With a couple of aging cars and an upcoming change of lifestyle, it was time to replace our modes of transport. I loved my 2015 Golf R, but as a car with little tech [not even Apple Play!] I had driven for 8 years and 45,000 miles, I was ready for something new. I had originally planned on updating it with the 2023 model but the wait time was more than I was willing to endure. Plus, as I tend to own my cars for a long time, I didn’t think it would be safe as an eventual 80-year-old to get behind the wheel of a vehicle that went 0-60 in less than 4 seconds. However, since I love German cars, particularly VWs, I opted for a 2023 VW GTI. And as we were moving to downtown Ann Arbor, with short blocks that can be rather hilly, I quashed my desire for a 6-speed manual and opted for the pretty quick [0-60 in 5.1] 7-speed DSG. With front-wheel rather than all-wheel drive, it is a different driving experience but still a very enjoyable ride. And the tech! After a few months I am still learning all of what my car can do. But most of the things I loved about my Golf R remain – the responsive steering, the compact, perfect-for-me size, the simple yet pleasing design inside and out, the surprisingly spacious cargo area, and most importantly, the elements that make it so very ‘fun to drive.’ We took it on a baseball road trip this past summer and it was comfortable but not cushy, had plenty of space for our gear, and got better gas mileage [on regular rather than premium fuel!] than the R. And since my husband and I will be sharing the car [he traded in his Audi and 2016 R] it was important that we both enjoy it. And we do.
Brand spankin’ new VW GTI
Our other trade in was more utilitarian. For the past 30 years we have owned what we affectionally called a ‘dog’ vehicle. As breeders and exhibitors of bullmastiffs, we always drove a standard van that could carry at least five very large dogs. We opted for a RAM City Wagon a few years back, but traded up for the more spacious RAM Promaster which was perhaps the best canine transportation we had owned in our 30 years of breeding and showing dogs. However, after retiring from the dog world four years ago, we were down to two dogs so desired something smaller and more easy to maneuver in the city. We originally considered a large SUV, but the high entry point and the difficulty fitting two large crates in the back made us rethink our choice. After considering all of the options, we opted for – dare I say – a minivan. We chose a KIA which, as it turns out, has easy entry and plenty of space for two large dogs. It is also way more comfortable and has way more tech than the ProMaster. And most importantly, the ‘girls’ love it.
The ‘girls’ enjoying the KIA
We have since [very recently] moved from 18 rural acres to a condo in the heart of downtown Ann Arbor. With much of what we do now within walking distance, our dependence on cars has been dramatically reduced. With a carport rather than [multiple] garages, the two new vehicles are fitting well into our new and very different lifestyle.
I’ve been writing about the relationship between women in cars since first discovering the topic in graduate school nearly 15 years ago. Since that time I’ve addressed the woman-car connection in a variety of contexts. Some of my work focuses on women who participate in car cultures associated with the male driver, including muscle cars, pickup trucks, chick cars, and motorsports. Other projects speak to the representation of women’s connection to cars in popular culture locations such as film, music, and children’s toys. While literature on women’s automotive history and participation has increased since I first embarked on the topic, it tends to fall into two camps. The first is a critique of how auto manufacturers and marketers have traditionally erected obstacles to women’s full engagement with automobiles, and the second is the focus on exceptional women in automotive – women who have successfully challenged barriers to become successful in venues such the auto industry and motorsports.
Chick Car project
In my own work, I have focused primarily on ordinary women – in popular culture as well as real life – in order to uncover the complicated, productive, positive, as well as empowering aspects of women’s relationship to cars. In each of these contexts, I attempt to reveal the potential of the automobile to enrich women’s lives. Although I often address the barriers to women’s participation in various car cultures, the major focus is on how women successfully negotiate membership in male dominated automotive spaces not to become famous, but rather to become stronger, more confident, and more powerful versions of themselves. In popular culture settings, I try to examine how cars hold special meanings for women that differ from those found in dominant male narratives. My goal in each of these projects is to give the woman driver a voice that has historically been silenced.
Girl Gang Garage – credit Volvo
During this past week I came across an article in Advertising Age developed from an interview with Janique Helson, head of brand marketing at Volvo Car USA. As the article points out, Helson ‘has made combatting sexism in the automotive industry a tenant of Volvo’s marketing strategy.’ One of the ways this has been accomplished is through the unique female-friendly messaging that has made its way into Volvo advertising and promotional material since Helson took the helm in 2020. Some of these efforts include creating safety messaging that is more emotional, making a connection between feeling safe to the ability to endure challenges. Another is a collaboration with Girl Gang Garage as a means to ‘elevate, encourage, and champion women’s entry and advancement within the automotive and skilled trade industries.’ However, what was most interesting to me was a video created by Volvo last year for International Women’s Day. The recording features snippets of conversations with 26 female Volvo owners discussing the connections they have with their cars. The diverse group of women talk about the car’s ability to strengthen relationship with family members; the pride in owning something so strong and beautiful, how the car contributes to a woman’s personality and identity; how owning a Volvo can lead to a safer and cleaner environment for future generations; the ‘specialness’ of driving a vintage Volvo; how Volvo makes mothers and caretakers feel more safe; the car as an intimate space; and over a dozen other powerful vignettes that demonstrate the significance of cars to women’s lives. As Helson notes, ‘these women have this massive love for cars and the way they talk about it is very different than how men talk about their love for cars.’
