WEBVTT

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The most common question I've gotten
since I started racing go-karts is

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what's it like to be
a woman race car driver?

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Specifically now, maybe,

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what on earth is a New York-raised,
Stanford-educated female

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doing behind the wheel of a race car?

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(Laughter)

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But the reality is, why not?

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Racing is one of the most unique sports,

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because biology doesn't prevent
men and women from competing together.

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It is a sport, so I'm going
to have you do me a favor

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and put your hands like you are driving

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without hitting the person
in front of you.

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Awesome.

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Close your eyes,
and you're starting to turn left,

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and you're muscling
around 3,400 pounds of machine.

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You straighten up and you're getting
within an inch of the wall.

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It's 130 degrees [Fahrenheit] in the car,

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and you're fully suited up with a helmet
that weighs a pound or two,

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and you're doing this for hours.

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Open your eyes.

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It's tough.

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(Laughter)

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But because biology doesn't prevent
men and women from competing together,

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there's got to be something else.

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And I firmly believe that social
and cultural norms and stereotypes

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are preventing women
from getting involved.

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Because what is the one thing that girls
are always told they have to be?

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Nice.

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But I'm going to tell you:
niceness loses races.

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Racing is an exceptionally difficult sport
and not everyone can do it.

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So as a woman, we have to not only
prove ourselves on the race track

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but fight through these stupid stereotypes
that just hold us back.

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And there are three main stereotypes

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that I think I have discovered
while I've been racing,

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that I'm familiar with in racing

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but I'm sure that they apply
to many other fields.

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The first is that women aren't aggressive,

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and girls are told early on
that being aggressive is a bad thing.

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This photo was taken
when I was 14 years old.

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It was the first national
go-kart race of the year,

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and we were in Daytona Beach, Florida.

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I was really excited, I had done
very well in practice,

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we were up in the top 3,
top 5, out of 40,

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and I was just ready to go win.

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Race day comes,

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and I stayed about the same
while everyone else got a lot better

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- all my male counterparts -

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and this was frustrating and it had
happened at several races before this.

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So the morning of the next race day,

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my dad walks into my hotel room,
a little bit early,

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comes up to my bed
and says, "Julia, get up."

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Looks at me and says,
"You need to rip their livers out!"

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(Laughter)

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"These boys just got beat
by a girl the other day,

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they're not going to sleep,
their parents won't let them,

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and you need to be just as angry."

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In retrospect

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(Laughter)

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I realize that my dad was
essentially giving me permission

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to break free of how I was
being told to behave,

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and go destroy everyone on the racetrack.

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(Laughter)

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And it was great, and it was scary.

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And I'm sure it was scary
for him and my mom to support me,

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completely breaking against every
social norm and appropriate behavior.

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(Laughter)

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The second assumption
that I had to learn about,

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was that it's acceptable
to take the victim role.

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And not only that,

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but I feel like it's very expected
for women to take the victim role.

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This photo was taken when I was
11 years old at our local go-kart track.

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And it was just one race day,
and I had gone out,

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and, again, done very well
in our time trials.

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I was starting 3rd or 4th,
but I went to my parents and told them,

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"OK, I'd like you to change X, Y, and Z
on the go-kart to make it better."

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I [went] out to race and the kart
was not doing what I wanted,

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and I was getting
more and more frustrated.

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One kart after the other were going by me,
and then I was just losing it.

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I finished somewhere at the back,
and I get off the race track,

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and was the most pissed off 11-year-old
that you will ever see.

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I pushed my go-kart up to this pit,

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and dropped all my stuff off,
and ran up to my parents, and said:

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"You messed up the go-kart,
it would have been so much better

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if you'd done this and this,
and I could've won."

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And then my dad looked at me,
and I realized I had messed up.

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And he walked up to me
and he said, "F*** you!"

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(Laughter)

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"You told me to make that change
to the go-kart, and I did.

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And if it isn't what you wanted, too bad.

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It is you and the go-kart on that track,

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and it's your responsibility
to make it work."

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(Laughter)

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Sorry about that.

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(Laughter)

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And he was right.

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You know, it might not have been
an ideal situation,

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and it might've been completely his fault,

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but the fact is that I had
to take my situation, own it,

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make it mine, and make the best of it.

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The third assumption about women

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that I find most personally offensive,

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is that women are fragile.

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Women are routinely portrayed
as emotionally and physically fragile.

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And the thing is we're not.

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I have some three--

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(Laughter)

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I have some 300 pounds of go-kart
on my neck, and I'm fine, right?

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I'm standing up today.

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And this is problematic.

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I have told you stories
that I learned in go-karts early on,

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but I am still facing and fighting
these assumptions

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as I've moved into race cars.

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Last spring I was racing
in Sacramento and Stockton area,

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and I had brought my resume and all
my wins and championships to this team.

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I was super-excited;
I thought they were super-excited.

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A couple races in, I had won once,
and we were doing well,

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and one of the guys in the team
who was helping me out,

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takes me aside and says, "Jules, you know,

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when I heard that we were to have
a girl on the team, I was just bummed.

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I thought we were going to be racing
at the back all season, but we're not."

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And I realized that he was trying
to compliment me,

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but at the same time, my team
-this was supposed to be my backbone-

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had very little faith in me,

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and didn't expect me to be racing
on the edge and at the limit.

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There is a study where
researchers asked mothers

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to set the steepness of a ramp

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for how they thought
their toddler could climb up.

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Mothers routinely set the ramp
steeper for their boys

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than they did for their girls.

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So from toddlerhood we are priming
our daughters not to take risks,

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not to push themselves, not to fall down,

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and not to learn
how to pick themselves back up.

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And this directly affects
how people interact with them,

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as I learned as a professional
racer with my team.

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So because being a woman
that society tells me to be

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and being a race care driver
that I really want to be

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are at odds with each other,

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we have to break the rules.

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And racing is not
particularly scary for me.

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Going over 130 mph, getting
within a couple inches of the wall,

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racing side by side
with someone, and crashing,

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although unpleasant, is not very scary.

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Breaking centuries
of negative perceptions of women

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is a little daunting, but very important.

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So back to the original question of what's
it like to be a woman race car driver?

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It's awesome.

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(Laughter)

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It is fabulous.

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Being in the zone is so cool.

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It's me operating with the car,
operating with the race track

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on a subconscious level.

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Nothing in the outside world matters.

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Someone told me a couple of years ago
that when you master a corner,

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and get within a couple
centimeters of the wall,

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it's better than sex.

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(Laughter)

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And it so satisfying to do
something exceptionally well

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that people don't expect me
to be able to do at all.

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And I think that my situation
as a female racer,

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and I'm sure in many
of your situations out there,

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is summed up nicely in a quote
that I read from Erada:

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"If it is both terrifying and amazing,
you should definitely pursue it."

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Thank you.

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(Applause)