Automotive Advertising: Fueling Masculinity since Forever
There has always been the cliché of gender roles in toddlers that girls play with dolls and boys play with tools and cars. Is that what is expected of children of each sex, or do adults not know any better? When my male cousin was born when I was sixteen, the baby was showered with gifts of plastic screwdrivers, wrenches, saws, Bob the Builder accessories, and of course--toy cars. Why do we have this preoccupation that little boys--who in turn become men—have the desire for model cars? Since Karl Benz designed a practical car with an internal combustion engine in 1885, cars have been deemed the toy for boys. In Benz’s time, automobiles were considered a gentleman’s luxury; they were to be driven only by men who could afford them. Women, considered to be incapable of driving in the early 1900s, were supposed to be passengers along for a ride. When advertising came around once cheap automobiles could be produced in the 1920s, it was no surprise that nearly every single advertisement was geared towards men. In Michele Ramsey’s article on automobile advertising and gender, the advertising that was geared towards women was used to support that buying an automobile would make one’s social status climb due to attractiveness. Also, no women ads featured them in the economic world, only in caring for others and that buying a car helped one “be a good mother”. The early ads focused on men were the subtle things such as the boasting of the sheer power a car had available, or the image of a man catching the eye of a woman in his new car. Into the 1950s, the standard advertising for the newly evolved sports car usually featured a young man in a Corvette for example, with women looki...
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... every promotion. Automotive ads will forever be associated with such subject matters because they sell cars, simply said. If it isn’t broken don’t fix it.
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Automobiles have been apart of not only American, but worldwide life for more than 100 years. The 1920’s was a period in which the use and production of them became very prevalent and mass produced like no other time before. Automobiles began to be make life easier, and increasingly more productive in just about every way. The Great Gatsby is a book in which automobiles were owned by almost every character; without the automobiles characters such as Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, and even Nick would not be able to get to the city in which they called “West and East Egg” from their suburban mansions on the outskirts of town. Intriguingly, the way their cars looked differed greatly from others of the time that showed their power,
In the July 1997 issue of Commentary, James Q. Wilson challenges the consensus among academia’s finest regarding the automobile in his bold article, Cars and Their Enemies. Directed towards the general public, his article discredits many of the supposed negatives of the automobile raised by experts, proves that the personal car is thriving and will continue to thrive because it meets individual preference over other means of transportation, as well as presents solutions to the social costs of cars. Wilson emphasizes that no matter what is said and done in eliminating the social costs of the automobile, experts are not going to stop campaigning against it.
Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler surfaced as the “Big Three” auto companies heading into the 1920’s. The invention of the automobile revolutionized transportation; by the 1920’s cars made places easier to access to people. Many of the traditionalists did approve of the automobiles, but some of them just favored the old way of walking places. The traditionalists were fearful of car accidents with the upbringing of the automobile. During the 1920’s a driver’s license was not needed in most states, and there weren’t really any “rules of the road” quite yet. No signs, signals, or traffic guards, and the roads were not ready for automobiles or pedestrians yet. Some traditionalists were not for these life risking ways of automobiles, but they were accepted among most for an increase in transportation and their easy access to even those who were not rich. The modernists at this time were known to want the exciting new changes and risks, so they were all for the automobiles. This rebellious group knew the advancement of technology with automobiles meant transportation to explore, and not be stuck in the same places within walking distance. The 1920’s
Advertisements in Life magazine showed women mainly in ways were they were responsible for kitchen duties and taking care of their husbands. In the early 1950’s, there were recurring ads of women with refrigerators. In an advertisement from 1950, a woman is dressed like a typical housewife standing next to the refrigerator showing all the features it entails. It gives off the message that during this period of the 1950’s, society saw women as the face of the kitchen and a majority of the duties as a housewife took place there. Another advertisement from 1950, gives a clear indication of gender roles. In the advertisement for a refrigerator, the women and her daughter are shown organizing their refrigerator, and the man is shown as carrying in the refrigerator. The advertisement expresses that women are more fit for domestic work and that men are more for the labor tedious work that a woman cannot do. In an advertisement from 1953 to sell health insurance, the man who is selling health insurance puts a picture of himself and his...
buggy, ships, trains, and walking (“A Brief History of The Auto”). But when the automobile was ...
Advertising, whether criticized or celebrated, is undeniably a strong force in American society. Portrayals and Images of women have long been used to sell in published advertisements. However, how they have been used has changed enormously throughout the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between 1900’s and 1920’s, the roles of women changed dramatically here in United States.
