Destroying our traditional ideas about gender roles, women sometimes behave more sharply and aggressively than men. The vehicle of transportation becomes a way for us to express our feelings?

Basic ideas

• Freedom of movement gives a feeling of independence. Obtaining “rights” is one of the ways to overcome the existing gender inequality (in rights).
• Car as a personal protected space. In “Fortresses on Wheels” it is easier to express your emotions and attitude to others.
• The behavior on the road speaks of our internal state. It is more difficult to drive a car for those who are not in the welfare.

25 years ago, a woman at the wheel looked unusual. Today the situation has changed: the number of motorists is invariably growing. And if more recently, they pleased both the traffic police inspectors and neighbors on the road with their discipline, politeness and neatly compliance with the rules, now, it seems, a reverse tendency has been outlined.

In the west, masculine, exaggeratedly hard, brutal behavior after the wheel becomes characteristic of an increasing number of women. In Russia, the situation is not so unambiguous yet, although some signs indicate that we are moving in the same direction. “Today, there are more and more men who are in a gentlemanly passing around others on the road, and women, brazenly pushing others in the stream and do not pass the passage to anyone,” the 38-year-old traffic police inspector Vadim shares their observations. What are the causes of metamorphosis?

Independent rights

“I began another life when the second, my car appeared in the family,” admits the 35-year-old designer Rita, the mother of two children. – Go on business, to the market or to the children’s clinic – you do not need to warn or ask about it, now I feel much free more “.

And 43-year-old Alla, the director of the personnel of a large pharmaceutical company, prefers large SUVs. The current car-silver Lexus-is already the fourth, and she began to ride on her father’s “penny” in 1989. Alla practices a sharp, rather aggressive driving style, often presses on a signal, constantly encourages, cuts those who bother her, and generally often balances on the verge of permitted.

“When I just learned to drive, there were few women at the wheel and the men treated us with great prejudice. Almost so – at once insults, ridicule: they say where you, a girl, was at home, it would be better if you sat at home, I stroked my husband’s shirt. It was very unpleasant and insulting: I was complex for a long time, I was afraid of the slightest violation, forever missing everyone. And then suddenly asked herself: what, in fact, for the sake? I have been driving for 17 years, I have been taking better than many men, I have nothing to do, children who need to be educated, so on what on earth I should adapt to someone? Now I go as I want it myself, and I do not care if someone likes it or not “.

In the 80s, when a woman in Russia was getting behind the wheel, she felt that she had no right to make a mistake: she was surrounded by a hostile, in fact, chauvinist male environment. Today everything is different: cases of discrimination of the driver on a sexual basis become increasingly rare – women have

long won the right to be driving and intend to use this right to the maximum. And the aggression that arises at the same time is a kind of compensation for previous inconvenience.

“The woman has already encroached on many specifically male territories, and this is another of them,” explains the psychotherapist Natalya Izbutskaya. – On the road, she seems to defend her opportunity to be a full -fledged member of society. Figurely speaking, every female driver seems to prove to herself and others: I am able to do something no worse, but better than men ”.