IN a world where trolls rampage, caveman-like, over social media, waving their Twitter clubs, it's not surprising that a woman who was bookies' favourite to present Top Gear got a hate-message from someone who wished to see her "burn to death".
It is, though, deeply depressing. For me, the news that the funny and charming presenter Sue Perkins has decided to take a break from Twitter because her feed was full of "blokes wishing me dead", serves as a reminder of why women remain such a problem for the programme. This after all is a show not just about cars, but about how men feel about them. Though the number of miles women drive each year is rising as men drive fewer, our relationship with cars remains deeply stereotyped. Who drives the car, who is "in the driving seat", still means something. We might want to pretend it doesn't but, in a society where, in three out of four couples, it's the man who drives on occasions where men and women travel together, a female driving (or, perhaps, presenting) when a male could be doing the job remains a threat.
I belong to one of those couples - and so do many people I know. One friends, a pretty slick driver herself, recently told me that she was going to have to start driving more because she was worried her daughter was growing up seeing motoring as a man's role. When I met my husband, I was the one who owned a car. One of his courtship pitches was that he could drive and cook for me, and ever since, I'm ashamed to say, I've mostly been the map reader. I've also let him do a lot of cooking.
A University of Washington sociologist, Pepper Schwartz, reports that in nine out of 10 households that identify themselves as "feminist", the man does most of the driving when both partners are in the car. Research suggests that women, even dynamic types who might be steering grand projects in their work lives, are going along with an arrangement where the man takes control. My husband wants to be in control of the wheel, mostly I let him. He thinks he's a better driver; fine. And, actually, he is. There may be many reasons why. There is, for instance, "the halo effect", in which, according to psychological research, if you tell someone that they're good at something, they tend to be good. Or it could be that my family are not, unlike my husband's, renowned for their co-ordination skills. Or it could just be I'm lazy.
Of course, as with all statistics, you get couples who defy the pattern. Last week the Daily Mail's Sarah Vine wrote that in her family, she's the petrol head, while husband, Michael Gove, "never gets a look in". Vine was pitching herself for the Top Gear job, saying, "I like to be in control when I'm behind the wheel ...When I drive a car, I really drive it."
I have no desire to present Top Gear. But I do confess to an interest in what happens to the show. There are powerful fantasies at work in our relationship with the car: revolving around control, the notion, perhaps, that an Englishman's car is his castle, the driver's seat his throne. In Top Gear, these notions are writ large and sometimes poked fun at, often hilariously by Clarkson, though sadly in a celebratory rather than satirical way. The programme played on the intense feelings that there are around cars - not only driving them, but also owning and fetishising them - and made these feelings into a shared, laddish joke.
For a long time it has seemed to be a kind of swansong to an old idea of the man who, though he might be otherwise powerless, through his vehicle, owned the roads, and therefore the world. It laughed at it, but perpetuated it. Time now, surely, to move on.
Despite featuring the occasional hybrid or electric car, Top Gear appears to give two-fingers to the planet. Macho men, the suggestion is, don't care about the environment. Hybrid and electric cars, because they lack of noise, are not deemed for "real men". Driverless cars are for wimps who don't feel the urge to be in control. Yet these technologies are the future.
When I watch Top Gear, I worry about what it means for my young sons. I don't want them to be "real men" that don't do green. I want them to be part of the future of travel, not the past. Perkins has said that the story about her being in the running for presenting Top Gear is a fabricated one. That's a pity. I'd like a Top Gear with Perkins in it. It might help us begin to reshape our relationship with cars. We might be able to look forward, not back. As it is, too many people prefer to keep staring misty-eyed into an exhaust-fume clouded past.
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