International Women’s Day video – credit Martin Schoeller for Volvo
As few in academia write about women and cars as a relationship that is both positive and empowering, I often feel as though I am working in a vacuum. The work Helson has overseen since her appointment as brand marketing head in many ways serves as a legitimization of my own. [On another note, it also emphasizes the importance of having a woman in a position of power within an auto company]. Although Helson operates on a much grander scale and is therefore capable of a much greater reach and influence, we are in agreement regarding the importance of providing women drivers with a platform. As Helson asserts, ‘obviously we need more women working in automotive, but we also need to put women’s stories at the front and center of how they feel about cars and how they feel about driving.’ I am grateful to Janique Helson for the impetus to continue my own exploration of women’s relationship to cars.
International Women’s Day video – credit Martin Schoeller forVolvo
Schultz, E.J. “Volvo’s Marketing Head on Fixing Female Representation in Auto Ads.” Advertising Age. 3 May 2023.
While in graduate school during the early 2000s, I devised an independent study focused on my growing interest in the relationship between women and cars. What follows is one of the response papers in which I examine how gender influences the meanings ascribed to the automobile in popular fiction.
If the automobile existed merely as a mode of transportation, it would be found primarily in showrooms, on freeways and in public parking lots and personal garages. If it were regarded as simply an object of technology, the car would be praised for its utility and practicality, and cursed when it didn’t perform to expectations. If the automobile was only valued for its usefulness, it would be regarded in the same manner as other technological necessities of the home and workplace, such as the washing machine, dishwasher and office copier.
However, the automobile has taken accumulated a variety of alternative meanings since the Model T first rolled off Henry Ford’s assembly line. As David Laird suggests, automobiles promise “power, mobility, freedom, even a ‘poetic’ space that beckons from beyond the too familiar course of things” (244). Rather than simply a means to get from here to there, the car serves as a symbol of status, daring and sexual prowess. It is considered a home away from home or a room of one’s own. In the US, the automobile is not only found in the driveway, but in films, art, music, popular culture and literature as well. In such locations, the car is not just a prop or background; rather, it often serves as a reflection of a particular society and is imbued with cultural and personal meaning. In literature, the automobile is often a metaphor for our hopes and dreams, for how we live and what we want to be. While there are certainly a number of attributes that influence the car’s role in literature, one of the most significant is gender.
There can be little argument that the car is considered a masculine technology. And in literature, whether in a real or symbolic capacity, the automobile is most often a male space, located within a masculine environment. Loren Estleman portrays such a gendered location in Motown, a crime novel loosely based on events that occurred in Detroit during the summer of 1966. The auto industry, faced with mandatory automobile safety upgrades during the era of the “muscle car,” provides the backdrop for three parallel storylines and a lot of dirty business. The major players in Estleman’s novel are male, and the “muscle cars” they drive are fueled by testosterone. Motown’s women are stereotypical at best; they not only reveal Estleman’s notion of women’s place, but also represent the pre-feminist ideology of the auto industry. As a crime novel of the noir genre, Motown is concerned about what cars, and the car industry do, rather than the meanings ascribed to automobiles. Estelman’s storyline reflects, in the words of David Laird, “a society enormously dependent upon the automobile both as a means of transportation and as a source of economic activity” (244). Motown is built on plot rather than ideology; the cars in Estleman’s novel move the narrative literally rather than figuratively.
In other literary genres, however, the automobile is often a metaphor for male experience and masculine character. Unlike fictions such as Motown, the focus of narrative is not the car or car industry. Rather, the presence of the automobile in the novel fulfills a symbolic purpose. Marie Farr, in “Freedom and Control,” asserts that in such contexts, male writers “accept the popular myth that identifies the automobile with male sexuality, power and control: in their works, driving often becomes a rite of initiation or a test of masculinity.” In these fictions, men are the drivers, and as such, carry the narrative forward. The dreams that the car represents – success, adventure, conquest and youth – are the property of men. If women are present in such narratives, they are only going along for the ride.
The first appearance of the automobile in women’s literature occurred in the “road trip” genre. Women’s travel stories offered women writers the opportunity to explore the possibilities of female automobility. As Deborah Clarke remarks in “Domesticating the Car,” “women wrote increasingly about journeys, about mobility, and about the power inherent in this increased freedom” (101). Unlike male writers and drivers, women do not take the independence automobiles offer for granted. Access to the car does not equal independence, as it has often been instrumental in restricting women’s movements while keeping them close to home. For decades, cars have been sold to women as a form of domestic technology. Farr suggests that to the 1950s American housewife, the automobile had become “the vehicle through which she did much of her most significant work, and the work locale where she could most often be found.”
