I hate to break it to you but labelling a profession or industry as "male dominated" DOES immediately make it less accessible to women.

I know this because I am a woman who has worked in several male dominated fields. Knowing that the odds are basically stacked against you from the beginning is daunting. If you're cute people say you're only there because whoever hired you thinks you're hot. If you're not conventionally attractive you have to be HELLA good at what you do. And I don't mean that you have to be as good as the men, you have to be better because few people will even take you seriously. Even if you're perfectly good at what you do you'll still have to deal with all the criticism, having people doubt your skills or make off handed comments about PMS if you're simply having a bad day.

And if you ever do succeed and get recognized for it, it's always underscored by the fact that you're female. "Yeah, she's good for a girl." So you can't win either way. If you do well it's still made out to be some kind of pity prize and everyone is quick to provide a million excuses as to why a man couldn't do it better. If you fail there's no condolence, no sympathy because everyone expected it from the beginning.

In my mind, F1 is not ready yet for a female F1 Driver. Not because there aren't women capable of it, because I'm sure that there are. But because it's a man's sport. It's a boys club and any woman with any sense knows that she would be there almost as a novelty. Most of the fans are men. The sponsors are marketing towards men. And while I'm speculating here, I don't imagine any of the drivers would take kindly to losing to a girl. Imagine Lewis' reaction to losing a race to a woman? Or Verstappen?