Gender and Automobility: Selling Cars to American Women after the Second World War

Abstract

This essay examines the marketing of automobiles to women in the United States after World War II when mass consumption was established. Remarkably, little attention has been paid to the segmentation of the American car market by gender. Drawing on textual and pictorial archival sources from the National Automotive History Collection, the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson and the Benson Ford Research Center, as well as on statistical materials and reports generated by the federal government, it discusses how and when American women were recognized as significant, if not equal consumers of automobiles. Emphasis is given to the years 1945—1980. Two socioeconomic developments were significant in altering the status of female car consumers. In the boom years between 1945 and the early 1960s, the new suburban lifestyle required most women to drive as modern housewives. Then, they wanted greater say in the purchase of the family car or even their own car. Subsequently, in the late 1960s and 1970s, civil rights legislation and the surge in women’s labor force participation allowed more women to buy their own vehicles as well as to drive more often. There was a cultural lag before auto manufacturers in the 1980s acknowledged women’s importance in the car market. Women still, however, faced difficulties negotiating with auto dealers.

From ‘freedom of the open road’ to ‘cocooning’: Understanding resistance to change in personal private automobility

“…In contrast, European cars for mass market applications, including those in the UK, were already sensitive to issues such as fuel economy, particularly in the era from 1945 onwards. In the USA the history of the car is interwoven in interesting ways with that of important social changes such as o e s pa ti ipatio i the labour force or the civil rights movement (Walsh, 2011); arguably the car has a less dominant socio-cultural role in the UK but played a significant part in defining rurality in the 20 th century (Jeremiah, 2010).…”

Hidden in Plain Sight: Building Visibility for Critical Gender Perspectives Exploring Markets, Marketing and Society

“…For example, girls fearing the loss of a fantasized penis, or terror associated with menstruation and a fear of castration as a result. Walsh (2011), with another historical perspective, explored the marketing of cars to women between 1945-2000 and the socioeconomic and cultural forces which shaped this.…”

“…As well as the specific contexts mentioned above, it is important to emphasise that 6 of the 25 articles have a key historical dimension to them (Branchik 2002; Fullerton and Punj 2004; Hupfer 1998; Minowa, Maclaran and Stevens 2019; Walsh 2011; Witkowski 1999). Thus, the existing articles in the journal provide not only a rich discussion of issues in relation to gender, markets, marketing and society, there is also an in-depth historical element to these discussions, with issues varying from the portrayal of femme females in Vogue magaizne in the 1800s, to how kleptomania has been examined in the predominantly male psychiatric community since the nineteenth century.…”

Born to Take the Highway: Women, the Automobile, and Rock ‘n’ Roll

“…Before the onset of World War II, only one quarter of American women were drivers (Walsh, “Cars” 296). Women's wartime participation in the work force often required a driver's license; thus women learned to drive the cars men left behind.…”