The second wave of feminism inspired many female writers to call upon the automobile to reflect women’s growing agency and autonomy. Like their male literary contemporaries, women writers employ the car as metaphor to equate driving with living. The automobile in women’s literature often provides women temporary freedom from the constraints on how they are allowed to live. Thus while male writers use the automobile and the act of driving as symbols of power and control, female authors appropriate and reconfigure male images so that power as control transforms itself into “the power of being one’s own person” (Farr).
The car as “home away from home” or a “room of one’s own” has special meaning to women. Often unable to leave their children behind, automobiles in women’s fiction often serve as a moving family. In women’s fiction, cars may also function as a personal space away from domestic and familial responsibilities. While both male and female writers ascribe meaning to the automobile in fiction, the reality of women’s lives suggests that the metaphor has alternative meanings, determined by the gender of the writer and the driver.
Since its invention, the automobile has been firmly linked with masculinity. Women’s access to the automobile, and the meanings associated with it, has been qualified at best. Women’s fiction provides admission to a culture that has been historically closed to female readers and drivers. It infringes on the masculine car culture and reclaims and reconfigures the automobile into women’s own image. As Deborah Clarke writes, “American fiction reflects and shapes the dynamics between women and cars” (195). The automobile in contemporary American women’s fiction provides evidence that women are, in fact, viable and significant participants in American car culture.
Estleman, Loren. Motown. New York: Bantam, 1991.
Farr, Marie T. “Freedom and Control: Automobiles in American Women’s Fiction of the 70s and 80s.” The Journal of Popular Culture 29 (1995) 157-69.
Laird, David. “Versions of Eden: The Automobile and the American Novel.” The Automobile and American Culture. D.L. Lewis & L. Goldstein, eds. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1983. 639-651.
A recent Jalopnik article asked its readers to elaborate on how they ‘got into cars.’ While the responses included references to racing, car magazines, and movies, the majority fell into two categories. The first route to a life as an auto enthusiast was through a relationship with a male relative or mentor, most often one’s dad. The second was a childhood preoccupation with ‘toys that move,’ whether those vehicles were the popular Hot Wheels, Matchbox cars, model cars, slot cars, Tonka trucks, or racing sets. Although women compose over half of US licensed drivers, cars are very much perceived as a male interest. This was evident in the comments accompanying the Jalopnik article which were, as far as I could tell, posted overwhelmingly by men. This suggests that while women are engaged with the automobile as drivers, they are less likely than their male counterparts to take on the mantle of ‘auto aficionado.’ If the Jalopnik article does, in fact, reflect the most common routes to automotive interest, it would appear that such influences are absent in women’s early lives.
In my own research into women’s relationship with the car – particularly as participants in automotive cultures traditionally associated with the male driver [i.e. muscle cars, pickup trucks, and motorsports] – the encouragement of a male family member or mentor was instrumental in instigating and maintaining a girl’s or young woman’s automotive interest. Many of the women interviewed in these various projects noted the importance of fathers, boyfriends, and husbands in acquiring a love for all things automotive. It is significant to note that the majority who responded in this manner were without male siblings, which suggests that dad would not have had as much concern in encouraging his daughters if he had sons [one has to wonder if the Force sisters would have made such an impact on the drag racing world if John Force had a son or two.] A much smaller percentage of the women noted how they developed in interest in cars by ‘borrowing’ the matchbox cars of brothers or male playmates. Young girls are rarely gifted toy cars; toys that move have always been promoted as proper toys for boys. While the notion that ‘girls just aren’t interested in cars’ has become somewhat of a rationale for women’s general lack of participation in automotive culture and industry, the gendered division of playthings -particularly toy cars and trucks – has deprived girls from the likelhood of developing a passion for the automobile.
Toys often serve as introductions to and reinforcements of cultural and gender expectations. As among the earliest and most influential technologies with which children come into contact, toys ‘transmit to children […] particular views of gender relations, examples of appropriate behavior, and character models’ (Varney 2002, 153). The gendered demarcation of toys was well established by the early twentieth century. The transition from horse drawn carriages to gasoline-powered automobiles was reflected in the playthings available to young boys – horse and buggy toys were replaced by miniature cars. Young girls also experienced a gendered progression – the Victorian sewing doll was superseded by the baby doll. While baby dolls reinforced the expectation that women would live quiet and unassuming lives as mothers, ‘toy vehicles captured the variety of men’s life of automobility, as drivers of status cars, as deliverers of useful goods, as roadmakers, and race car drivers. These were male machines that opened up a dynamic modern world to their drivers’ (Cross 2009, 56). Much like the vehicles they imitated, toy cars were irrefutably associated with technological aptitude, risk taking behavior, and maleness. As Ruth Oldenziel (2001) suggests, ‘toys were intended not only to amuse and entertain but also as socializing mechanisms, as educational devices and as scaled-down versions of the realities of the larger adult-dominated social world’ (42).
