Return to Seguros part -2
I find your perspective on how we view women's cycling and how others view us as well view women's cycling interesting. This has not been discussed. Yes, there are some complicated problems here. Part of the problem is women don't support women all the time in their sport. A lot of women support the men pros and they google eye them and pay them homage instead of their own gender. This is a problem, and I don't think that will go away. Obviously too top pro women like to hook up with top pro men cause they make all the doe. So their priorities are not to put women's cycling on the map, but to meet a rich cycling dude and hook up like Lynn G did and so many others have done. This plays into the men's game, not the women. How many pro men go to and pay homage to women's pro races? Almost zero!! I saw Indurain one time at a race for pro women, but it's very rare. You might have a few podium guys called in like this year they got Bettini for Stelvio, but these guys normally will not attend and support women's cycling. They are paid to do these presentations.
Also there is a huge amount of lip service out there. You can ask almost any pro man and they would say they support women's cycling wholeheartedly, but the reality is it's only lip service cause they will do nothing in real terms of supporting it. You get the same from race promoters who say they firmly believe in women's cycling but yet they put all their press and money into men's events. It's just a big lie, and everybody pretends to support it while very few really do anything worthwhile.
However, they way we view women's cycling has been skewed for decades, but that part is actually improving. When I used to go to some old classics, there were a fair amount of guys who came over to the women's podium, but none of them were true bike fans. All of them were ogglers, hecklers, guys that whistle at girls butts. None of them cared about who won, it's strictly a sexist thing. This has changed. Today, well even a few years ago we had less fans at the podium for women but they were real fans who came to see who won and take photos, fans who saw women as pro cyclists, not sex objects. Today, the podium fans have grown considerably for women and they are true fans but the problem is that it means very little without big media to back it up.
Also there is the perception of those who perceive us who cover the races. People have not gotten over the taboo thing yet about women's cycling. I have taken lots of photos where I had to edit out some girl or some guy fan who thought I had alterative motives when I took women's photos and that is while wearing a press pass to boot, so people need to grow up! Its just people have not adjusted to women being taken seriously and they think someone who does, couldn't be and there must be some other motive. I have had many wrecked photos by someone giving dirty looks in the background when you shoot women, just a lot of immature people out there. This prejudice still exists. If a women or a man in the press takes a photo of a male pro rider, there is no problem, but if a male press agents shoots a women pro rider, you always have to deal with ogglers at races standing around getting in the way of a good shot.
It takes years to change this behavior by the general public cause I guess people still see women that should just race in secret and let them have their social gathering, but don't cover it. I even heard people say they admire the racing stats of some women pros but they try not to look at them too much when they race. How pathetic, what a cop out. What do they do then, close their eyes and dream of their favorite rider? This kind of self righteous nonsense keeps women locked in a box with fans.
Fans needs to grow up, and women need to start acting professional so fans will take them seriously. In our races, finally after many years, the oglers are much less, and covering women pros has become much more normal and accepted. It's expected, and finally it seems here, fans and the press are in sink and certainly our promoters highlight the women. If you have a race that is well known as a place when they throw down the welcome matt for women's cycling where both the city and the promoters, press, etc are really in sink, then women cannot expect anything better except big media and they need to stop herding into the starting line at the last minute like Deer caught in the headlights. For crying out loud, you came to race for the fans!!
Another problem is however, women often don't think anyone should make a big fuss over them. For instance, I am accepted, but yet they tell me they don't want anymore press covering them, just me. I've been around too long, they have to accept me, but it seems they still would likely like to keep women's pro road racing a secret social club, and don't want too much press. This has to change. So neither fans or the women have come full circle yet nationwide. I have heard the Women's Prestige Series has not been the big hit promoters had hoped for. It's complicated and takes time to set things right. Things have leveled out pretty good here, but it's taken five years of work to do it. Really, it's a stigma that can be wiped out by local grass roots support, and can also be wiped out on a massive scale with big media over time. I think covering the NRC series on TV all year long for women would really help take a big bite out of that stigma.
What you say is true about women being highly educated, many are. Soder is a doctor, Thorburn was a doctor. What does that tell you? Add to that women don't start racing as toddlers, cradle to grave like a national past time like in Italy. Here it's more of rehab spinoff from running or skiing, or some other sport. Perhaps they want to race while holding their day job but most women work full time jobs. What does that tell you? That tells you that women's pro cycling is not serious enough yet, nor is it taken seriously enough yet. They can't make a living racing a bike, so most are not likely to rise to a world class level because they are not racing full time. It's still hobby and social club scene thing. While Thorburn was good, it was not a career path for her. You can't make any money riding a bike!
Emma Pooley has PHD, yes, and even Luperini was going to be a Lawyer. The best climber in the history of the world for women probably still has little money from bike racing in her bank account to show for decades of bike racing. Does Lance need a career job? No, will Lance or even the top ten men ever need a career job? NO!! In fact lots of men in the top 100 could probably save enough over their cycling careers to never have to take a career job. For women, not a single one will ever retire off of their earnings except Leontien or Missy Grove I guess, although Missy got in big trouble.
So there are many problems with this picture. If media was better, then more sponsors would support women's teams and then salaries would increase, and women might start riding full time as pros and making good money, but the Olympics coverage and other big races for women must also be covered by the media. In turn fans would become more respectful, and also women would have to start facing the camera and acting more professional instead of some of the catty capricious behavior we see now.
However, as Alison Starnes noted somewhere, things are a lot better for women then they used to be, but we lost a lot since the so called golden age of 2000 to 2005.