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January 18, 2016

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Home » Business » Autotalk Special

Forget the jokes. Women drivers aren’t inferior

Two years after I first got behind the wheel, I received what was supposed to be a compliment from my friend and driving companion Alex.

“Given your recent driving performance, you have become a qualified female driver,” he said cheerfully, only to be greeted with an “I beg your pardon” look.

“Do you mean there are different standards for men and women,” I asked, feigning disbelief at his implied political incorrectness while secretly relishing the compliment.

Seeing me get over my frustration as a newbie driver and professional embarrassment as an auto journalist, he knew I was ready to revisit some past moments of weakness so as to leave them behind forever.

“Do you think I am a less good driver because I am a girl?” I had once asked him out of a sense of insecurity. “And how good will I ever be?”

At that time, I was glad to grab cover for my crumbling self-esteem, so I didn’t need to be particularly humiliated about my inabilities. I suffered from a lack of sense of direction, poor maneuvering in tight spaces and indecisiveness in complicated road situations. In short, I exhibited every stereotypical trait of a female driver.

“Come on,” Alex said. “You can’t expect too much from your first thousand kilometers. I think you are making good progress.”

A soft-spoken man riding shotgun, he always encouraged me to practice more and kept assuring me that I would improve. Quite a contrast from other experienced male drivers who tend to patronize me as if I were some sort of inferior creature.

Being a female auto journalist makes me particularly conscious of my gender identity in this male-dominated motorist world, where the biggest compliment a woman like me can get is: “You don’t drive like a girl.”

Of course, it’s the same pretty much all over the world. Women drivers are the butt of jokes. Men are quick to say “it must be a woman driver” when the car in front does something stupid. Whenever a woman driver is reported causing a car accident, the gender is highlighted in the headline.

There was an interesting story in the media recently, recounting the case of a woman who has failed to pass the driving test for 14 years. She was finally offered a refund from the driver-training program and encouraged to stick to cabs, buses and the Metro. Someone in the story was quoted about being concerned that she would be a serious road hazard if she ever had a license to drive.

Just as “plus-size” parking spaces for women and official special tips for them based on inadequate skills blur the line between thoughtfulness and discrimination, it is increasingly difficult to discern self-fulfilling prophecies of incompetence from the problems of those who are truly not adept at driving. The evolution of a qualified female driver entails an endless test of faith.

I am grateful that my job gives me a strong motive to hone my driving skills and introduces to me inspiring role models, from professional driving instructors and racers, to public relation officers and journalists, who are all female.

And yet I am aware that some women apply for their driver’s licenses just to boost a family’s quota of traffic penalty points and ensure there’s always a chauffeur available.

You may well ask why a husband who is a good driver would need an extra quota of penalty points to keep his license from being suspended?

Who should take the reins?

“Imagine, in ancient times, when a man and a woman traveled together on horseback, who should be holding the reins and who should be holding the other around the waist,” one passenger once said to me.

It was obvious, from her perspective of gender, that men take the lead and that concept hasn’t changed much over time.

I admitted that a man riding a horse with the woman sitting behind with her arms around his waist paints a lovely picture of costume drama in my mind’s eye. Isn’t the ancient code of being a gentleman called chivalry?

But I also recalled how women in China’s Tang Dynasty (AD618-907), an era notably liberal-minded about gender roles, loved horseback riding and the independent spirit that came with it. That era gave us tales of swordswomen, like Nie Yinniang, who hit the big screen last year in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin.

And in the post-apocalyptic world portrayed by George Miller’s movie Mad Max: Fury Road, where women are marginalized by the world’s worship of sheer physical strength and aggression, it’s a tough, resourceful female driver who takes a group of rebels on humanity’s odyssey.

Looking up to those strong female characters, I enjoy being my own present-day “knight,” which occasionally evokes frowns from my family.

“Look at how far this right seat has been moved back,” my mother said when she recently rode in my car. “A tall man must have been seated here. How come you took the driver’s seat, not him? I assume he can drive.”

She almost made me feel guilty about trampling on the rights of men, depriving someone of the chance to show his manhood.

Born not long after the new China was established and gender equality was prized in the workplace for the sake of economic development, my mother grew up admiring role models like female tractor drivers, took the initiative to join a male-dominated police force and eventually became the first one in the family to have a driver’s license.

And now, decades later, comes a backlash of enhanced femininity and a sense that women should happily give up their hard-earned progress, like the driver’s seat, and revert to the delicate back-up roles of the past.

Feminism might have set women free to realize their full potential and unleash their can-do spirit, but it has also doubled the pressure and workload for them. No wonder some are so eager to return to the “good old days.”

“Who takes the role of chauffeur in a family is a question about who serves whom, like doing the shopping and running errands,” said Liu Yi, the most experienced female driver among all my friends.

I can still remember the serious look she gave me when sharing some insights about her life last summer. Back then, she and her husband had been living four years in the US. They were thinking about applying for local driver’s licenses to take deeper roots there, but both were hesitant about being the first.

One month ago, the stalemate was broken. She told me and other friends that she had been granted a license to drive. Her next task was to help her husband, who didn’t have any driving experience, pass the driving test. They must have agreed that this was the most practical and convenient solution to their dilemma.

“I don’t think he is so blessed to be a self-taught driver,” she said. “His father, on the first day after getting his license, drove into a river and never dared to get behind the wheel again.”

We laughed at the myth that men are better drivers than women. It’s such a relief for both genders.

“Congratulations,” I said to her. “You have got the world in your hands, and at your feet.”

A qualified female driver, with the freedom to choose her own way.




 

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