My perception is that there has been a fairly good gender balance at the auto shows I regularly attend at the LeMay Collections at Marymount. Thus, I wonder why so few women appear to participate in U.S. auto history media, either as writers or commentators. That seems to be a general pattern regardless of media outlet, including here at Indie Auto.
Is it thus a coincidence that this topic is rarely discussed? I can recall only one example — a Curbside Classic post titled, “QOTD: Are There Any Ladies in The House?” (Stopford, 2016). Below you will find a rather pointed response by “longtime lurker” Patricia Elger (2016).
“Longtime Lurker, but I would say that despite being an earnest attempt to open up dialogue, some of the above comments would probably point to why there isn’t actually a lot of female participation on Curbside Classic, nevermind folks of color, LGBT enthusiasts, etc.
In my time of staying in the shadows it seems that the majority of enthusiasts that comment here are White, Male, Older, Conservative and speak in a lot of ‘in my day’ terms that paint a rosy picture that’s rather escapist of the now.
It doesn’t seem that open to dialogue from alternate perspectives for many of the ‘others’ to have their own interpretation of that ‘then.’ Or that now for that matter. It’s a bit better, but some of the comments you see on a regular basis here fit in the ‘don’t read the comments’ realm or seem like mansplaining 101. It might be space for a certain archetype to pine and lament for an America that once was more reflective of how they interpreted culture, and that’s fine. Just don’t expect others to engage in that with you.
You’d have to perpetually be in a Joan Crawford vs. The Pepsi Board of directors mode to comment here.”
Elger didn’t offer specifics, so I can only guess as to what she found problematic. To offer a basic example, I could see how a post with a photo of a bare-breasted woman might not be considered “racy” with some readers — regardless of gender (Niedermeyer, 2021).
I don’t have easy answers for this topic but do try to keep it in mind when making content decisions. As a case in point, Indie Auto attempts to steer away from “guys-in-the-garage” talk and instead function more like a virtual college seminar. This has apparently struck some former readers as unduly eggheaded.
Indie Auto also includes satirical ads that highlight a variety of issues, such as sexism in auto ads. This has resulted in a negative reaction from some men.
A key reason why Indie Auto is reader supported rather than reliant on advertising revenue is because I don’t want to have to cater to the lowest common denominator in order to make that cash register ring.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Elger, Patricia; 2016. Commentator in “QOTD: Are There Any Ladies in The House?” Curbside Classic. Posted August 22 at 1:48 pm.
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2021. “Seventies Vannin’: Vintage Ads (Including A Racy One) Mixed In With Some Curbside Finds.” Curbside Classic. Posted Aug. 14.
- Stopford, William; 2016. “QOTD: Are There Any Ladies in The House?” Curbside Classic. Posted August 22.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Joan Crawford: 1969 publicity photo for her appearance on the NBC television show, “Night Gallery.” From Wikipedia; public domain.
There is a lot of validity in this criticism. Old car sites are either Muscle Car oriented, or they are just about all kinds of older American cars. These sites attract and are designed to appeal to the fans of these cars , who are mostly Older,(sometimes surprisingly older!) men, primarily Caucasian, That’s really a an assumption. (hard to tell unless we see their picture). Look in Grand Pa’s closet, you shouldn’t be surprised to find, old, dusty, out of fashion clothing, that’s out of touch with the times, and probably doesn’t even fit anymore!
I know that there a lot of sites that aren’t very welcoming to different views. Some are quite hostile, I avoid such sites. There are sites like Curbside Classics which are more welcoming. I am interested in hearing anyone’s thoughtful comments about old cars. Yes, nostalgia is going to play a big part on those sites. Different viewpoints and experiences are good for all of us to encourage.
While I am now older, a male, and straight. My ethnicity and social class was not historically always welcomed as a participant
Laurence Jones started his site, Dynamic Drives openly stating that his views were those of a specific Gay Black man. I know that his life experiences are somewhat different than mine, but there are probably similarities and common ground. Let your voice be heard.
