Formula 1 bans "grid girls". Feminism/political correctness gone too far?

[removeduser_487563287433]

Misses the point. They want more fans. Polling existing fans, the soon to be dead old petrol heads is irrelevant. Audience doesn't equate to fans.

[bigdaddy1204]

It's very common for puritanism to re-arise from movements that previously defended less discipline and more looseness. Opposites attract each other.

Prove that it is puritanism.

There is a shift from looseness to puritanism, and those two coexist in contradictory terms.

Naked feminists showing off their breasts in the street is 100% ok, but Grid Girls in F1 "objectifying women".
This good example of a double-think is accepted despite their completely opposite ideas.
It's the old mix of puritanism and loose discipline co-existing.

Well feminists aren't a monolithic group. There are various strands of feminism.

I hope you will forgive me for the analogy, but this very much reminds me of Islamism.

Feminism means different things to different people. There's a whole spectrum of thought, pretty much from one possible extreme to the other e.g. ultra fanatic feminists who hate men and think women should have unlimited special privileges, to more idealistic feminists who believe in greater equality for all people, men and women, and simply want women to be treated fairly.

Adding to the confusion, individuals may move between groups with different positions on the issues, as their own ideas change over time. Even more confusing, the groups themselves often evolve, morph, mutate, and change over time.

A salutary example is the career of the philosopher al Gazali. He is simultaneously the father of Sufism (loved by liberals and the open minded, tolerant etc) AND the man who stands accused of sowing the seeds of the destruction of the golden age of Arabic science, because he wrote a book attacking the Greek rationalism and he belonged to the Asharite school of thought.

So was he a good guy or a bad guy? It really depends on your interpretation of events, many of which happened centuries later. Some people say he didn't attack science and in fact encouraged scientific advances. Indeed many of his pupils themselves made new discoveries. His own writings from what I've seen appear to be somewhat nuanced.

It is nonetheless true though that the Asharites did later move towards a less scientific view but they did so by moving away from that nuance and adopting ever more conservative positions. To add to the confusion, Sufis themselves were often seen as liberal, even bohemian and rebellious/carefree.

Anyway sorry for going off a bit from the main point but the comparison was too good to miss. My point being feminism as any other set of amorphous and constantly evolving set of ideas can include a range of opinions which are sometimes contradictory and even in competition with each other.

Is feminism morphing into a dangerous ideology which threatens to destroy the social fabric? Or is it simply a heartening sign of progress of the times and the improvement of humanity? I think it depends on the feminist in question and what their goals are. The majority seem pretty sensible.

Overall I am supportive of feminism.

[Infidel144]

Misses the point. They want more fans. Polling existing fans, the soon to be dead old petrol heads is irrelevant. Audience doesn't equate to fans.

No, it does not miss the point at all. The assertion Gaidin made was present, not future.
What is the average age of F1 fans?

[removeduser_487563287433]

https://f1survey.motorsport.com/

It's dropping, and there are more women. And that, of course, is the real point.

[Infidel144]

https://f1survey.motorsport.com/

It's dropping, and there are more women. And that, of course, is the real point.

The average age is below 36, if I read that correctly.
That would tend to indicate another 30, 40, 50 years rather than your claim that existing fans are soon to be dead petrol heads...

[removeduser_487563287433]

The point is if it's dropping and more women are joining then f1 is adjusting to that reality and it's future. Simple stuff really.

[Infidel144]

The point is if it's dropping and more women are joining then f1 is adjusting to that reality and it's future. Simple stuff really.

No, the point is you made a false assertion.
To support your new claim you would need to show that a significant portion of the fans are female, and that a significant portion of them want the grid girls gone.

[HannibalExMachina]

oh, so wanting more female fans has nothing to do with it? like, a buisness might want to cater to the whole spectrum, instead of just half?

sounds a bit like the "no women play games argument".

this fan surevey has a very low number for female fans, participants may not fully represent number of fans oc.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/12...sults-revealed


What is your gender?
Male 92.2%
Female 7.8%

another one:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...trip=1&vwsrc=0


But who are the fans that sponsors are keen to reach via F1? According to GlobalWebIndex, which analysed the brand engagement levels of 51,280 global F1 fans, the sport can claim to have a cross-generational appeal, with consistently high scores across different age groups.

