# 40% of Top Gear viewers are women. Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 22, 2012, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873 "2012-12-22T22:26:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/21 "2012-12-23T03:01:31Z")
The OP is serious? What’s next? Shock over how many women love the NFL or Major League Baseball? My last girlfriend was a huge Boston Bruins fan and dragged me to plenty of their games and probably would have fallen asleep while watching Sex in the City. Yes, many women love cars and love watching Top Gear. Women have a tendency to like a lot of the same hints men do. The only thing women don’t do that me do is fart. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/22 "2012-12-23T03:14:04Z")
> [@Time\_Stranger](#): > > I’m a female and I watch Top Gear because I like looking at cars. Same here. Also, it’s funny. ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/23 "2012-12-23T03:15:27Z")
Seriously, **dropzone** , unless you’ve never actually met a woman, this is a pitable OP. I’m not in the mood, so I’ll just inform you that women are people, not one-dimensional stereotypes. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/24 "2012-12-23T03:19:14Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > What’s next? Shock over how many women love the NFL or Major League Baseball? Well, women and the NFL seems to have been a recent development and female baseball fans were rare when I was younger. What can I say? I’m old and gender roles have changed. It’s not that I don’t like it. I just find it interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/25 "2012-12-23T04:13:38Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Well, women and the NFL seems to have been a recent development and female baseball fans were rare when I was younger. What can I say? I’m old and gender roles have changed. It’s not that I don’t like it. I just find it interesting. They’re almost like little people sometimes, the way they like stuff. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/26 "2012-12-23T04:24:14Z")
Don’t that beat all? And they like stuff BESIDES cooking, cleaning, and making men happy! Honest, when I was in college few of the women drank beer. Now they’ll drink almost anything, though there’s still a tendency for frou-frou shit like wine, Captain Morgan, and appletinis. Even with the alkies. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/27 "2012-12-23T04:32:09Z")
Heck, I’ll ask the gals in the typing pool about it on Monday, that’ll be swell. They’re all so husband-crazy, it’s a wonder that old maid Miss Sternly ever gets any work out of the pretty little things. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/28 "2012-12-23T04:47:52Z")
Dude, it’s why I don’t watch Mad Men. I lived with and around those people and have no desire to repeat the experience. But I’m an old enough fogie that the idea of women watching Top Gear is counter-intuitive for me. And it’s no help that Goody **zone** has no interest in cars, to the extent that she won’t even check her own oil or tires. “If I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have gotten married,” is a direct quote. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/29 "2012-12-23T05:37:30Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Well, women and the NFL seems to have been a recent development and female baseball fans were rare when I was younger. What can I say? I’m old and gender roles have changed. It’s not that I don’t like it. I just find it interesting. How old are you? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/30 "2012-12-23T05:52:08Z")
58 ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/31 "2012-12-23T07:46:11Z")
Huh. Well you must not be from Pittsburgh, then. 😉 My grandmother was a die-hard Steelers fan, and she was 94 when she died a few weeks ago. She knew more about football than anyone! Trust me, female sports fans are not a recent developement around here! But we know we only like them because, you know, “Sidney Crosby is soooo hot!” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/32 "2012-12-23T08:27:24Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Dude, it’s why I don’t watch Mad Men. I lived with and around those people and have no desire to repeat the experience. But I’m an old enough fogie that the idea of women watching Top Gear is counter-intuitive for me. And it’s no help that Goody **zone** has no interest in cars, to the extent that she won’t even check her own oil or tires. “If I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have gotten married,” is a direct quote. I don’t check my oil or tires (I did know how to do it in Dad’s cars, though; the ones I’ve had rarely needed any maintenance out of regular service), but I can tell you the Cayenne is not a Porsche, despite the shield on its hood… it just don’t give me no gasoline, if you know what I mean. I only happened to catch Top Gear once, but it was fun and the cars were cool. I think it was a blue Beemer, a yellow Ferrari and a red Mazda. The Mazda got the worst time (mind you, we’re still talking about a difference in the tenths of second) but it sounded the best. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/33 "2012-12-23T12:04:05Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > My wife doesn’t know a thing about cars. She watches it because it’s a funny show. My wife LOVES watching PTI with me - but she knows NOTHING about sports, outside of baseball. The interaction between the hosts is very fun, and funny. ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/34 "2012-12-23T13:23:05Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > 58 My dad is 71. Sis and I each had dirt bikes in kindergarten; that’s what we did after school and on weekends until we left home. I had a string of Suzukis and inherited Dad’s busted Hodaka Combat Wombat, Sis was a Honda fan. She raced, still drives a bike to work on nicer days. Dad coached cross country and golf from 67 to 98, both of which were co-ed except when they played non co-ed schools. Boys and girls practiced and scrimmaged together. (I know, right?? Women competing against men. Don’t that blow your burka up). My first car was a Triumph Spitfire, which was one of many imports we restored together. (Bug-eyed Sprite, Triumph TR6, TR7, Fiat Spider (2), squareback, 76 Beetle, 73 Beetle, and my first car was a 69 Charger which my grandmother bought on a whim when she was 67.) I was, and still am a girly girl who loves cars and generally knows more about the traffic around me than any male in my car. I can drive anything, prefer a clutch, drag raced my husband’s tubbed out 70 Nova 350 with a 7:11 rear and a trigger shifter that required double clutching to smack into 2nd and 4th because though he could build a badass car, he was too nervous to run it under pressure. I rarely won because the Nova was often classed against rail cars, but no one ever beat my reaction time which was nearly always .0something. And I have two girlfriends raised the same way and we run into one another at car shows more often than the grocery. The whole wide world is open to both sexes, welcome to Earth. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/35 "2012-12-23T15:39:08Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I only happened to catch Top Gear once, but it was fun and the cars were cool. I think it was a blue Beemer, a yellow Ferrari and a red Mazda. The Mazda got the worst time (mind you, we’re still talking about a difference in the tenths of second) but it sounded the best. That is SUCH a girly thing on which to base your choice. 😉 My pathetic excuse: I didn’t have any sisters. My mom is another Martha Stewart, though her mother was a die-hard Twins fan. A girl at my high school had to take it to the Supreme Court to be allowed to join the letterman’s club, to give you young’uns an idea of the tenor of the time. My SILs all played softball but have no interest in cars and don’t watch football or baseball. My daughters are into My Little Pony and crafts, through no fault of mine. I’ve usually worked at jobs where there were few women so the sample size was small, but recently it has gotten bigger so I find myself saying, “Oh, there are women who like sports now,” but they still don’t like cars. And, as a Yank, I don’t know anybody else IRL who has mentioned Top Gear, male or female. This is new territory for me and I am trying to make some sense of it. ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/36 "2012-12-23T15:56:46Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > My daughters are into My Little Pony and crafts, through no fault of mine. Children are individuals, but generally make sense of the world via the instructions of their caregivers and influence of their peers. If you assumed they had no interest in “guy things” and made no attempt to expand their worlds, you limited their experience. 50 years ago your confession would serve as a cautionary tale. (Don’t limit your child’s world based on your own prejudice.) Today it’s an example of sexism. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/37 "2012-12-23T21:59:15Z")
I watch it because it’s funny. They take a subject I have barely any interest in and they make it amusing. ---
**Author:** ![LurkerInNJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ed655f/32.png) [@LurkerInNJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkerInNJ)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/38 "2012-12-23T22:16:14Z")
I watch the show. I’m not really into cars at all. It’s fun to watch. Female in her mid 50’s. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/39 "2012-12-24T03:20:37Z")
> [@Troppus](#): > > Children are individuals, but generally make sense of the world via the instructions of their caregivers and influence of their peers. If you assumed they had no interest in “guy things” and made no attempt to expand their worlds, you limited their experience. 50 years ago your confession would serve as a cautionary tale. (Don’t limit your child’s world based on your own prejudice.) Today it’s an example of sexism. It would be nice to find out that I, an early supporter of Women’s Liberation, am at heart a sexist pig, but no, they came on that MLP:FIM shit a couple years ago, when they hit 21. All their lives I tried to butch them up but there was little I could do, being more into sewing and cooking than baseball or football. I like road racing but they turn it off in favor of Martha Speaks. At this point I’d be happy if they started watching programs aimed at adults. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873/40 "2012-12-24T07:15:52Z")
Why does anyone watch that wretched show? Probably because women can also be unfunny racists who also don’t know a god damn thing about cars. There’s a guy named Adam Carolla in the US, who is also an unfunny racists, but worked in a tire shop for a few years and therefore actually knows a thing or 2 about cars. Not enough for me to listen to/watch him but the first version of US Top Gear that they were going to cast him in would actually have been the superior version. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40-of-top-gear-viewers-are-women-why/644873.md?page=3)