What Would Miss Daisy Drive? The Road Trip Film, the Automobile, and the Woman Behind the Wheel

Abstract

INCE WOMEN FIRST EXPRESSED INTEREST IN AUTOMOBILITY, AUTOmanufacturers and marketers have determinedly directed the female motorist toward the practical "family" vehicle. While men are often encouraged to purchase automobiles that reflect power and performance, women are expected to drive a safe, reliable, and functional automobile that reinforces the gender-appropriate roles of wife and mother. The gendering of the automotive experience was instigated soon after the introduction of the gasoline-powered automobile in the early twentieth century as a solution to the growing problem of women's automobility in American society. Fearful the increased power and range provided by the internal-combustion engine would encourage women to drive faster and further-and away from domestic responsibilities-the slow and sedate electric vehicle with limited range was positioned as eminently more suitable for the woman driver. 1 After World War II, automakers continued to rely upon the cultural assumption that women's "unchanging biological natures" resulted in a gender-wide preference for sensible, sound, and dependable cars perfectly suited for the transportation of kids and cargo (Scharff 116). In the twenty-first century, the association between function, family, and the female driver continues, as women

Pink power: The Barbie car and female automobility

“…The collected literature of Oldenziel (2001), Wajcman (1991), andWosk (2003), together with that of technology scholars Kathleen Franz (2005Franz ( , 2008, and Ruth Schwartz Cowan (1987Cowan ( , 2000Cowan ( , 2001, provides important insight into women's active interactions with technologies generally considered male. In some of my own writing (Lezotte 2013a(Lezotte , 2021, as well as that of American literature scholars Deborah Clarke (2007) and Deborah Paes de Barros (2004), representations of the woman driver in fiction, film, and popular music are called upon to demonstrate the significance of the automobile to women's lives in a series of geographical, personal, and spiritual locations. This assembled scholarship represents a concerted effort among feminist scholars to challenge and disrupt the deeply seated association between masculinity and automobility.…”