Comments on: 1920 Proposal to Ban Female Drivers

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:50:00 +0000

Why is it that those six characters behind your name make it impossible to understand that to provide power for overhead wires we need to burn fossil fuels? The wind/solar thing is a fairy tale until costs dramatically improve (which they haven’t) and a system of storage is created (we’re not even close on this one). The only ‘clean’ technology that is truly viable is nuclear, and we all know that isn’t going to happen. I’m all for lessening dependence on oil, but the amount of pie in the sky thinking on behalf of greenies is nauseating.

By: Newsflash: Women Aren’t Bad Drivers : Ms Magazine Blog

Newsflash: Women Aren’t Bad Drivers : Ms Magazine Blog — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:13:52 +0000

[...] they might be perplexed that women are allowed to operate motor vehicles at all. Women have gotten a bad rap for their drivings skills since the invention of the [...]

By: Marcello

Marcello — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:24:13 +0000

well… last accident i had happened because the girl behind me was wearing heels and her foot slipped on the brake… that’s what SHE said, i didn’t make that up. ;)

By: Meera

Meera — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:29:39 +0000

Using ‘it’ for a baby or child used to be the norm, and is still pretty common in some British-influenced English-writing contexts (such as South-Asian varieties of English).

By: Séduire sans bouger » Blog Archive » Vrac #77 totalement exacerbé

Séduire sans bouger » Blog Archive » Vrac #77 totalement exacerbé — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:41:22 +0000

[...] Je vous recommande cet article de 1920 visant à éradiquer les femmes des routes, au motif qu’elles ne réagissent pas assez vite [...]

By: Jason N. Meggs, Mcp, Mph

Jason N. Meggs, Mcp, Mph — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:17:44 +0000

The fundamental fallacy of the reasoning in this ancient proposal is it doesn’t adjust for rates. Today, women drive for domestic chores much more than men; who’s to say that wasn’t the case of the women driving in 1920? More driving means more chances for ‘accidents,’ even if women were safer drivers at the time.

From that perspective, banning women from the motorways might have helped society more than banning men; men would have had to do more errands, and women might have demanded a more walkable, wheel-able (bikeable) society. Overall driving would be reduced and we’d be in a better position to phase out car dependency than otherwise. Or not. The reverse may have happened, galvanizing women to demand the right to drive, helping push forward the deadly and wasteful bubble we now suffer through.

In any event, women continue to be a mighty force for change. Here’s hoping we all pull together to create a healthier, more sustainable, happier world. Phasing out driving from cities is at the top of the list of goals to attain that vision. Electrification of the diesel fleet for all fixed route mass transport of goods and services is also high on the list (yes, trucks and buses using overhead wires, the best overall option for phasing out dependence on oil at this time).

By: anna banana

anna banana — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:46:28 +0000

“Shall the gloved hand be wrenched forcibly from the steering wheel” was actually the most interesting part of that article. The writer seemed to be under the assumption that the whole argument for women’s right to drive is because they are so delicate that it might hurt them to deny them that right.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:57:11 +0000

Put ‘em all on bicycles, I say. Let’s make that electric bikes. Riding will be a lot more interesting on rainy days.

On a modern note of gender confusion, if not outright sexism (against possibly either gender), David Brooks and Gail Collins had a conversation in the NYTimes about the issues of how their are more women in their twenties with college degrees than men, and how women are not being laid off percentage wise as much as men. That drifted into Brooks asserting that the term “Cougar” is less derogatory than whatever you call an older man who successfully pursues a younger man (lucky? Sean Connery?). I am pretty sure I disagree with Brooks, but there are some amusing, if not interesting questions about the dynamics of younger men pursuing romantic relationships with older women who have higher incomes. Or just in general how both sexes feel about men pursuing relationships with women who have higher incomes. Are there any gender roles worth preserving? How much agreement about these things do we need to keep society from suffering enormous discord? Are we all going to finally start wearing Mao jackets? I feel like we might be entering a time of social change nearly as large as the seventies. Just reassure me that I don’t have to wear another corduroy suit (I was young then, and didn’t mind “wiff, wiff”)

By: technicolorsheep

technicolorsheep — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:34:05 +0000

Funny, I’ve never noticed how weird it must sound to speakers of English, but I accidentally do that sometimes, since in German we have a grammatical gender that renders some words (e.g. girl, child, young miss, little boy, etc) neuter and we thus replace them with the pronoun ‘it’. Old English used to do the same; obviously, ‘it’ still exists in English, although the distinction is now: ‘S/HE’ for people, ‘IT’ for abstractions and things.
So maybe the usage that strikes you as odd is a remnant of the fact that in earlier versions of English, pronouns were selected on account of the grammatical gender rather than the actual gender of the referred-to person/object. I’d have to look that up, though, as I can’t remember for sure.

By the way, I think it’s completely acceptable to ask: “Is is a boy or a girl” instead of “Is he or she a boy or a girl?” (Whether it’s a actually a good or relevant questions is an entirely different issue…) ;-)

By: Bagelsan

Bagelsan — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:09:35 +0000

Maybe Dodge should forget the truck thing, and instead design a deeply misogynistic and bitter kitchen? There wouldn’t be any emasculating fruit-for-breakfast bullshit in *that* kitchen, dammit! :D

By: Victoria

Victoria — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:27:17 +0000

But…but we give birth to WAY more people than men do – something like 100% more. That has to count for something, right? ;)

By: Tabitha

Tabitha — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:54:08 +0000

Also fun to consider is that this Saturnalia of Death was occurring on streets that, at the time, were exclusively built and designed by men, and men who were more often motorists at that. Why again were pedestrians unsafe?

By: sarah

sarah — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:50:49 +0000

I think men should just stay in the kitchen, instead of driving cars.

By: Fernando

Fernando — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:48:11 +0000

What’s interesting, I think, is that by bringing the subject to discussion the newspaper was already against women driving in the first place. But even though there’s some blatant sexism going on in the text itself, I bet it passed as trying to be fair back then, because it poses a question instead of right out stating something, as if it wasn’t getting to any specific conclusion.

I wish this technique had stayed in the past.

By: Kristina

Kristina — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:44:53 +0000

But if women picked up the slack and drove more, wouldn’t the practice make them better drivers and that way decrease the number of accidents (assuming it’s the lack of practice that makes them bad drivers in the first place and not their uterus)?