The lack of automotive exposure in childhood can have significant repercussions in adulthood. As I noted in an examination of women’s car advice websites (Lezotte 2014), without a grasp of automotive knowledge women are likely to experience significantly more discrimination in purchasing and servicing automobiles than their male counterparts. And without early exposure to cars, women are less likely to consider careers in auto-related industries or professions. Links between machinery and masculinity, originating in the assignment of mechanical toys to boys, has kept particular skills and professions within male domination. ‘In a society which thinks highly of technology and which there is an elaborate relationship between power and technology,’ notes Wendy Varney (2002), ‘this exclusion from that domain can effectively lock one out of a vast area of influence’ (168). Not only does this lack of auto interest and education limit women’s occupational opportunities, but can lead to a scenario in which decisions in vehicle engineering, design, production, and use are left primarily to the men in charge. As Wheel writer Emily Fritz (2018) asserts, ‘As we neglect to involve girls in car culture from a young age, we are also neglecting to involve them in the opportunity to learn and gain skills such as the ability to use tools, the ability to formulate basic civil engineering, and the ability to come in contact with the ways in which moving parts work—all of which are found in many car-based boy’s toys.’
The Jalopnik article – and the overwhelmingly male responses – is not only indicative of what is certainly a mostly male readership, but also demonstrates the importance of toys that move in the development of automotive interest in young boys. Since the majority of young girls grow up to be drivers, it is puzzling [but not surprising] that they are dissuaded from engaging with cars at the age in which they are most impressionable. But then again, most boys grow up to be fathers, yet are discouraged, if not ostracized, when demonstrating any interest in dolls. Such is the gendered power of toys.
Note: some of this material is taken from an article-in-progress on the Barbie car.
Cross, Gary S. 2009. Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood.
DaSilva, Steve. 2022. ‘These Are the Stories of How You Got Into Cars.’ Jalopnik 10 Oct.
Fritz, Emily. 2018. “The Harm of Gender Roles in Car Culture: An Argument for Getting Girls Involved.” Wheel.
Lezotte, Chris. 2014. ‘Women Auto Know: Automotive Knowledge, Auto Activism, and Women’s Online Car Advice.’ Feminist Media Studies.
Oldenziel, Ruth. 2001. ‘Boys and Their Toys: The Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild, 1930-1968, and the Making of a Male Technical Domain.’ In Boys and Their Toys: Masculinity, Class and Technology in America, edited by Roger Horowitz, 139-168.
Varney, Wendy. 2002. ‘Of Men and Machines: Images of Masculinities in Boys’ Toys.’ Feminist Studies 28(1): 153-174.
After a three year hiatus due to COVID, the Michael Argetsinger Motorsports Conference, held at the legendary Watkins Glen International, was back. I had the opportunity to present my current-but-still-very-much-in-its-early-stage project focused on women who participate in autocross. It was a two-day conference, with a variety of presentations conducted via Zoom, in-person, and of the hybrid variety. The topics were varied, ranging from very detailed looks at a certain aspect of motorsports, in-depth examinations of the famous and obscure in motorsports history, as well as investigations of racing through the lens of popular culture. My presentation was the last of the last day, followed by a roundtable on women in motorsports. It was an exhausting two days, but I was able to catch up with scholars I have met on previous occasions as well as meet and connect with others in the field. The conference was well attended and live streamed. It was an excellent venue in which to present new work and get important feedback.
My own presentation went pretty well, my clumsy oral skills notwithstanding. The responses were primarily positive and I received a number of helpful suggestions. The audience was composed primarily of older white men, which is a microcosm of the motorsports academic community. While there were a number of female speakers, there was only one other presentation in which women in motorsports was the focus.
As a female who writes about women and automobiles from a decidedly feminist perspective, I often feel that the mostly male audience just doesn’t get it. Women’s experience with cars differs greatly from that of men, which I attempt to address in all of my work. While men tend to look at motorsports as a masculine competition, with the ultimate objective of taking home the grand prize, women often look beyond the contest to consider other aspects of the event. In the autocross project, as I discovered, the primary focus was on camaraderie; the competition was, in fact, a means to a broader and more rewarding experience. As one of the women interviewed expressed, ‘without the community it’s just driving fast around cones.’ But as I have noted, it is often difficult for those who have always looked at motorsports from the dominant male frame of reference to consider alternative perspectives. The men in the audience appeared quite puzzled as they looked at photographs of women joyfully joining together before and after each run. I’m sure ‘but where are the cars?’ was a question they repeatedly asked themselves during the presentation.
The lack of male understanding became especially evident in the roundtable that concluded the conference. The roundtable started off fairly well; the initial discussion focused on the state of women in motorsports scholarship, a topic very much in need of attention. However, when the microphone was turned over to the audience for comments, it quickly devolved into men telling women what they should write about. While some of the comments had merit, many were downright dreadful. The most egregious suggestions included an inquest into the wives of male racing legends, an in-depth examination of Linda Vaughn, the infamous ‘Miss Hurst Golden Shifter,’ and my personal favorite [not], a survey of women in automotive advertising, with the recommended and cringeworthy title ‘Broads on Buicks.’ Yikes. As it turns out, the attitudes of men who write about motorsports are not much different than those women encounter each weekend at the track.
