Gender
Chevrolet Corvair advertising shows gender roles in 1960s
“Chevrolet marketers wanted to preserve ‘sportiness’ and ‘performance’ as masculine activities, but at the same time realized that women appreciated a good-handling car as much as their male counterparts. So, Chevrolet repurposed the performance attributes […]
1965-69 Chrysler: Trying to sell prestige in a rapidly changing culture
(UPDATED FROM 8/13/2021) The Chrysler brand attempted to shake off the trauma of the early-60s with a fresh new persona. In 1965 its product line was dramatically restyled. Meanwhile, advertising adopted a much more expressive approach […]
How 1960s car design reflected the good old (boy) days
(UPDATED FROM 8/7/2020) I enjoy reading automotive designers talk about what it was like to back in the 1960s. A part of me is interested purely for the nostalgia of it all. But another part […]
1953-73 Chevrolet Corvette ads gingerly showed changing gender roles
(EXPANDED FROM 2/26/2021) A few years ago John E. Mohr assessed how advertising for the Chevrolet Corvair reflected the “gendered nature of automobility in 1960s America” (2020, p. 24). In an essay published in the […]
Retired GM designer mused about gender and penny-pinching
“What distressed most of us was that we could never be identified as just designers. We were always the ‘la femmes,’ or we were the female designers, and that — we were designers, and men […]
Some women just want to express themselves
Car rear ends plastered with bumper stickers are a relatively rare occurrence in western Washington state, but they are most likely to be found where college students frequent. When I started taking pictures of well-decorated cars, what […]
Auto history: A bastion of older white male privilege?
“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 […]
Surveys find sexism still powerful in auto industry
When I started reading Automotive News in the mid-70s, one thing that struck me was how few women were in leadership positions. Only one or two would be listed on two-page displays of industry “all […]