Not sure I'd be trotting out the old "women are emotional, men are rational" trope as justification here. Personally, I know of way, way, WAY too many counter examples for this to come even close to ringing true in my ears. Plus, I think there is a ton of social conditioning that plays into this impression - i.e. in the west at least, girls/women are raised thinking it's much more acceptable to show emotion then are men (who are rewarded for seeming "tough" and in control of the situation at hand).
All that said, there are definitely physiological differences between men and women that I think could be considered as reasons for why we haven't seen much success in top-tier motorsports by women. For example, men tend to outperform women in spatial tasks, whereas women tend to outperform men in fine motor skill based tasks (it's not hard to imagine the evolutionary root explanation for this phenomenon if you consider what life would be like in a hunter/gatherer type society).
Of course, you can find exceptions to this generalization aplenty - insert name of favorite male metal guitarist here; insert name of favorite female basketball player here. But, taken on the scale of entire populations, you can imagine if you take the the pool of people representing the top 0.1% in terms of spatial abilities, it would not be shocking to see men disproportionately represented.
But, back to social conditioning again, even in 2017 there are very powerful (sometimes explicit, but often implicit) social conditioning factors at play here - "that's a boy thing, that's a girl thing, etc".
That's a long-winded rant but, in a pathetic attempt to put a bow on it, I'll say this:
Is it possible a woman could compete at a championship level in high level motorsports? Absolutely. I don't personally believe the pool is as plentiful as it is on the male side, but I have little doubt such women are walking among us today.
Would I hold my breath waiting for the first female F1 world champion (or even race winner)? Hell no. I think there are too many societal factors standing in the way of those women from the "smaller pool" (relative to men) finding their way into rides.
All that said, there are definitely physiological differences between men and women that I think could be considered as reasons for why we haven't seen much success in top-tier motorsports by women. For example, men tend to outperform women in spatial tasks, whereas women tend to outperform men in fine motor skill based tasks (it's not hard to imagine the evolutionary root explanation for this phenomenon if you consider what life would be like in a hunter/gatherer type society).
Of course, you can find exceptions to this generalization aplenty - insert name of favorite male metal guitarist here; insert name of favorite female basketball player here. But, taken on the scale of entire populations, you can imagine if you take the the pool of people representing the top 0.1% in terms of spatial abilities, it would not be shocking to see men disproportionately represented.
But, back to social conditioning again, even in 2017 there are very powerful (sometimes explicit, but often implicit) social conditioning factors at play here - "that's a boy thing, that's a girl thing, etc".
That's a long-winded rant but, in a pathetic attempt to put a bow on it, I'll say this:
Is it possible a woman could compete at a championship level in high level motorsports? Absolutely. I don't personally believe the pool is as plentiful as it is on the male side, but I have little doubt such women are walking among us today.
Would I hold my breath waiting for the first female F1 world champion (or even race winner)? Hell no. I think there are too many societal factors standing in the way of those women from the "smaller pool" (relative to men) finding their way into rides.
In fact I'd guess at the rate things are going pretty much every "female" success in sport will have been by someone born a male.