The socialization of children is greatly affected by the toys they are exposed to while growing up. Looking through magazines and walking down the aisles of toy stores it is clear that toy companies are supportive of cultural gender roles biases. Toys designed for girls are commonly found in pink boxes; typically these toys involve housework or taking care of children, for example, dolls and easy bake ovens. On the other hand, “boy” toys are found in blue and black boxes, and a lot of them involve construction and cars.
Stephenson, T., Stover, W. J., & Villamor, M. (1997). Sell Me Some Prestige! The Portrayol of Women in Business-Related Ads. Journal of Popular Culture, 255-271.
Between the years of 1937 and 1960,LIFE underwent changes involving the portrayal of the genders. In popular literature, stereotypes and views of certain subjects are often displayed for future study. In the case of gender differences, advertisements and articles yield the best portrayal of gender stereotyping of the time. The following issues of LIFE magazine were used in this paper: January-February 1937, January-February 1945, January-February 1952, and January-February 1960. At the end of the Great Depression in 1937, women had a very simple stereotype in the popular media. They were portrayed as staying home, cleaning, cooking, and mothering. The only pictures of women in LIFE were of housewives doing some sort of domestic work. Men were portrayed exactly the opposite, out at social functions or at some sort of important occupation. One of the first ads in the magazine was an advertisement for Colgate toothpaste. It pictured a girl in college complaining to her roommate that no one likes her and she is quitting school, “I should have never gone to college”. She then goes to her dean to quit and realizes she has bad breath. The dentist gives her Colgate and soon she has a date for the prom. “I love college now.” This cartoon advertisement seems to imply that in 1937, women went to college to get married. Most of the other articles involving women were ones that involved housework. Every last one of the cleaning and food advertisements had a pretty lady in a dress holding the item.
fairy-tale provides a ready-made answer for the insomniac question: How to be a man? Beer advertisements achieve that by focusing on physical structure by using the features of cowboys riding horses and performing in roads. It has been mentioned, " the myth of masculinity is manifested in myriad forms of mediated and nonmediated communication; beer commercials are only one such form, and to a large extent. The das merely reflect preexisting cultural conceptions of the man's man" (Craig 36). Male models are shown in clothes commercials to market a suit or a uniform or a casual look. They also appear in underwares' commercials and the most shocking thing by 8.5% percent though women by 3.4% percent (Rubchak 118). What is masculine in acting like
Advertising in the 50s was primarily focused on the return of traditional family values, and portraying the consumer’s role in society’s prestige. But, during the recession of 1959 to 1961, the time was ripe for some innovation in the advertising industry. Surly enough, a single ad appeared that changed the course of advertising history. The Volkswagen Beetle, a seemingly ugly car with all odds against it in the American market of huge, tail-finned vehicles of the 1950s, surprisingly prospered. The advertisement campaign broke all previous rules of using wide-angle photography, and beautiful women. These advertisements stole the American hearts with their wit and honesty.
Flink’s Three stages of American automobile consciousness fully express the progress of the whole automobile industry. From the first model T to the automatic production, it gives me an intuitive feeling of the automobile history from a big picture. On the other hand, Kline and Pinch focus more on a certain group of people--farmers or people who live in the rural area, they use it as an entry point to talk about automobile, alone with the role and duty transition between male and
The gender stereotypes we are experiencing today are outdated and need change. Right now, gender marketing is higher than it has ever been. A comparison can be shown as Robb states “In the 1970s…few children’s’ toys were targeted specifically at boys or girls at all; nearly 70% of toys had no gender-specific labels at all” (Robb). Since the 70’s gender marketing has climbed its way up to its peak. There is a sort of disconnect between marketing and new gender advancements that have been occurring recently. The gender standards that are currently being used are outdated and do not hold true as more women are excelling in the sciences, while more men choose to become stay at home fathers. The “Let Toys be Toys” campaign website claims that “themes of glamour and beauty in toys and playthings directed at even the youngest girls tips over into a worrying emphasis on outward appearance. Stereotyped attitudes about boys are equally harmful as the constant assumption reinforced in toy advertising and packaging that boys are inevitably rough, dirty, rowdy…which feeds low expectations of boys that undermine their performance at school”(“Let Toys be Toys”). These outcomes are not acceptable, and gender-neutral toys may aid in combat against these old age ideals, and could possibly help make the
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9. Boyne, Walter J. The History of the American automobile. New York: New York, 1988