Gender and the Automobile in the United States - Term Paper Example

Gender and the Automobile in the United s Cars have changed the lives of Americans. The United s of America is home to one of the largest personal vehicle markets in the world and although they were introduced to Americans just over 100 years ago, cars are everywhere in America today. Cars have fundamentally changed the lives of Americans and this essay addresses the role cars have played in perpetuating traditional gender roles or in challenging gender stereotypes in early 20th century American society. We will look at the personal automobile as a status symbol in the 1920s and the independence offered women by automobiles as they were gradually introduced into the US market. What did the introduction of automobiles in the United States do for the status of women? How did car makers perceive women during the period of American history? Emerging at roughly the same time, how did the women’s emancipation movement and the budding car industry reinforce or oppose one another? This essay will look at the introduction of the automobile in historical perspective and will explore the contradictory roles of the automobile industry in leading as well as stifling women’s emancipation. This essay will then conclude with an overview of the findings explored with respect to the automobile as a marker of American identity and the roles that cars have played in the creation of American modernity. The Personal Automobile and Gender By providing unlimited mobility to individuals, the automobile has given freedom to people in a variety of ways. When the personal automobile was still a new concept during 1920s, young men and women in the United States considered automobiles to be a important status symbol. During this period it was also fashionable for young men to pick up their dates and drive them to the dance/prom or whatever event they had planned for their evening. Traditionally good manners and proper decorum dictated that the young American male, when picking up his date for the first time, would visit the home of his female companion and introduce himself to her parents. That was considered the “proper thing to do”. The automobile changed everything. In fact, the personal automobile ushered in a new culture in which traditional styles and manner were gradually replaced. Instead of greeting her parents and seeking her father’s approval before the date, young men with cars would simply wait outside and honk their horn, waiting for their female companions to emerge from the home. This angered parents but provided young adults with a new sense of freedom and independence. This was an important break with the past and the traditional behavior expected when courting someone of the opposite sex. Women also experienced a sense of independence as a result of the automobile and gradually, as the personal automobile spread, women’s roles in society began to change. While women of the past were traditionally confined to the home and left to do menial tasks such as cooking, washing and cleaning, the spread of the automobile throughout American society gave women unlimited mobility and fundamentally restructured gender relations in America. Automobiles allowed women to work outside of the private sphere; leave the home to earn a wage and gain a measure of independence. Accordingly, the advent of motorized, mechanized and mass produced personal transportation occurred almost concurrently with women’s quest for suffrage in the United States; what is not coincidental is the impact each movement had upon the other (Behling 13) When the automobile first emerged on the market at the beginning of the twentieth century, the industry was certainly male-dominated and the production of cars was tailored to the needs, wants and desires of the male consumer. The media is an important avenue for the promotion of gender bias and American society, now as well as more than eighty years ago, remains heavily influenced by our media. As a result, commercials tend to portray a heavily stereotypical and often sexist view of cars. Looking at commercials since the induction of cars, solitary female drivers are rarely shown. Most commercials show both a man and woman in the car but importantly, it is rare to see a solitary female driver. Even rarer, and almost never found, are commercials in which a woman is at the steering wheel when both a man and woman are in the car. Men, in our society, are almost always depicted as being behind the steering wheel and thus “in control”. This is an excellent example of gender bias in the case of automobile commercials in which we are heavily influenced by the media when forming our own social perceptions. The Woman at the Wheel According to Laura L. Behling, advertisements played an important early role in cultivating the new “Woman at the Wheel”, bent on changing the inhibiting social structures of the time and eager to carve out a new future in which independence and freedom reigned supreme. From a cultural perspective, automobiles represented a fundamental break with the drudgery of the past and this new technology allowed American society to move full speed ahead into the future. The automobile contributed to an evolution of gender roles in American society and contributed to the later emancipation of women from the confines of patriarchy. What role did advertising play in the creation of a new woman in conjunction with the social currents of the time? Early advertisements reflected the patriarchal social structures of the era. Thus, cars were marketed to men and women separately. A woman’s car was “everything that the woman herself aspires to be: dutiful, easy to handle, unselfish, pleasantly companiable, graceful...cozy, comfortable and frugal (Behling 14). These advertisements perpetuated traditional gender roles and conservative ideas about the role of women in modern society. Harking back to the supposed susceptibility of women to luxury items and other superficial goods, Fisher advertisements argued that luxury ads “exerted an event greater influence on women readers than on men” (Behling 20). Through advertisements women are objectified and belittled, and supposed to be attracted to cars which were good looking and easy to maneuver. Advertisements which targeted