{"id":4887,"date":"2013-04-24T22:52:29","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T22:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/?p=4887"},"modified":"2014-08-24T15:11:12","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T15:11:12","slug":"girl-power-female-driver-role-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/index.php\/girl-power-female-driver-role-models\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl Power – Female Driver Role Models"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rosemary<\/a>

Rosemary Smith<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why we should forget the female driver stereotype and focus\u00a0on<\/strong> female driver role models instead.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We recently wrote about driver stereotypes<\/a> for this website. Some of you may\u00a0have noticed I left out one of the most famous stereotypes, the female driver.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a classic one. \u00a0Not a week goes by that there\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0seem to be\u00a0another survey or piece of research published backing up the stereotype that\u00a0female drivers are slow, overcautious, incompetent, spatially challenged etc.\u00a0It\u2019s all a bit tiresome really.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not sending out a great message to young females just starting out\u00a0in their driving career, as I found out recently when I spoke to a friend of\u00a0mine in her mid-twenties. She told me that the thought of being a\u00a0stereotypical female driver is adding to her anxiety around driving as she\u00a0prepares for her test.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s always that stereotype that women are terrible drivers. That’s\u00a0always played on my mind,\u201d says my friend Aileen. She also believes that\u00a0there is a lack of female driver \u201crole models\u201d.<\/p>\n

Aileen is correct in her pursuit of female driving role models to ease her\u00a0anxiety around learning to drive. If we need any proof that women can drive,\u00a0we only need to look at the likes of Mich\u00e8le Mouton, a former French rally\u00a0driver who competed at the highest level in rallying, Irish rally driver\u00a0Rosemary Smith, this website\u2019s very own resident racing driver Jennifer\u00a0Mullan, and a long list of other women who have blazed a trail in\u00a0motorsport.<\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t have to be a professional racing driver to be a good driver.\u00a0We can find female driver role models to aspire to closer to home.<\/p>\n

Growing up, my mother and grandmother were two very inspiring female driver\u00a0role models to me.\u00a0Being the second child, I spent a lot of time in the car with my mother \u00a0bringing my older sister to school and other extra-curricular activities.\u00a0Looking back, I remember thinking what a confident, precise driver she was\u00a0and I always felt very safe in the car with her. I think my driving style is\u00a0quite similar to hers \u2013 I was her co-pilot for so many years that I was\u00a0bound to pick up some of her technique!<\/p>\n

My granny is another inspiration to me. She has been driving for 64 years\u00a0and she often tells me of her experiences of learning to drive in the late\u00a01940s. She was something of a driving pioneer in her family and in the area\u00a0where she grew up. Few people owned cars at the time but she was lucky\u00a0enough to have a car which she taught herself how to drive in. She was the\u00a0first in her family to learn how to drive and one of the few drivers in her\u00a0area. At 82, she tells me that she still loves driving.<\/p>\n

Not everyone is a natural driver. But a lot of it is to do with confidence.\u00a0It can be a state of mind. If we don\u2019t think we are good drivers then we are\u00a0probably not. Of course overconfidence behind the wheel can be just as\u00a0dangerous so it is a case of trying to find that balance.<\/p>\n

Where are the female driving role models? Be it a friend, mother, aunt,\u00a0granny or racing car driver, there are plenty of women out there proving\u00a0that driving is not just a male pursuit. Ladies let\u2019s retake the wheel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

25th April, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Why we should forget the female driver stereotype and focus\u00a0on female driver role models instead. We recently wrote about driver stereotypes for this website. Some of you may\u00a0have noticed I left out one of the most famous stereotypes, the female driver. It\u2019s a classic one. \u00a0Not a week goes by that there\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0seem to be\u00a0another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[503,1179,5840,1181,1182,1180,1150],"yoast_head":"\nGirl Power - Female Driver Role Models - wheelsforwomen.ie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why we should forget the female driver stereotype and focus on female driver role models instead.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/index.php\/girl-power-female-driver-role-models\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Girl Power - Female Driver Role Models - wheelsforwomen.ie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why we should forget the female driver stereotype and focus on female driver role models instead.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/index.php\/girl-power-female-driver-role-models\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"wheelsforwomen.ie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wheelsforwomen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-24T22:52:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-08-24T15:11:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/rosemary.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"wheelsforwomen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"wheelsforwomen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/index.php\/girl-power-female-driver-role-models\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/index.php\/girl-power-female-driver-role-models\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"wheelsforwomen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/#\/schema\/person\/370813e71db1d9739be435d00fa88350\"},\"headline\":\"Girl Power – Female Driver Role Models\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-24T22:52:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-08-24T15:11:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/index.php\/girl-power-female-driver-role-models\/\"},\"wordCount\":606,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Featured\",\"Female Drivers\",\"Jennifer Mullan\",\"Mich\u00e8le Mouton\",\"Motorsport\",\"Role Models\",\"Rosemary Smith\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Uncategorized\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/index.php\/girl-power-female-driver-role-models\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.wheelsforwomen.ie\/index.php\/girl-power-female-driver-role-models\/\",\"name\":\"Girl Power - 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