Behind the wheel "male wheelbarrows": What I learned about them and about myself
"Clutches on wheels: five cars for the fair sex", "The list of small and inexpensive cars for women. What you need for ladies", "Choosing a car: female logic" - articles with such headlines appear in automotive publications of the twenty-first century. After all, "no matter how biased men treat ladies who" prancing "on the highway on their small car, we have to put up with this fact," and "we used to see a man driving a car - powerful, sporty or small - car - man. However, lately more women seek to get a driver's license. "
"Female" car should be easy to operate, beautiful, reliable and functional - says the All-Russian study "Female cars", well, because women are unlikely to cope with something complicated, they love beautiful things and fall into a stupor when something breaks down. And it is also necessary that a baby carriage, a set for a romantic picnic, dozens of packages from a supermarket, a snow shovel and a fridge, which it is time to take to the cottage, would fit into the women's car. Such stereotypes about women's driving style and car priorities "prancing" what on the pages of car magazines, what on the roads, where the word "driving" just rhymes with what it is understandable. We decided to test drive and asked journalist Anna Rodina to share her driving experience with assorted cars, test a couple of particularly "serious men" and tell whether size is important.
If you type "woman for" on YouTube, in the top of the issue there will be videos "woman behind the wheel", "women behind the wheel - this is scary" and "these amazing women are behind the wheel". In the case of men, the compilation is much more diverse: “a man in his fifties,” “a man began to cry,” “how to make a man run,” and even Vika Tsyganova’s video “For Men.” There are no rollers about men behind the wheel - it is too trivial: why additionally tell that there are ten fingers?
Another typical example: when a large SUV is driven by a man, this is natural. Earned - bought - drove. If a girl is driving the same car, then other road users have room for imagination: from the rejection of the very fact that she drives a car, to "where does the money for such a car" and "presented". A woman may be a director, a goodwill ambassador, a minister or a full member of the presidential race, but on the roads is still perceived as an obstacle for male drivers. In Moscow - especially. There are good roads, paid parking and tight traffic jams, so big cars are not a means of transportation, but a luxury. First of all, the luxury of freedom and respect: where the Smart Fortwo will have to blink with a turn signal before a dead battery, the Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland will be let through immediately and without any talk. Checked on yourself.
A blonde girl with glasses can easily be put on her face that she has turned (or stopped) too slowly (or quickly)
I am from Vladivostok, one of the most motorized cities in the country. It stands on the hills, it is surrounded by the sea, so there will never be a subway built there. And so there, as in Los Angeles, even in the city center there are places where you can not walk. For example, you can drive a car and go directly to the parking on the waterfront, or you can come by bus and take a long time to get to the same point through the railway tracks. On average, a typical two-person Vladivostok family accounts for two cars. One of them is an SUV: asphalt is more often repaired locally and the patches are washed down after a season.
On the frame car it is convenient to get out of the city: it will pass on any impassable road, it has a lot of space and almost any of them is more comfortable than a sedan. What is important in a city without a metro and, as a result, with many kilometers of traffic jams. Attitude to women behind the wheel there is easier - there is just everything behind the wheel. But even there, the rule "more - better." I drove both the “female” Nissan Note with the Citroen C3, and the “respectable” Mersedes GLA with the Jeep Renegade: as you might guess, the crossovers and SUVs have noticeably more attention and respect.
In Moscow, small cars seem much more practical - and for starters, I took a Smart Fortwo for a test drive. This is an ideal solution for the metropolis, I thought. The hills are not here, the asphalt is not slipping anywhere. By all measures, Smart is sharpened by a Muscovite: a car 2.8 meters long, which eats only 4.7 liters of gasoline per hundred kilometers. "Yes, only a bicycle is better!" - I rejoiced, having started with "Mayakovskaya". I had a chance to regret my decision after 700 meters - on Tverskaya Zastava Square.
