This morning while driving, I found myself behind a car with a sticker on the back saying 'You just got passed by a girl" (with a lipstick-lips graphic). Having nothing better to do on a rather non-descript drive, I got to de-constructing it…
Y’see, without wanting to get pedantically semantic about it, technically she didn’t pass me at all (she had right of way at a roundabout (‘rotary’) - there was no ‘passing’ involved.)
Plus, surely, in the grand scheme of things - the majority of the time when a car is in front of another, it’s not because the former physically overtook (‘passed’) the other; rather, it’s because of exactly these kinds of aforementioned mundane traffic technicalities.
More importantly, why would it matter to me that the driver in the car ahead of me is female? Why would said driver need to communicate that to me so badly that she specifically purchases then applies a textual sticker to her vehicle so that said message is continuously communicated?
And, somewhat peripherally, we are both in the UK - and the sticker has an American English phrasing (‘passed’ instead of ‘overtook’) - did she import it especially from the United States?
What, exactly, is the purpose of this sticker, and what are the motivations behind its application?
Well, clearly ‘You just got passed by a girl’ is two insults wrapped up in one:
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- I overtook you. I am a faster and/or more aggressive driver than you. I am, therefore, hierarchically superior to you.
- I am female. The aforementioned should, therefore, be even more pronounced in terms of its humiliation and emasculation.
This itself takes a bit of unpacking…
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It can be fairly assumed that the sole driver and owner of this vehicle is female. However, we can also assume that the rest of those on the road are pretty much a 50/50 male/female split. Is this message aimed at all road users? Or just the men? I suspect the latter (as, one supposes, the implied emasculation from the message only hits the mark at male motorists). What are female motorists supposed to make from this message? Or are they presumed to be invisible?
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This message also presumes that overtaking is an act of dominance. Truthfully, I don’t often see it that way. When I overtake people, I don’t laugh maniacally about what an Alpha I am - and when I am overtaken, my balls don’t shrivel up in emasculated humiliation - some people drive faster than others at certain points. This feels like a mundane observation to me, not a crucial ritual of establishing human hierarchy.
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It furthermore implies that it is worse to be overtaken by a woman than a man. If you look underneath this rock, the real implication is that being emasculated by being overtaken is bad, but to have that done to you by a woman is even worse. Because, so goes the logic, women are thought to be less dominant and assertive and-all-that - so this scenario is double-humiliating. Kind of like ‘getting beaten up by a girl’.
But this doesn’t yet touch on why - what was her motivation in a) importing this sticker from the US and b) applying it to her vehicle? Surely, the only thing to come out of this has been aggression from the occasional insecure male motorist. What, for this female motorist, has been the net benefit of having this written on her car? Is it the thought that everywhere she goes, she rattles and annoys insecure men? Is it, in a somewhat diversionary way, to amuse other women?
I suppose this taps into a bigger question, which is why people write messages on their vehicles at all. Given the transient nature of traffic, it is highly unlikely that something written on your bumper will ever stimulate an actual dialogue, so what’s the point?
OK - I’m done 
Thoughts welcome