While I was somewhat frustrated in my attempts to get through to some audience members, I believe that the conference was ultimately a success. I was able to partake in a lively conference in a unique in an inspiring setting; I had the occasion to take in new and important motorsports research; I had the chance to network and connect with renown scholars and historians in the field; and had the opportunity to present my own research and perhaps change some minds about the role of women in motorsports. All in all not a bad weekend.
After a winter in which I worked on other things, I restarted the women and autocross project. I had attended some local autocross events last fall, and was able to speak with and interview a few of the women in attendance. The event leaders were very helpful in explaining the basics to me as well as introducing me to some of the female autocrossers. The women I encountered ranged in age as well as experience. One of the older women I spoke with has 11 SCCA National Championships and was the number one female in 2014. Others were just beginning and looked up to the more senior participants for advice and inspiration. While these local events provided a good introduction to the autocross experience, I felt I needed more input from female autocrossers as well as additional observation at autocross events in order to better understand the sport of autocross, particularly as experienced by women.
After completing a number of projects over the winter and spring, I decided to make another attempt at contacting women about their autocross experiences. I was allowed to post a request for project participants on the SCCA Women on Track Facebook page, and was overwhelmed with responses. I am currently in the process of conducting and transcribing interviews with the goal of presenting preliminary findings at the Argetsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History this November at Watkins Glen International. I also desired to attend autocross events in which there would be a larger number of female participants. That opportunity came on July 24 at the SCCA ProSolo championship series in Toledo, Ohio.
ProSolo differs from the local events I attended not only in the number of participants but also in the way the series is conducted. As noted on the event page, “The TireRack SCCA® ProSolo® Series is an adrenaline-pumping autocross format where solo isn’t solo. Drivers still run a course by themselves, but start off side-by-side drag racing style and attack mirror-image courses to see who gets back to their respective finish lines first.” Drivers get three sets of runs to put together the best run from each side. Class winners participate in the single-elimination rounds on the last day. There is a special Ladies Challenge for the top performing ladies class drivers. Most of the women that day competed in the Ladies classes, while others chose to participate in open.
I arrived Sunday morning in the middle of the ladies competition which was the first event of the day. The ladies runs were preceded by what has become a traditional ‘ladies’ dance.’ Pumping music on the grid before the event begins, dancing provides the opportunity for the women to relax, get loose, and have some fun before getting down to the serious business of competing. It is also a form of bonding, as it helps to make each participant feel like an important part of the group. While I wasn’t able to get close enough to watch the individual runs, I was able to see the women gathered in what is called the ‘impound’ after they finished. There was a lot of chatting, high-fiving, checking out each others’ cars, discussing results, and general camaraderie. I heard a lot of participants – women and men – offering support, with comments like ‘great job’ or ‘you’ll do better next time; it’s all about learning, right?’ There is a lot of waiting around at autocross events – only six minutes of driving over the entire weekend – so socialization is an important component of the experience. Competitors also take the downtime as an opportunity to work on their cars, commiserate with other autocrossers, have something to eat, take a nap, and develop strategies for the next run.
I was able to speak with a few of the competitors after their runs – which included those who made the final round as well as some who experienced car issues and were eliminated. There was a great sense of fellowship among the women in attendance – it is obvious they provide each other with mutual support, team spirit, and fraternity in an endeavor that is overwhelmingly male [at least 90% by my unofficial estimations].
All are required to work at autocross events, and as the women ran in the morning, the afternoon found them in various positions in the booth or on the track. After observing for a bit longer, I headed home, grateful I was able to attend the event and in the process, gain a little more insight into the world of women and autocross.
While working on my master’s degree at Eastern Michigan University in the early 2000s, I devised an independent study focused on my growing interest in the relationship between women and cars. What follows is one of the response papers in which I consider how men and women often have different perspectives regarding tourism, travel, and romantic encounters in automobiles.
Early auto camping
There can be little argument that social and historical accounts of American car culture are often romanticized, both figuratively and literally. Such sentiments are certainly evident in discussions of the automobile’s role in leisure and recreation, which include the topics of travel, tourism, courtship, and sex. Contemporary cultural commentators often examine the car as a location for both families and lovers in a quixotic and lighthearted manner. Warren Belasco, for example, suggests the “erotic excitement” of “auto camping” not only served as an “aphrodisiac,” but also as “a new companionate family ideal” that brought families together (107). James Flink praises the “family automobile vacation” as a middle-class American institution. As it spawned popular motel chains and iconic drive-in restaurants along America’s roadways, the automobile, Flink argues, became an essential contributor to the travel industry and the American economy. Lewis remarks that, even more than a mode of transportation, cars evolved into “a destination as well, for they provided a setting for sexual relations […]” (123). The car as a symbol of sexual prowess, as well as a location for sexual practice, is often celebrated by car culture pundits. As Julian Pettifer and Nigel Turner attest, “for the young male in the US, the car is an absolute essential for successful courtship” (194). And in his 1973 film American Graffiti, George Lucas examines the role of the automobile as both a social and sexual space with nostalgia and humor. However, such romanticized notions of the car in American culture do not tell the whole story. While they provide a familiar narrative, they do so in a way that is decidedly and overwhelmingly male.