They say that, driving up to it, drivers open windows in advance. Here seven streams of cars converge, and during rush hours it is possible to cross a small area for an hour and a half. Or all this time is such that pictures fall in the houses on Butyrsky Val - tired drivers easily get annoyed. Without disconnecting, however, the instinct of self-preservation: an impressive man in the two-hundredth Land Cruiser is unlikely to be found, even if he gets across and will block two and a half lanes. Suddenly he will not confine himself to words, but will the mirrors come out and tear off? History knows the cases.
But the blonde in glasses can easily put on the form that too slowly (or quickly) turned (or stopped). Woman mirrors are unlikely to tear off, and the car is small. And since a small one means, most likely, I bought it myself, so if anything, no one will intervene. You can shout. They shouted at me, proving with deeds that, despite 2016 and urbanization, before the triumph of practicality over the opportunity to stand out (albeit in this way), we are still very far away. The smaller your car - the more you have no rights. Therefore, one of the following test subjects was a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon: I don’t like it when they yell at me, and if 284 horsepower can protect me from this, then why not try it.
Judging by the regular attempts to help me spin the wheel, I do not look like a person who knows the art of parallel parking
I fell in love immediately with the bright red Rubicon: with a clear geometry of the lines, with how the engine grows in the utero and with what a loud neighing this 2.5-ton machine opens up at a traffic light. Behind the wheel, I immediately wanted out of town, in the snow, and better in the summer, to remove the roof and drive off-road, because driving such a car to work is pure defeatism, as well as a credit card, filled with tears: 17 liters per hundred kilometers - it hurt, you know.
When I first parked this huge car in the yard - neatly and slowly, because on the first day behind the wheel of a new car, you still feel badly in size - young vapers threw a vape on the playground and came to see what would happen next. “Rubicon” definitely didn’t look like a car that would fit in a densely populated free parking lot, and it wasn’t designed for this purpose: it has no cameras or parking sensors. In short, you can - park, you are afraid - go to the guarded parking, taking into account the price of 2000 rubles per night, even BelAZ can easily park there.
Judging by the regular attempts to help me spin the wheel, I do not look like a person who knows the art of parallel parking. Surprise - stereotypes are deceptive. Eight years ago, when I first bought myself a first car, I was taught to park by a friend: how to turn my head back, how to navigate through the mirrors. And if I looked in the wrong place, I said: “Everything. You just crushed a five-year-old boy. You got distracted, and he was small — and you didn’t see him.” I was almost crying, saying that he was mocking me — that was, in general, —but in general I understood that he was right. There are different situations on the road, it's really not always easy to park a car with your backside, but thanks to many hours of training with the participation of a "five-year-old boy," I have no problem with that. And on the "Rubicon" with side mirrors the size of a pierom - even more so.
This jeep didn’t have any problems at all: unlike most sedans, you didn’t feel that you accidentally bumped into a beer cap or a speed bump, the grip didn’t make you worry even during a trip from Domodedovo airport sudden snowfall. Members of the movement delicately missed the bright red SUV. Most of all I liked it when the one who missed gently turned the jeep around and saw me driving. Judging by the expression of the driver’s face, he clearly read the automobile sites - Rubicon is called a “brutal male” and a “car with a male character” on them. "Rubicon" is really brutal: for example, the doors on the hinged hinges could be opened only by pressing a button. And close - just slamming the door of the refrigerator. Properly. If the jeep is dirty at this moment, you can also be washed.
Even a taxi driver who takes you for your money can easily begin to reason that "women are the causes of all accidents"
The story of the big cars turned out to be exciting: there were few trips to the conditional bakery and I explored the suburbs on the off-road vehicles, drove to St. Petersburg and to the rally in Europe. There, me and another journalist were invited as editors of women's publications - apparently, in contrast, because the other participants were profile magazines and were men. From Austria to Poland we drove a new Ford Kuga. The autobahns turned out to be pure delight: with a permitted speed of 140 km / h, the flow went confident 160 and finally it became possible to check whether the crossover is able to accelerate to a hundred in ten seconds. Really.
