Katherine J. Parkin

Although this was a relatively short book (less than 200 pages of text), it seemed to take forever to read it. The very best feature of the book is the photographs, which are primarily ads concerning cars and women. Reading the ads with the accompanying text and comments by the author pretty much made the text of the book, which gets very repetitious, superfluous. The text covers the history of cars from the early cars through the present day, trying to negate the stereotypes of women as poor drivers who do not know anything about how cars work. The author's writing continually relies on ads to show how women have not overcome the stereotype. Generally, men, although many are poor drivers whose accidents are more serious and deadly than women's accidents, are considered better drivers, who know more about cars. Cars are portrayed as females, and some car models appeal sexually to men, at least as advertisements describe them. "Taking a gendered lens to cars also illuminates the long-standing power of patriarchy. ... The power of cars is a largely heretofore unexamined force that has contributed to a polarizing of gender roles and the imbalance of power between women and men" (p. 180).

3 stars: text 2.5 stars, illustrations 5 stars… (més)