Auto camping in the 1940s
Most commentaries present the American car culture experience as uniform and universal. However, women’s place in car culture differs remarkably from that of men. During the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of men perceived auto camping as unconventional, adventurous and exciting. There can be little doubt that many of them also considered it a welcome and necessary respite from everyday responsibilities. While a woman may have enjoyed such occasions of enforced family “togetherness,” her domestic responsibilities, whether in the home or in the car, remained the same. As travel writer Zephine Humphrey penned in 1936, “the burden of home life was discarded, but the essence of it we had with us in the four walls of the car” (Sanger 728). While on the road, women were still responsible for household domestic tasks, albeit in a much more primitive setting. Belasco writes, “roadside camping was too difficult for many, especially for women, whose participation was essential in a family-oriented activity” (113). Women’s performance of domestic tasks on the road, as it was in the home, was assumed and expected. The implication, therefore, is that women’s “difficulty” is based on a lack of creature comforts rather than added domestic responsibilities. In fact, Flink attributes the “spectacular” growth of the camping equipment industry to the need of such “comfort-conscious” women for “large tents, folding cots with springs, air mattresses, portable gas stoves and lamps, and elaborate yet compact kits of kitchen utensils” (183). While auto camping may have been perceived, as Belasco writes, as a “chance to leave the crowd,” women were unable to leave their domestic responsibilities behind. Thus their experience of auto camping differed considerably from that of men.
Making out at the drive-in
In “Girls and the Getaway,” Carol Sanger writes, “the car has reinforced women’s subordinated status in ways that make the subordination seem ordinary, even logical through two predictable, but subtle, mechanisms: by increasing women’s domestic obligations and by sexualizing the relation between women and cars” (707). While motels and gas prices have contributed to a decline in auto camping and the domestic responsibilities that accompany it, women are still expected to use cars for the performance of gendered tasks. The woman’s automobile is considered a form of domestic technology; man’s car, on the other hand, is often a symbol of power, control and sexual prowess. As Pettifer and Turner state, “a man is very affectionate towards his car, he gets into his car he switches on the power; he then has almost a passionate relationship and a passionate satisfaction out of controlling the power to the car” (188). Not only do men call on cars as a source of identity, but use them as a means to assert control over women. Thus while Lewis and Lucas may fondly reminisce about the joy of having sex in cars, “because they found it exciting, sometimes dangerously so, and a change from familiar surroundings” (124), for many women, “riding in cars with boys” has a very different meaning.
Lewis is correct when he suggests that the car offered young men and women the opportunity for consensual sex. And certainly there have been many women who have engaged in such practices openly and willingly. As Sanger writes, “this intimate realm of vehicular privacy is sometimes good. Couples may want to share unscrutinized moments; the car has been reported as the most common site for marriage proposals” (731). However, getting into a car or offering a ride to a man often implies consent when none is present. And because cars provide a “male-controlled” privacy, they are common sites for sexual assaults. Lucas addresses this in a humorous, yet all too familiar way in American Graffiti. As Steve Belanger is about to leave for college, he asks his girlfriend Laurie to “give me something to remember you by.” Laurie responds by kicking him out of the car. However, it is Laurie’s car; if the incident took place in Steve’s “male-controlled” space, most likely there would have been a very different (and considerably less funny) outcome.
The ‘give me something to remember you by’ scene in American Graffiti
While often informative, educational and entertaining, most accounts of American car culture are constructed from a male perspective. When women are present, they are most often presented in a secondary, if not subservient role. While the work of contemporary cultural commentaries are valuable, women’s contribution to car culture in such contexts is often distorted to fit male paradigms. What such accounts suggest, and encourage, however, is that more work is needed in order to accurately and objectively uncover women’s place in American car culture.
Belasco, Warren. “Commercialized Nostalgia: The Origins of the Roadside Strip” in The Automobile and American Culture, David L. Lewis and Laurence Goldstein eds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
Flink, James. The Automobile Age. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 1990.
Lewis, David. “Sex and the Automobile” in The Automobile and American Culture, David L. Lewis and Laurence Goldstein eds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
Pettifer, Julian and Nigel Turner. Automania: Man and the Motor Car. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984.
Sanger, Carol. “Girls and the Getaway: Cars, Culture, and the Predicament of Gendered Space.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 144.2 (1997): 705-756.
As a member of the Society of Automotive Historians, I am sometimes asked to provide a review of a book nominated for the prestigious Cugnot Award for the organization’s bi-monthly SAH Journal. One of the books under consideration in 2021 was Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy Taylor. I was introduced to The Green Book through Cotten Seiler’s seminal text Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America while a graduate student at Eastern Michigan University; the publication came into the public consciousness with the release of the Oscar winning film of the same name. I welcomed the opportunity to read and review the most current examination of this influential and important publication. It proved to be an interesting and enlightening read. For those who may be curious about the book, I have included my review below.
Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America By Candacy Taylor Abrams Press, NY (2020) 360 pages, 6 ½: x 9 ½” hardcover, dustcover 150 color and black-and-white illustrations Price: $35 ISBN: 9781419738173
The Green Book – a travel guide for black Americans produced from 1936-1967 – is the subject of two exemplary publications released in 2020. Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rightswas reviewed in the March/April 2021 issue of the SAH Journal and was the recipient of a 2021 Cugnot Award of Distinction. Author Gretchen Sorin focuses her account on the history of African-American car ownership and travel, particularly how the Green Book served as an impetus for black Americans to break the societal constraints of mobility placed on them since the days of slavery. Candacy Taylor, in Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America, takes a somewhat different, yet equally impactful, approach. Relying on historical documents, photographs, oral histories, family stories, as well as personal visits to remaining businesses and building sites featured in the travel guide, Taylor provides a chronology of the Green Book within the context of historical events that made its publication valuable if not vital to the black community.
The Green Book was created to address the need and desire of black Americans to engage in safe travel during the Jim Crow era. The publication’s byline – ‘Carry Your Green Book With You – You May Need It’ – underscores the difficulties African-Americans faced when journeying away from home through unfamiliar areas. Yet as Taylor argues, the Green Book’s influence and impact was twofold. Not only did the annual publication serve as an essential travel guide, but as an effective and indispensable marketing tool for black-owned businesses as well. Through advertising, grassroots promotion, and word of mouth, the Green Book assembled an impressive list of hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues, recreation areas, stores, service stations, salons, and vacation spots that offered safe and welcoming accommodations for black travelers. Taylor’s examination of the Green Book is unique in this regard. For while she offers historical and first-hand accounts of the dangers of driving while black in America, she also suggests that the very need for a travel guide provided recognition as well as financial support for the many black-owned business establishments featured in each issue. This shared emphasis weaves throughout each chapter, as Taylor combines historical data and personal accounts of black travel with descriptions and photographs – many taken by the author – of the sites frequented by black individuals and families as they made their way across American roads. Taylor also includes a chapter on how the Green Book served as a source of empowerment for black women, who through advertising in the publication were able to experience a measure of success running businesses that included hotels, beauty shops, tourist homes, and sex clubs. Another chapter is devoted to the Green Book’s role in the Great Migration, and how it provided information not only on safe stops along the way but also on welcoming locations in which to relocate.
Taylor holds a master’s degree in Visual and Critical Studies and is widely recognized as an award-winning author, photographer, and cultural documentarian. Like much of her previous work, Overground Railroad is part of a broader project which includes the book, a traveling exhibition by the Smithsonian Institution, as well as a children’s book, board game, and walking tour mobile app. In the book’s afterword, Taylor includes a Green Book Site Tour, the Green Book Cover Guide, as well as recommendations for local and national activism supported by a who’s who list of prominent African-American scholars, journalists, and legal experts. Taylor’s overarching goal in this project is not only to examine the Green Book’s influence on black American travel and black-owned businesses during the era framed by Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement, but also to inspire readers to challenge the social and legal inequalities that exist in the present day.
While The Overground Railroad is well-researched, it is more experiential than academic, often relying on recollections of family members and black business owners, as well as observations from Taylor’s 40,000 mile road trip in which she visits and documents nearly 3,600 remaining Green Book establishments and former building sites. The book’s less scholarly, more familiar language and tone makes the book accessible to a wider, and perhaps more inclusive, audience. That being said, the Overground Railroad project has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants from prominent educational and cultural institutions and was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2020.
Prior to the release of the popular motion picture The Green Book in 2018, most Americans were unfamiliar with the publication from which it took its name or the need for its existence. Overground Railroad is both a timely and necessary follow-up to the Oscar-winning film. Throughout its adeptly researched and photo-rich chapters, Taylor not only documents the injustices and real-life dangers black Americans faced while on the road, but provides the impetus to create change through political activism. As Taylor writes, “I wanted to show [the Green Book] in the context of this country’s ongoing struggle with race and social mobility.” For the problems black Americans face today, Taylor continues, “are arguably just as debilitating and deadly as the problems the Green Book helped black people avoid more than 80 years ago” (22). Overground Railroad is recommended not only as a unique examination of a dark era of American history, but to demonstrate how, as Taylor asserts, “real change can come from simple tools that solve a problem. That is why the Green Book was so powerful” (295).
Jalopnik recently posted an article requesting its readers to submit Automotive New Year’s Resolutions. As Jalopnik articles often do, this one got me to thinking about my own car-related plans for the coming year. As it turns out, my 2022 car resolutions can be divided into two categories. One is concerned with my car-related scholarship, the other with my actual cars. Both areas, as it turns out, are due for some much needed attention.
