Can nice girls win (races)? | Julia Landauer | TEDxStanford

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Julia Landauer is a championship-winning professional race car driver from New York City and a senior at Stanford University, majoring in science, technology and society. Here she talks about her life racing first go-karts and then race cars, and how girls are brought up disadvantaged towards competition.

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

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

Specifically now, maybe,

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

doing behind the wheel of a race car?

(Laughter)

But the reality is, why not?

Racing is one of the most unique sports,

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

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

and put your hands like you are driving

without hitting the person
in front of you.

Awesome.

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

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

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

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

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

and you're doing this for hours.

Open your eyes.

It's tough.

(Laughter)

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

there's got to be something else.

And I firmly believe that social
and cultural norms and stereotypes

are preventing women
from getting involved.

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

Nice.

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

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

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

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

And there are three main stereotypes

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

that I'm familiar with in racing

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

The first is that women aren't aggressive,

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

This photo was taken
when I was 14 years old.

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

and we were in Daytona Beach, Florida.

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

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

and I was just ready to go win.

Race day comes,

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

- all my male counterparts -

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

So the morning of the next race day,

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

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

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

(Laughter)

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

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

and you need to be just as angry."

In retrospect

(Laughter)

I realize that my dad was
essentially giving me permission

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

and go destroy everyone on the racetrack.

(Laughter)

And it was great, and it was scary.

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

completely breaking against every
social norm and appropriate behavior.

(Laughter)

The second assumption
that I had to learn about,

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

And not only that,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and I was getting
more and more frustrated.

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

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

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

I pushed my go-kart up to this pit,

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

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

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

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

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

(Laughter)

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

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

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

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

(Laughter)

Sorry about that.

(Laughter)

And he was right.

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

and it might've been completely his fault,

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

make it mine, and make the best of it.

The third assumption about women

that I find most personally offensive,

is that women are fragile.

Women are routinely portrayed
as emotionally and physically fragile.

And the thing is we're not.

I have some three--

(Laughter)

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

I'm standing up today.

And this is problematic.

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

but I am still facing and fighting
these assumptions

as I've moved into race cars.

Last spring I was racing
in Sacramento and Stockton area,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I realized that he was trying
to compliment me,

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

had very little faith in me,

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

There is a study where
researchers asked mothers

to set the steepness of a ramp

for how they thought
their toddler could climb up.

Mothers routinely set the ramp
steeper for their boys

than they did for their girls.

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

not to push themselves, not to fall down,

and not to learn
how to pick themselves back up.

And this directly affects
how people interact with them,

as I learned as a professional
racer with my team.

So because being a woman
that society tells me to be

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

are at odds with each other,

we have to break the rules.

And racing is not
particularly scary for me.

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

racing side by side
with someone, and crashing,

although unpleasant, is not very scary.

Breaking centuries
of negative perceptions of women

is a little daunting, but very important.

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

It's awesome.

(Laughter)

It is fabulous.

Being in the zone is so cool.

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

on a subconscious level.

Nothing in the outside world matters.

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

and get within a couple
centimeters of the wall,

it's better than sex.

(Laughter)

And it so satisfying to do
something exceptionally well

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

And I think that my situation
as a female racer,

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

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

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

Thank you.

(Applause)