Of the total F1 audience, 83% shop online each month, with 50% saying they tend to buy with the brands they see advertised during races. F1 fans spend an average of two hours a day on social media, with the study claiming 38% of internet users are F1 fans and one in eight of its millennial fans choosing to watch races online.
But while the opportunities to market to this group are obvious, there are still areas where F1 is lacking. One of the biggest is the sport’s gender divide, with the same study showing men are 50% more likely to watch F1 than women.



why? well, motorsports have advertised and catered to heterosexual men almost exclusively. thats not a smart buisness move.

[fkizz]

Making business decisions out of puritanism from some ideology is what's not very smart

[HannibalExMachina]

so, you want to refute the very simple point that having more customers is better than having less customers? or is this just another "rahrah leftists" post?

[sumskilz]

why? well, motorsports have advertised and catered to heterosexual men almost exclusively. thats not a smart buisness move.

That's an unsupported assertion. I suspect you have your cause and effect backwards.

[HannibalExMachina]

how so?

do you dispute that motorsports have advertised and catered to heterosexual men almost exclusively?

or is your assertation: if you have a penis and are into women, that makes you like motorsports? which would make targeting men specificially irrelevant, because they, almost exclusively, like it anyway, and advertising to everyone else is pointless? if so, that would require prove on your side.

anyway, the F1 has already declared their reasons for these changes. i am not simply asserting they want to broaden their target market, that is their declared intent, and from a buisness perspective, a likely motive.

if you want to dispute that motive, please do so.

[sumskilz]

do you dispute that motorsports have advertised and catered to heterosexual men almost exclusively?

No, the point of targeted marketing is to reach the customer base that is most responsive. There are two possible directions of causality, which are not mutually exclusive. They targeted men, because men were most interested, or men are most interested, because men are who have been marketed/catered to. Claiming the reason is categorically the latter is an unsupported assertion. Whether changing their approach proves to be an effective way to increase revenue remains to be seen. As I said earlier in the thread though, I don't expect their current fans to abandon them over this grid girls thing, even if more are against the change than for it.

[HannibalExMachina]

Claiming the reason is categorically the latter is an unsupported assertion.

grid girls were considered to be exclusively interesting to heterosexual men. motorsports were traditionally considered to be an almost exclusively heterosexual male domain. based on that, interest from other groups would be considered irrelevant, since they would be considered insufficently responsive. thus, they are not being targeted.

thus, motorsports have advertised and catered to heterosexual men almost exclusively.

going back to my original post: if a group isnt being targeted by advertising, based on false assumptions, then that is not a smart buisness move.

[Infidel144]

oh, so wanting more female fans has nothing to do with it? like, a buisness might want to cater to the whole spectrum, instead of just half?

sounds a bit like the "no women play games argument".

I am presuming this is supposed to be addressing me.
What it actually 'sounds like' is that you are not following the context of the discussion. The context of the discussion was a claim about the present. Not the future. Not what F1 wants its fans to be.
Now, I understand that it may be a little difficult for you, but do give it a try...

[HannibalExMachina]

its about what F1 fans may want F1 to be, that includes the future. i know you are only familiar with the concept of an imaginary past, but try to keep up.

[Infidel144]

its about what F1 fans may want F1 to be, that includes the future. i know you are only familiar with the concept of an imaginary past, but try to keep up.

Non-sequitur.

[HannibalExMachina]

non-argument.

[Cope]

Making business decisions out of puritanism from some ideology is what's not very smart

It is.

F1 fans aren't going to stop watching because some auxiliary "entertainment" was removed. On the other hand, there is the possibility that the "puritan" elements of society would eventually end up harassing F1 in the future over "grid-girls" if they remained. It's a reasonable business choice.

[HannibalExMachina]

exactly.