Over the last couple of days, the press and blogs have been a-twitter with the news of the changes to the Breeders’ Cup schedule and the Friday emphasis on distaff racing, including the newly-named Ladies’ Classic. Check out Superfecta, Left at the Gate, Railbird, and Handride (especially their comments’ sections) for various perspectives, reactions, and suggestions. And if I’ve missed you, I apologize.

I’m a little slow to come to this conversation, but reading the blogs and comments over the last couple of days has further distilled my thinking about this move, so I’m throwing my thoughts into the conversation.

As an English teacher and literature lover, I don’t think one can underestimate the power of language, of words, and I believe that words shape our perceptions. “Ladies’ Day” at Ascot and the ladies’ and gentlemen’s tournaments at Wimbledon are redolent of another era, and designed to conjure up a certain type of participant: nicely dressed, genteel, and distinctly upper-class. The masses weren’t going to the racing or the tennis when these traditions were created. The expectation that females were meant to be “ladies,” and thus act “lady-like,” inhibited women’s opportunities and held their behavior up to a standard nearly impossible to meet while doing anything interesting.

So when I hear that the premier race for female horses has been changed from the Distaff (whose own etymological roots do not exactly smack of equal opportunity, rooted as they are in the domestic arts) to the “Ladies’ Classic,” I can’t hear it as anything but demeaning, and limiting. And if you don’t agree, think about what your reaction would be if the Classic (which of course requires no modifier, as it’s the standard) were re-named the “Gentlemen’s Classic.” Calling a male racehorse a gentleman is absurd; so is calling a female racehorse a lady.

Unfortunately, there’s a long tradition of poorly-named, sexist race names for female horses. There’s the Matron, which makes no sense because it’s for two-year-olds, and the Spinster, whose negative connotations on which I need hardly elaborate. And then there’s the Dowager. Looking at the definitions of these three races, one might wonder what all the fuss is about, but it’s their connotations rather than their denotations that are problematic, as not a single one of these terms connotes anything about speed, energy, or vigor; in fact, they are most often associated with negative images of women past their prime.

I’m not in love with the idea of a Ladies’ Day—just like I don’t like Ladies’ Nights at bars, or anything in which privilege or status (or lack thereof) depends solely on one’s genitalia—and I’m especially opposed because it’s on Friday, automatically giving the races a secondary place on the sport’s biggest weekend. Friday is a prelude to the big day, and the absence of some of racing’s finest athletes will leave a big hole in Saturday, especially considering that most of us have to work and will miss these races entirely. It’s like when the US Open puts some of their biggest stars on the main court beginning at 10:00 at night: why on earth would you showcase anything about your sport when most people can’t watch it?

And speaking of tennis, it offers a decent model that racing might consider emulating, which is giving their men’s and women’s title matches equal billing on both weekend days. You get the women’s final on Saturday, and the men’s on Sunday: premier, stand-alone events both, with neither getting short shrift (except in the paycheck department, but that’s a topic for another day). People don’t have to take time off work to watch the women play for the championship.

I appreciate the tradition of Ladies’ Day at Ascot, but I like to think that racing in this country is more democratic than it is in England, where it costs more than $100 (at the current exchange rate) simply to get in. I like that many of our tracks have areas where families can come and patrons can hang out in shorts with picnics, and I’m not sure why we can’t create our own traditions, rather than borrowing from a culture whose values and history are so different from ours–and this comes from an Anglophile who lived in London for three years, so I admire many of those values and that history; I’m just not sure how well they transfer across the Atlantic. Remember George Bernard Shaw’s comment about our cultures being separated by a common language?

I don’t know why we can’t figure out a way to honor the females in the sport on a day on which working people can actually attend. I will pay as much attention to the distaff races as I ever have (from work now, unfortunately), and I will continue to call the big race the Filly and Mare Distaff. I’ve met some of the big-time race mares, and they are no ladies.