Women Behind the Wheel
An Unexpected and Personal History of the Car
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
From the adolescent thrill of getting a driver's license to the dreaded commutes of adulthood, from vintage muscle cars to electric vehicles, this groundbreaking book reveals the outsized impact the car has had—and will continue to have—on the lives of women.
Since their inception cars have defined American culture, but until quite recently car histories were largely written by and about men—with little attention given to the fascinating story of women and cars.
In this engaging non-fiction narrative, Nancy A. Nichols, the daughter of a used car salesman, uses the cars her father sold and the ones her family drove to tell a larger story about how the car helped to define modern womanhood. From her sister’s classic Mustang to her mother’s Chevy Convertible to her own Honda minivan, Nichols tells a personal story in order to shed light on a universal one.
Cars helped women secure the right to vote, changed the nature of romance, and influenced both fashion and child rearing customs. In the just over 100 years since their inception, cars have created possibilities for commerce and romance even as they exposed women to new kinds of danger.
Women Behind the Wheel explores the uniquely gendered landscape of the automobile, detailing the many reasons why cars are both more expensive and more dangerous for women drivers.
The automobile is on the cusp of momentous change. As we advance into the era of electric, connected, and autonomous vehicles, Nichols shows us why we should hit the brakes and look back in the rear-view mirror at this long and fascinating history.
What is the role of the car in our lives? Should we be more skeptical of technology in our society? In Women Behind the Wheel, Nichols argues convincingly that only by understanding the many ways the car has changed us, can we hope to prepare ourselves for this brave new era.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Nichols (Lake Effect) offers a unique and captivating history of women and the automobile. Combing through decades of carmakers' advertisements and marketing strategies, Nichols finds that not long after its invention in the 1880s, the automobile became "our most gendered technology"—both marketed directly to women (by 1929, "car companies overwhelmingly turned to fashion and style to stoke sales with as their target audience") and strongly equated to femininity ("The equivalency between the female body and the car body was drawn so early and so clearly that it was caricatured in a May 1920 Vanity Fair cartoon"). During the mid-20th-century growth of the suburbs, "the car enslaved women even as it liberated them," according to Nichols, with cars becoming yet another tool for accomplishing housework. Today, niche marketing and identity interact in unpredictable ways—she points to Subaru's popularity among lesbians as an example. Throughout, Nichols interweaves meticulous and intriguing research into engineering and advertising history with poignant reflections on how automobiles have played an outsize role in her own family: an uncle killed in a car accident, an alcoholic father who was a used car salesman, time spent driving herself and her son for cancer treatment. Marked by the author's keen eye for detail and irony alike, this perceptive study will compel readers to reevaluate their own relationship with cars.