Agreed. Diversity feels like a tricky topic with auto history media. One of the first stories I wrote for Indie Auto was, “How 1960s car design reflected the good old (boy) days.” I analyzed a late-60s Ford p.r. film using the lenses of gender, race, class and orientation. If this had been published on a major website, I assume that the story would have received heavy pushback.
The auto history field just isn’t used to talking about this stuff. And as long as websites are primarily focused on entertaining rather than educating, I can see why editors would decide to not take too many risks. Yet we need to in order to open up the conversation. So thank you for responding to this post.
I’m a black car fan who used to go to Curbside Classics. I learned a lot from the contributors at least. But I found the majority of them were smug, cliquish and downright rude. Never again.
I’m sorry that you didn’t feel very welcome there. That’s a good reason why the more automotive websites the better.
I’m a white guy from the suburbs but I didn’t feel like I clicked very well there either. It tended to feel more like hanging out at a bar and shooting the shit. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t do that, but that isn’t why I got into auto history.
The gripe I have with seeing the classic car environment as dominated by males of European ascendance is that until very recently, I suspect that it’s been mostly men who liked and were interested in cars as a hobby or a toy.
Equality of opportunity is good, but equality of outcome might lead to paradoxes such as the following:
Suppose there is 10 positions open for a job as a researcher within a new Committee at a Uni, 50 men and 5 women apply but campus has a rule that committees should have gender even composition.
In this circumstance, what would occur is that all women who applied would get selected regardless of how good they are (provided the entry requirements are accounted for of course), and only the top 10% males would make the cut whilst the remaining 90% would be left out. Merit alone would have probably suggested, assuming men and women have the same “achievement distribution”, an outcome of nine men to one woman being selected.
Why do you think your “equality of outcome” example is at all relevant to women’s involvement in automotive media?
Equality of outcome is the most extreme scenario that may occur as the result of the enforcement of any equalization policy, and as such it provides useful in as much as determining how to calibrate an inclusive policy.
I am a European male but I am nor American nor young, and I reckon that the reason most people who talk about American vintage cars are from the US is that cultural, linguistical and nationalist barriers are such that in my country, for example, vintage American cars are consistently ridiculed in a manner that I find irritating (duh, in my country the most popular car was a 3 metre thingy in whose backseat a pair of 5ft 7in people could not reasonably fit!). However, I do recognise that I am an outlier and I do not expect that people like me will one day be the majority the field, as that is just not how statistics work.
*nor old instead of “nor young”
Sorry, my bad 😂
Are you familiar with the straw man fallacy? It’s when someone presents a distorted version of the actual argument, and then refutes the straw man instead of the original position. Elger said nothing about an “equalization policy.” Nor does commenting on an automotive website have any similarities to hiring processes. So if you have resentments about the latter, that’s immaterial to the dynamics that Elger brought up. I would invite you to reread what she said.
I did not talk about it because I have nothing to say about it, rather simply.
I admit my comment is tangent on the topic rather than being on the topic itself (I never said that it ever was in the first place!), but this is how it often goes online: A talks about something, B responds about an adjacent topic and so on, C does the same and so on.
If Elger were here I could see her thinking, “This guy is illustrating my point for me.”
As I wrote in the post, Indie Auto strives to be like an online seminar rather than guys talking in the garage. That’s why our guidelines call for staying on topic and “fighting fair,” such as by avoiding straw-man arguments. That helps to make the discussions productive rather than a rhetorical food fight.
Straw-manning is academically speaking one of the worst things that can be done, and I think I did not do that.
The way I see it, in the discussion above, I would have done straw manning if I had deceivingly made the “equality of outcome – equalization policy” in order to defeat any attempt to expand a community like that of automobile history. Which I did not considering that I overtly called the equalization of outcomes “the extreme consequence” and used that as a mere “moderation gauge”.
Perhaps because I am a small-scale publisher I think primarily in terms of the practicalities of running a website. There are no mechanisms to engage in “equality-of-outcome” policies.
