racing in the Indy Racing
League." In other words: She's doing what she wants to do and
singing her own tune while doing it. And, yes, she'll "settle" for
the cover of "Sports Illustrated" — which she's been on. "Ms." she
can prosper without.
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