I had a pretty good year in terms of publishing and promoting my work on women and cars. My article on women and cars in film is featured in latest issue of the Journal of Popular Culture, and my car advertising exploits made the cover of the most recent Automotive History Review. I also completed and contributed a chapter on the history of all women-racing to a yet-to-be-published history-of-motorsports collection. In terms of presentations, I was a featured speaker for the Motor Cities National Heritage organization, was invited to expound on my AHR article at the Automotive Hall of Fame, and presented an idea for a new project on Barbie cars at the Popular Culture Association Conference that was pretty well received. I also attended a couple of autocross events and interviewed a few women for a prospective project on women who compete in the sport. And I managed to crank out at least two blogs a week on new and recycled topics.
Alas, other aspects of my life caught up with me in the fall; consequently, I have accomplished little real work during the last few months. My goal for the coming year, therefore, is to pick up where I left off, adding some new projects along the way. Items to check off are the completion and submission of the Barbie car paper, the continuation of interviews for the autocross project – so that an article can be completed by the end of the year – and the commencing of new projects to include a study of women who own jeeps, an examination of women who work as auto journalists, and a Wikipedia entry focused on little known UAW and NOW groundbreaker Dorothy Haener. It is quite an ambitious list, but I am only getting older and would like to move forward as quickly and aggressively as possible while my facilities remain intact.
As for my actual cars, my two classics have been greatly neglected during the pandemic. In 2020 car shows were canceled; consequently there was little incentive to get them out and show them off. In the spring of 2021, my husband underwent serious surgery which put a kibosh on classic car activities. The cars – a 1949 Ford and 1967 Shelby Mustang – have been idle for so long that I am afraid I will have forgotten how to drive them – i.e. how many gears are there and what is the shift pattern? Therefore my resolution for this summer is to get the two beauties out early and often and enjoy them, whether at a car event or just tooling around.
One other car event that will be taking place will be replacing our current cars with new ones. As we are downsizing and moving next year, we will be consolidating our current vehicles and replacing those that are no longer necessary for our new lifestyles. So if the North American Auto Show eventually, finally takes place, we will be there checking out the latest models.
Happy new car year everyone, and may your 2022 automotive dreams come true.
Charlotte Vowden riding with her late grandfather in a 1960 MGA Roadster.
In my work on women in various car cultures, I have discovered that women often develop an interest in cars through the help of male family members. Working in the garage alongside fathers, uncles, and brothers creates a familiarity with all things automotive that often grows into a serious involvement with cars in later years. Dads in particular instill automotive knowledge in their young daughters as a means of protection – from unscrupulous car dealers and automotive repair shops. They teach them how to make simple repairs to avoid being stranded on the side of the road. Husbands, on the other hand, often instill a love for cars in the hope that their wives will share their interest and participate alongside them in auto-related activities.
However, many women with a car-crazy family member don’t develop an enthusiasm for automobiles until that individual passes. After inheriting a classic classic car from a father or grandfather, women must decide whether to put the vehicle up for sale or to keep and maintain it. Those who choose the later find they must master the peculiarities of driving an antique machine. In the process, they often become full-fledged enthusiasts, joining car clubs, learning restoration processes, and submersing themselves in automotive history. I met some of these women while conducting research on various women and car projects. A recent article in the Sunday Times features stories of numerous women – many similar to those I encountered – who found themselves the unlikely owners of classic MGA Roadsters, Austin Healeys, and Porsches.
The women interviewed in “Women with Drive” speak of how taking the wheel of an old MG Midget or VW convertible provides a connection to a family member who has passed on. They admit to how the mechanics of these aging vehicles originally terrified them; the women wondered how they would ever conquer such complicated and unfamiliar machines. Yet, they found that spending time in the automobile, discovering all of its idiosyncrasies, and emerging victorious after months of intensive driving provided a means to confront their grief and move past a personal loss. It allowed to remain connected in spirit to a dad or favorite grandfather. Remarked the owner of an inherited 1936 Austin Healey, “this car is part of my dad that I still get to hang on to.”
Some of those interviewed for the article spoke of how they discovered a latent love of old cars after a male partner introduced them to the world of classic automobiles. In my own research in women and muscle cars, I note how men often encourage an interest in American muscle – and often acquire and restore a vehicle of their spouse’s choosing – as a way to alleviate guilt [over spending so much time and money on cars!] as well as to strengthen the relationship through a shared interest. While my research took place primarily in Southeastern Michigan, the Sunday Times article includes stories from women all over Europe, demonstrating that a female interest in cars, while often under the radar, is worldwide.
What the Sunday Times article attempts to convey, and which I have endeavored to promote in my scholarship, is that despite the common perception of female motorists, women with an interest in cars exist in all facets of automotive endeavors and activities. While one may find it surprising that women connect to cars in a multitude of ways, it is only because we have been conditioned to believe that an affinity toward automobiles is present in only half the population. Although women’s relationship to cars may differ from that of men, it doesn’t follow that it is less legitimate. I thank the Sunday Times for this article, and for its dedication to cultivating further discussions about women and cars.