For example, it’s not like there is a queue for potential commentators that I could sort by gender. My sense is that the main way Indie Auto can cultivate a diverse discussion is by acknowledging that there isn’t just one type of car buff — the retired white guy who would rather talk about how much horsepower his classic car has rather than social issues that may be of greater concern to people who don’t fit that archetype.
I have been thinking about your topic… first thing I thought of are the female automotive journalists whom I have enjoyed reading over the years: Jean Jennings, Denise McCluggage, Elizabeth Blackstop, Alanis King, Kristen Lee. Mercedes Streeter is a trans woman whose articles I enjoy; their interests include Japanese Kei cars, Smart cars and any vehicle to do with camping. I definitely prefer the websites in which the writers are allowed to show personality and biases. I rarely join the discussions except for a couple of sites. Some of them have contributors who run roughshod over others. A few of them (Indie Auto included) have more thoughtful discussion and civil debate. At one website, The Autopian, I suggested an article to their staff and within a day, they had researched, written, and posted the article. A local outlet mall had an odd import car on a Chinese language billboard- it was a Citroen Ami. They featured my photo. I don’t think it was because I’m a woman. I had a topic that was of interest to the readership.
I can give more observations about car shows and car clubs just based off my experience… it may depend on the diversity of your neighborhood. My husband and I joined our local club for our marque. I would say it skews a little older but we’re not the oldest nor the youngest. Many ethnicities are represented, and our president is a woman. We have outings scheduled most months; we can’t attend all of them, but they often include a drive, and the tours cater to a variety of interests. A few weeks ago, we attended a Cars and Coffee at the Mercedes Benz Classic Center in Long Beach, CA. Again, the crowd was diverse, with more younger people than I expected bringing in cars of all vintages and conditions. There was a small group of diverse young men with lowered and customized 70s sedans. There was a contingent of people with the 190 with the hopped up engine. There were a couple of gullwings besides the ones in the Center, but there were also 300 TD station wagons with patina. Older white men in jorts and white sneakers were in the minority.
My city has a local charity car show; you will see the muscle car people but also low riders, the VW contingent, Asian tuner cars, etc. We used to participate in a concours in a wealthy suburb, and that group was definitely more affluent, but I would still call it diverse. How many owners were women? I couldn’t tell you, but as you have observed, women like to attend car shows.
I read a lot of car websites, often daily. There are at least seven that I read regularly, plus I am on Patreon for Aaron Severson. I follow a number of YouTube channels. If you’re looking for a little female representation, I recommend “I Drive a Classic” in which Steph (based in England) drives primarily British or European cars while wearing vintage clothing. I could give you a list. I have a small collection of books, from Bob Lutz to P. J. O’Rourke, books on MG, Mercedes, Cadillac, Corvette… I am fascinated by the Motorama cars and Joe Bortz’s collection, so I have books on it. I was able to see the Peterson exhibit featuring some of these cars. I finally had to part with my large collection of Specialty Interest Auto / Hemings Classic Car, the Sports & Import magazine, Automobile, and Auto Week. I saved a few that featured some of my favorites. Now I am more of a digital reader.
I have always liked cars (and reading). When I was little, my dad taught me and my younger brother how to wash and wax a car. (Guess what we did most weekends?) He helped me choose my first car, an MGB. Every time it broke down or needed maintenance, which was often, I handed him the tools and we worked on the car together. My husband and I started dating in part because of our shared interest in cars. Maybe we need to get girls just doing more with cars at an early age. Then again, I don’t wash my car weekly. I don’t wax my daily driver, though I do wax my weekend car. We did choose an interesting car for our son, a SAAB 9-3 convertible. He has gotten the random note on his car from people (“Nice SAAB, bro!) and the wave from fellow SAAB drivers. He understands a little bit of the fellowship of car people.
I can’t speak to why there isn’t greater female representation in automotive journalism. I will read and enjoy anything well-written regardless of the author’s background.