men took a wholly different perspective on the personal automobile. Gendered perceptions of male and female automobile behaviors predominated during the early period after the introduction of cars. Advertisements which targeted women focused less and less on the engineering specifications or particular mechanics of an automobile, rather ads which focused on women played up superficial qualities such as beauty or elegance to target the female consumer. When are often portrayed as cars themselves, being sleek and beautiful, thus reducing women to that of a commodity and as an object “to be consumed” (Behling 16). Advertisements provided a subtle and not too subtle glimpse into the perceptions of the hegemonic male-dominated advertising industry at a time when the idea of the women’s suffrage movement was just starting to gain momentum. Yes, the automobile advertising industry, contrary to promoting liberation and a newfound freedom for the women of America, actually promoted a reactionist and conservative view of women in the early years of the 20th century. The women’s suffrage moment, which sought to give women the right to vote at a time when most males were opposed to the very idea, came about at the turn of the century and did not actually obtain universal suffrage for women until 1920. Early advertisements for the budding automobile industry represented a backlash against what was arguably the most important social movement of the day and harked back to a conservative and retrogressive view of the modern American woman (Behling 12-14). Early advertisements promoted a mythical, some may say ideal, woman who represented everything that was fine and pure about the female gender. Thus, an advertisement in Ladies Home Journal for the Overland in 1916 promoted two different types of drivers, one being the man, the other being the woman. Naturally, according to this advertisement, the man would use his newfound independence with the automobile to drive to work and thus conduct business. Under the heading “How you can use it” (directed toward the female driver) instructed her that the car can be used for a variety of female endeavors such as to drive children around, pick up the groceries and do other menial, non-remunerated chores. These advertisements were illustrated in the Ladies Home Journal and visually depicted very different uages for both males and females. Another ad targeting the female driver, this time involving a Ford, emphatically states The car is so easy to drive that it constantly suggests thoughtful services to her friends. She can call them for without effort and share pleasantly their companionship...All remark upon the graceful appearance of her car, its convenient and attractive interior, and its cozy comfort. And she prides herself on having obtained so desirable a car for such a low price (Behling 14). Representative of the gendered nature of advertisements of the day, gendered imagery was used by the automaker Fischer when it to employed Cinderella in an ad. Catering to female automobile consumers, this ad embodied traditional gender roles at their best. Accordingly, the males dominated automobile and advertising industries created the ideal woman by reinforcing the same traditional sex and gender roles that much of society feared had irretrievably been lost en route to woman’s enfranchisement in 1920 (Behling 14). Seeking to contain the remarkable progress women had achieved – or were in the process of achieving – the automobile advertising industry represented a backlash against change and progress for women in America. Conclusion It has been thought by many that initially at least, the personal car/automobile increased the status of women who drove and added a new dimension to female social status. As women entered into the labour force, they obtained wages and subsequently more purchasing power, and the personal automobile represented the new kind of power and mobility that women had earned in modern American society. By buying their own cars, women were proving that they had “made it” and we on par with their male counterparts. Although initially, car prices remained high and cars were only available to an elite few: middle and upper-class white women were the only ones who could purchase automobiles when they first released and when prices were high. It took some time for cars to gain mainstream credence and also become affordable for working class whites women, African American women, and women from socially disadvantaged sectors, to own their own car. For most then fundamentally, one of the most important changes associated with the introduction of the automobile was the change that it had on traditional gender roles. The spread of automobiles – purposefully or not – had the effect of redefining the traditional and dichotomous masculine/feminine gender roles. By allowing women to enter the public space, automobiles contributed to the emancipation of modern women into American society yet at the same time restricting their identity formation and gender roles in a modern, driving society. This is the standard account of the role of automobiles on the lives of American women. Cars have dramatically altered American society and the lives of Americans in an incredibly short span of time. As we have seen, cars have also contributed to the transformation of gender roles in the United States and, over time, have challenged traditional gender stereotypes. The results however of women’s emancipation and the introduction of the automobile were contradictory at best. Two mass movements emerged at the same time: the introduction of the automobile and the female emancipation movement. Both simultaneously “questioned and reinforced traditional sex and gender roles” (Behling 16). This is the major conundrum associated with the emergence of both of these movements at roughly the same time. Female subversiveness was thus circumscribed by car manufacturers and advertisers who sought to contain women’s newfound independence and relegate her to traditional conservative gender roles. This is the paradox of the early automobile and the female emancipation movement. Works Cited Behling, Laura L. “The Woman at the Wheel: Marketing ideal womanhood, 1915-1934”, Journal of American Culture 20.3 (Fall 1997): 13 -29. Read More