I really hate football, so I always look forward to the SuperBowl commercials as a way to get me through what would otherwise be four hours of sheer boredom. Last night, however, I was more disgusted than entertained, especially by the GoDaddy.com commercials featuring Indy Racing League driver Danica Patrick. I hate that I’m even giving GoDaddy any press by writing this post, but I just can’t keep quiet. The ads were racy and one featured some gooberish college guys ogling Danica in the shower (you could only see her head & shoulders but STILL. It was inferred that the goobers were getting the whole picture.) The other ad was also in poor taste, and both offered viewers a chance to see the “unrated” conclusions online. I am sure the unrated conclusions are probably soft p*rn or worse, but I’m not going to find out for myself.

C’mon, Danica! You’ve shattered barriers for women by becoming the first successful female IRL driver, why are you taking such a giant step back in participating in ads that are demeaning to your gender? Do you REALLY need the money that badly? Because personally, I don’t think it’s worth it, and judging from all the tweets I saw about you and your poor-taste ads last night on Twitter, I’m not in the minority. (Do a Twitter search for Danica Patrick and you’ll see what I mean.)

The whole thing left me feeling pretty yucky – how about you? Am I overreacting or has Danica shelved her self-respect?

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Ok this is Emily jumping in here. Jenny unwittingly handed me my soapbox this morning, so I’m going to jump on it.

Danica Patrick has had a successful racing career, and she has broken barriers. There were, however, women who went before her. Janet Guthrie drove in the Indy 500 five years before Danica was even born. Lyn St. James won “Rookie of the Year” at Indy in 1992. Sarah Fisher drove along side Danica from 2000-2004.

She wasn’t the first… she was (and is) the most marketable.

It’s ok for a female to be a strong contender in a male dominated sport, if – and this is a big if – said female is hot.

Hot and heterosexual. Years ago, I was just as hot under the hood as Jenny is today when I saw a life-sized cardboard cut out of Danica advertising pepsi products. She was in her racing gear, she wasn’t wearing anything provocative… it was her wedding ring that made my blood boil. The folks at Pepsi had worked really hard to make Danica’s ring blatantly obvious – somehow they made the silver dollar-sized cardboard diamond shimmer. They might has well have tattooed “Don’t worry, I am not a lesbian!” on her forehead. In addition to her hotness, this fact is also key in her marketability.

But, let me play devil’s advocate for a moment, too. As quick as we are to find distaste for Danica using her sexuality to sell domain names (I haven’t quite figured out that connection yet), did we have that strong a reaction when Michael Jordan walked around in his Hanes? I doubt it. Why is it less of an issue for a man to be seen on TV in his skivvies?

What about when the ooglers were women taking a Diet Coke break?

And what if Danica did the commercial just to make money? Have you seen the advertisements splashed all over race cars? Their outfits? Their helmets? Obviously car racing is expensive, and sponsorship is big business. Are we offended by the giant Viagra car zooming around the track? (Yes, I am, actually, but it doesn’t seem to be a hot topic on Twitter).

Women have come so far in sports in the 30-some years since Title IX was inacted, but sexism and inequity are still very real. And while I could go on all day, I won’t… but I’ll bring it back to Jenny’s original question:

Are we over-reacting?

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Ok, it’s Jenny again. Now for shameless self-promotion: I am guest posting at the Crocs blog today and I promise I didn’t do anything demeaning to myself or my gender over there! Please go check it out!