New "Coogee" for several months traveled between the Greek Thessaloniki and the North Cape in Norway. Journalists were changing on every part of the journey, the only permanent link was the Norwegian documentary filmmakers who were making a film about traveling. Seeing the girl's crew - we shared 500 kilometers behind the wheel with our colleague Ulyana - they were delighted and immediately installed a DVR in the cabin. They asked to simply turn it on whenever we want, because "the girls behind the wheel are cool."
However, gender does not particularly interfere with the relations between drivers on European roads: it’s just how you drive that matters. Having lost my way in the suburbs of Vienna, I tried to drive back to the autobahn - prevented the man from BMW, he shook his head reproachfully and nodded, letting go: they say, drive from sin. In a mirror situation at the Oktyabrskoe Pole metro station, I, without violating a single rule, just decided to skip a man who was turning towards him. He opened the window and shouted: "Do not be stupid!"
Yes, I know that polite, calm and willing to help drivers are everywhere, and no matter what they drive. Once, my old small Citroen froze at a 27-degree frost: it was in the winter of 2011, when I was a novice driver, I washed my car and went to visit her. For the half hour I drank tea, the car finally froze. He opened the door with a loud chpok - the door was no longer closed, the engine did not start. I decided that it would be better to freeze to hell, but I would not give up the car, but a young man passing by on a Porsche - that I need help. I found a taxi driver with crocodiles and arranged for him to reanimate the frozen Frenchman. Just helped, without hints and "oh, these women."
But I also know that this is not an isolated, but rare case. Where more often motorists get a completely different attention - from humiliation to obsessive compliments. Even a taxi driver who takes you for your money can easily begin to talk about the fact that "women are the causes of all accidents", and the success of a woman behind the wheel causes genuine surprise.
The red color and the possibility of a cool selfie in the cabin, if you know what I mean, when choosing a car - not in the first or even in the second ten
Having decided to finally test the strength of these foundations, I took a Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland test drive, a car that car sites clearly recognize as "male." This jeep is considered one of the symbols of the dashing 90s: a "gangster" car, a three-liter engine and a starting price of 2.9 million rubles. To be honest, before the test I wanted to buy a trowel (in the 90s there were no words “hoodie” or “sweatshirt”!) “Adidas” and turn on “Who Let the Dogs out”. It did not work out, but without attributes from the height of this pendant and beige soft leather armchair, you can easily edit, if not the world, then the Third Ring so accurately. The characteristics of Overland certainly look aggressive, but there is simply no one to “bump” on it - before this gray-black handsome man, absolutely everyone passed, except, perhaps, the owners of the BMW X6, who, as you know, the devil himself is not a brother.
By the way, inside the jeep is much softer: the ergonomics of the cabin are thought out so carefully that there are no chances to come home with a sore back, even after standing in a traffic jam for four hours in a row: the seats are adjusted in all planes, the steering wheel is inclined and tilted. Perhaps, at the moment it is my favorite car: it is impressive, powerful and beautiful, it even has a panoramic roof. “You are his first woman,” the press park told me, handing out the keys. “And with this roof you can make excellent photos.”
But it's not about the photos. The fact is that I, maybe, also want to hear about the characteristics, and not about the character: just a simple thing - volume, consumption, acceleration. They are all the same wheelbarrows, there are no "male" and "female", they are simply divided into classes, and choose them according to needs: you need to go out of town - they take a jeep, you need to park in the center - a small hatchback, a large family - a minivan. Red color and the possibility of a cool selfie in the cabin, if you know what I mean, when choosing a car - not in the first or even in the second ten.
By the way, I didn’t work out great photos, the weather let us down, I had to describe them in words. When I scattered in delight about the characteristics of the "Overland" to a friend of an autojournalist, he thoughtfully looked at me and said: "Still, in vain European test drives are driven by some type of professionals. We must carry suckers - then people will read about cars." Well, someday, I hope, people like me will no longer be considered suckers - even behind the wheel of a FIAT 500, not a Fullback.
Photo: Jeep, personal archive
