There’s a young, developing, open-wheel racer who’s already attracted more negativity and hatred than anyone else on the grid, despite never having done a single race. Her name is Hailie Deegan and she’s the 23-year-old daughter of Motocross and RallyCross legend Brian Deegan. Hailie has spent the past couple seasons climbing the ladder in NASCAR’s lower tiers, but has decided to jump from tin-tops to open-wheel racing.
Deegan has been the target of so much negativity in her short career, you’d think she’s the she-devil herself!
Like any other young racer who’s still learning, Deegan has progressed through the racing ranks thanks to funding from her famous family (nothing unethical about that). But NASCAR fans have been viciously criticized her, combing through statistics to compare her to others in the series, trying to justify that she doesn’t belong there. It’s clear-cut misogyny.
Two weeks ago, Hailie Deegan turned laps on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an HMD Motorsports prepared race car. Her plan is to compete full-time in the 2025 Indy NXT series, the top development category for IndyCar.
Hailey Deegan isn’t just a rookie to the Indy NXT series, she has never raced in open-wheel disciplines. Yet some in the motorsports media have gone to the trouble to publish articles showing Deegan’s laps at the bottom of the time-chart.
Looks like the old-boys network in the motoring press, and the sexist race fans, won’t even give Hailie a shot. They’re calling her Danica 2.0, a publicity stunt, a gimmick. And that’s even worse than calling her slow.
Hatred for women is called misogyny, and the media uses that word to describe violence towards women. But there’s more to it than that, something more subtle. Misogyny is contempt for women and prejudice against women, intended to keep them down. That’s what this negativity to Hailie Deegan is.
Have we learned nothing from Cruz Ramirez in ‘Cars 3‘? Well I vertainly have, and I’ll be the first person lined up to meet her at the Honda Indy Toronto next July…and to introduce her to my daughter Michelle.
~ by Chris #16 Demaras ~
I don’t understand the hatred towards women in motorsports. I don’t understand hatred of women in general. I would think good women racers would be celebrated, but no.
I’ve seen it at the track for the past ten years. Instead of encouraging (or celebrating) women in racing, a very under-represented group, all the guys treat them badly. Especially if they’re hot.
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And I’m not kidding about that last part. If the woman is good-looking all the guys at the track insult their abilities and claim that the only reason they even have sponsors is because of their looks.
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Is it just impotent men intimidated by a strong woman? Sexist envy that they can never ‘have’ her and therefore they throw her under the bus? I just don’t know.
It seems to be an age-old problem. In the second and third centuries, after women had dominated Christianity, the church fathers began locking women out of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. In the early church, women had power against the Roman patriarchy. I argued that impotent old men who were envious of powerful women, and had no chance with women, started changing all the rules that affected women. Also note that while men could be executed by various means in the Middle Ages, women were almost exclusively burned at the stake, which was one of the most horrific forms of execution.
I am unfamiliar with the history of the Catholic Church, but I have seen the “… impotent old men who were envious of powerful women…” behaviour in real life. I’m glad you mentioned it.
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Whenever there’s a woman at the race track, she’s always criticized so badly. Like it makes the guys feel emasculated to be beaten by a woman. It’s really quite pathetic.
I’ve raced bicycles at semi-pro level, I’ve done karate and kickboxing, and I’ve had my butt kicked by women in all three sports. I don’t like losing, but losing to a woman never bothered me more than losing to a man.