Susie Wolff is more than just “his wife”: The double standards in media
The motorsports community was sent into a frenzy when the FIA announced an investigation into a possible conflict of interest between an F1 team principal and a member of Formula One management.
The FIA statement read: “The FIA is aware of media speculation centred on the allegation of information of a confidential nature being passed to an F1 team principal from a member of FOM [Formula One Management] personnel. The FIA Compliance Department is looking into the matter.”
It was quickly revealed that the investigation was about Susie and Toto Wolff and lasted a total of three days before the compliance department finished the matter.
Within the first day, F1 revealed that the investigation was not shared with them before hand and had “complete confidence” the allegations were wrong.
Mercedes released a statement on social media that said: “We wholly reject the allegation in the statement and associated media coverage” and was also surprised about the investigation as they were also not warned before it was released.
Susie Wolff released a separate statement on social media expressing how she was “deeply insulted but sadly unsurprised” by the allegations that she deemed as misogynistic behavior.
The second day of the allegations was met with a co-ordinated statement from all the F1 teams which read “we can confirm that we have not made any complaint to the FIA regarding the allegation of information of a confidential nature being passed between an F1 team principal and a member of FOM staff” and the statement was ended with support for F1 Academy.
And then on the third day, the day before the FIA prize giving ceremony, the allegations were put aside and the announcement that the investigation was ended was released.
The FIA statement relating to this said: ‘‘Following a review of Formula One Management’s F1 Code of Conduct and F1 Conflict of Interest Policy and confirmation that appropriate protective measures are in place to mitigate any potential conflicts, the FIA is satisfied that FOM’s compliance management system is robust enough to prevent any unauthorized disclosure of confidential information.
‘‘The FIA can confirm that there is no ongoing investigation in terms of ethical or disciplinary inquiries involving any individual.
‘‘As the regulator, the FIA has a duty to maintain the integrity of global motorsport. The FIA reaffirms its commitment to integrity and fairness.’’
Throughout all this, media outlets released socials media posts, articles and videos explaining the news to their readers and viewers, hoping to be the first to catch a story.
Susie Wolff is the managing director of F1 Academy, former professional racing driver, former Williams F1 development driver, the most recent woman to take part in an F1 weekend as a racer, former Race of Champions participant and former channel 4 F1 coverage analyst.
With this entire list to choose from media personal were not short of ways to describe the pioneer of women in motorsport.
“Wife” was the term they chose.
Autosport readers would have read an article titled ‘FIA opens compliance investigation into potential Wolff conflict of interest’.
The tagline explained how “Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff and wife Susie” were under investigation by the FIA Compliance department.
Motorsport.com readers would have read a similar article written by the same author titled the same thing.
The tagline once again described how “Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff and wife Susie” were being investigated because of a potential conflict of interest.
Readers of ESPN would have seen an article titled ‘FIA opens investigation into Toto and Susie Wolff over conflict of interest claims.’ Which in its first paragraph said: “Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and wife Susie, head of the F1 Academy” were subjects of the investigation.
After the FIA announced the investigation had ended Sky Sports released an article titled ‘FIA drops investigation into conduct of Toto and Susie Wolff after finding no conflict of interest possible.’
Its first paragraph read: “The FIA has dropped the investigation into the conduct of Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and his wife Susie, the head of F1 Academy, after finding Formula 1’s compliance rules to be sufficiently robust to prevent any breaches of confidentiality.”
The guardian published an article titled ‘FIA quickly drops conflict of interest investigation into Toto and Susie Wolff.’
The first paragraph talks about how the FIA backed down from the conflict of interest investigation into “Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, and his wife, Susie.”
“…wife, Susie…” is something that all these articles have in common, the authors for some unknown reason saw it fit to reduce the 41-year-old to her marital status and while some mentioned her job title the majority did not.
This reduced the women who became F1 Academy’s managing director because of her own accomplishments and experience to a team principles wife and even the ones that did mention her job put the fact she is a wife first.
Females in Motorsport tweeted ‘PSA Susie Wolff is more than just Toto’s wife.’
This is not the first-time a woman in sports have been reduced to a relationship status in articles and the problem is faced by all women in the public eye. Taylor Swift is a key example outside of the world of sports.
Swift is an American singer-songwriter with 12 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards, 40 Billboard Music Awards, 23 MTV Video Music Awards and a loyal and loving fanbase that spans the globe.
Despite this great success with her music shaping the industry articles focus on who the breakup songs are about and if she is in a relationship or not.
The majority of articles focusing on women convey double standards within the media and journalist community and the coverage on the Wolff situation is no different.
Although the marriage status of the Wolff’s is a part of the story as the accusations made were centered around the fact they are married (which was a misogynistic look in the first place), it is not an important factor and is not important enough to put in the tagline or first paragraph.
In journalism writing one of the main rules is the most important information goes first and then as you read on more information is revealed.
These articles could have easily said something along the lines of ‘the married couple have been accused of…’ or ‘the couple that have been married for 11 years…’ this tells the reader the information while keeping the viewer focused on the actual story.
This also does not undermine either of the pair’s jobs or accomplishments.
Deeming a man as ‘husband’ would never be done, and the fact it has been done to a woman is an example of the double standards that women face in media. Along with having less coverage women in motorsport must battle with the bland and dull coverage they do get or coverage that does not note their merits.
- by Lizzy Oxendale
