“Vehicles made, safe and easy to use”. Originally, theS electric cars were marketed as “women’s cars”. This gender discrimination delayed car development during the last century.
It was not an acquired data that gasoline cars would dominate the world. In 1900, only 22% of US cars were moved to gasoline. The rest were divided between steam cars and electric.
There is no consensus on what explains the success of the car gasoline and the historical disappearance of the electric. Some point to the technical inferiority of electric cars, although they have an average autonomy of about 135 kilometers in the 1910s and have become cheaper.
Others argue that technological limitations could have been contradicted if electrical networks and loading infrastructures had been implemented in the early years of the twentieth century.
But this does not exclude explanations based on social or cultural factors. More specifically, do gender papers decide which technologies we use?
Cars for women
In the 1990s, the American historian Virginia Scharff suggested that the electric cars had been labeled “women’s cars”.
More than a century later, in a study this week in Science Direct, Josef TaalbiProfessor of Economic History, at the University of Lund (Sweden), confirmed this theory.
Analyzing US Electric Automobile Ads for Automobile Magazines and Complete Statistics on Vehicles between 1900 and 1919; The historian concluded that it is undeniable that electric cars were indeed considered women’s cars.
In the early days, electric car ads were also driven to business men and family men. Manufacturers imagined cars as clean and reliable for professional travel in the cities to which the network restricted them. This was a valid argument, since gasoline cars were likely to damage and had to be rebooted manually with a crank.
But at the same time, gasoline cars were gaining ground.
This is why electric manufacturers began to market them as “Cars for women” to maintain their market share.
During the 1910s, 77% of electric vehicles appealed directly to women. This reflected the traditional gender roles, promoting the idea that women had limited mobility and needed safe and easy -to -use vehicles.
Behind a man car is in a woman’s car
A significant change occurred when the Charles Kettering introduced the electrical ignition of starting on the 1912 Cadillac (gasoline). These electrical start -up engines were initially conceived as “effective”. However, the Practicality won and were introduced as standard equipment in the immensely popular T-Ford of 1919.
As historian Virginia Scharff pointed out, American gasoline car manufacturers saw simultaneously that the windshields, start-up ignition and other “female” car accessories were not just good for women, but universal.
But when gasoline cars emaculated “female” qualities, such as windshields and electrical starter engines, and made them appealing to both men and women, The electric was in a difficult situation.
Reducing the choice of technology to a gender issue meant that the electric has lost the battle in the public imagination of what cars and mobility could become, which he did delay car development for the last 100 years.
As Josef Taalbi writes, the history of electric vehicles illustrates well that social constructions of female and male can constitute barriers to progress and innovation. It also shows that “technological leaders” are so unable to predict the long -term consequences of technological choice like anyone else.
“If history guides, innovation has to be based on universal access and inclusion principles,” writes the historian.
“Democratic influence can help ensure that technological transitions benefit a large majority of people, regardless of their gender, class or ethnicity,” he adds.
