{"id":11114,"date":"2009-07-23T10:00:43","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T15:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=11114"},"modified":"2012-10-19T01:36:35","modified_gmt":"2012-10-19T06:36:35","slug":"answer-because-apparently-women-had-no-sense-in-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/07\/23\/answer-because-apparently-women-had-no-sense-in-1962\/","title":{"rendered":"Answer: Because Apparently Women Had No Sense in 1962"},"content":{"rendered":"

In lieu of commentary, I am just going to transcribe the text of this ad, sent in by The Sexual Buzz<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"vw-time-07-13-1962-053-a\"<\/p>\n

Question: Why won’t your wife let you buy this wagon?<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It looks like a bus.”<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.”<\/p>\n

Do these sound familiar?\u00a0 Your wife is not alone.\u00a0 It is hard to convince some women what sense the VW Station Wagon makes.<\/p>\n

It’s chunky shape, for instance, allows it to hold more than the biggest conventional wagon.\u00a0 (Yet it is a good four feet shorter, and a lot less exasperating to park.)<\/p>\n

She might like the easy way it loads.\u00a0 The side doors give her almost 16 sq. ft. for big supermarket bags, a baby carriage, etc.<\/p>\n

The Volkswagen Station Wagon does not have to take anything lying down.\u00a0 She can cart home an antique chest, standing up.\u00a0 Or delicate trees from the nursery.\u00a0 (Wide things, too.\u00a0 It will hold an open playpen.)<\/p>\n

She can comfortably pack in eight or more Scouts, with all their cook-out gear.<\/p>\n

She can give the family some extra sun on the way to the beach.\u00a0 (Why no other station wagon has a sun-roof is a mystery.)<\/p>\n

Even if the traffic is bumper to bumper on hot days, she will not have to worry about the radiator boiling over.\u00a0 There is no radiator, no water.\u00a0 (The Volkswagen engine is air cooled.)<\/p>\n

She may get a kick out of beeping to the other women who drive VW Station Wagons.\u00a0 (They have a kind of private club.)<\/p>\n

Or maybe she likes to see where she is going. (The VW wagon has incredible visibility on hills and curves.)<\/p>\n

If these facts don’t convince her, tell her it’s only $2655 and you aren’t made of money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE!<\/strong> <\/span>Commenter jfruh had a nice observation:<\/p>\n

Interesting in that vans (and the VW Bus pretty much was the first van) are now fully feminized in the US, associated with “soccer moms.” I’m guessing a gendered van ad today would involve a wife extolling just these sorts of practical features to convince her husband to buy a “wimpy” van instead of the sports car that he wants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Lisa Wade is a\u00a0professor of sociology at Occidental College<\/a>. You can follow her on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In lieu of commentary, I am just going to transcribe the text of this ad, sent in by The Sexual Buzz: Question: Why won’t your wife let you buy this wagon? “It looks like a bus.” “I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.” Do these sound familiar?\u00a0 Your wife is not alone.\u00a0 It is hard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,221,23705],"class_list":["post-11114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-cars","tag-vintage-stuff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11114"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11120,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11114\/revisions\/11120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}