I have definitely experienced sexist car salesmen (Fletcher Jones Mercedes Benz, Newport Beach, I point my finger at you). We were shopping for a CPO sedan for me as my primary car, but the sales staff only directed questions to my husband. We walked out and I called management the next day… it was a female manager. Go figure. Often I know more about the car than the sales staff.
I have some other ideas about how car collecting will change as the Boomers pass on… or if we can get the youth off their phones and into cars… but those are different topics.
Hopefully I have given a little starting off point for more discussion. This is more stream of consciousness than a series of theses.
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Elizabeth Blackstock! (No edit button.). Writes about auto sport.
Lori, this is an excellent overview — and the kind of discussion I was hoping that Elger’s quote would catalyze. I’ve added “I Drive A Classic” to our Links page. Am always looking for more auto-related links.
You mention getting rid of a bunch of your printed magazines; I had to do that as well earlier in life. This has proven to be a disadvantage in publishing Indie Auto because what I have access to now mostly depends on who has digitized their archives. Unfortunately, Collectible Automobile has not and it can be expensive buying individual back issues.
We’re starting another round of downsizing as we do some work to our garage. I have all the original brochures for our cars, a stack of vintage Airstream newsletters with lots of restoration tips (arcane lore passed down from the elders), lots of books whose print is now a little too small… Life is not lived backwards, but it’s hard to jettison sources of accumulated knowledge, and it’s hard to find that specific person or group who would appreciate it and then to transport it.
Links… I can’t remember if I found IndieAuto through Dean’s Garage or if it’s the other way around. Same with Ate Up With Motor. I’ve gone through some of those archived interviews of industry leaders on some website (forget the name right now.). Some books are on Internet Archive – I reread On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors that way; probably Sloan’s book is there. I enjoyed Aaron Severson’s accounts of the early auto industry (Leland, Durant, Sloan) just as I enjoy your articles on the shakeup of the independent brand in the fifties and sixties.
I don’t really pay attention to whether an article or comment is from a man or a woman. It may be stereotypical, but I can only read so much technical information and then I glaze over. The forces that shape the automotive industry are more appealing to me… the concept cars, the clashes of egos, the compromises made to get a car to market, why one car fails while another one succeeds… and it makes more sense with cars that were more common in my lifetime, even the cars I remember walking past daily on my way to school.
In general, I don’t like to draw undue attention to one’s background. You can’t change the circumstances of your birth. Some people are born into more privilege than others (especially if you’re born in America.)
I see more of a separation by income level than race or gender, especially with regards to the car industry. In the few clubs we’ve joined, many members collect lots of toys. Our Vintage Airstream group members also owned hot rods, or Full Classic Cadillacs, etc. (I love how the Cadillac La Salle newsletter is called The Self-Starter.) Some of our friends in the Mercedes club also belong to the Porsche group. My mom & dad’s Model A club members also have ’57 Bel Airs or Corvettes or all sorts of other collections in their “Garage Mahals” and we’ve been to a number of funeral receptions in private car museums with the obligatory black and white checkerboard floor tile, a jukebox collection, pinball machines and the like. Some of these members have kept and are driving their first cars. (I would say it’s more true of the female members.) It takes a little bit of disposable income to have even one classic car, with the initial buy-in, insurance, storage, and repairs, let alone a fleet of them. Maybe all of it is less appealing to women? They would allocate time and resources elsewhere? Maybe the knowledge base curve is too steep? If your spouse isn’t interested, is it less likely to happen?
We are also sailors, and there are weekend conventions just for women in sailing. One popular seminar is “Suddenly Single Handed,” in case your partner is injured or incapacitated and you have to take over and also administer first aid. I have no idea if there’s anything similar for women and cars. Women only rallies? Repair seminars or detailing clinics? You’d still need a car first!
l would feel badly if the wonderful writings and contributions of Beverly Rae Kimes were not mentioned.
Lori, thank you for your obviously heartfelt contribution to this topic.