{"id":24952,"date":"2011-04-23T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-04-23T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=24952"},"modified":"2017-09-17T01:29:24","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T06:29:24","slug":"the-vw-beetle-gets-a-sex-change-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/04\/23\/the-vw-beetle-gets-a-sex-change-again\/","title":{"rendered":"The VW Beetle Gets a “Sex Change”… Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new “manned-up” VW Beetle is in the news again and\u00a0J. Dawn Carlson, a PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley, asked us to write about it. \u00a0We covered it in July of 2010, but figured this was a good excuse to revisit the post.<\/em><\/p>\n

The VW Bug was introduced in 1938 for economical, powerful, fast, and sustained driving on the German Autobahn.\u00a0 Later it jumped shores and became an icon of the California surfer lifestyle:<\/p>\n

The New Beetle, however, introduced in 1998, quickly became associated with women because of its bubbly body and pastel colors.\u00a0Feminized products, however, don’t sell well with men (or some women) because femininity is stigmatizing.\u00a0 Accordingly, the Beetle is re-vamping its image; it’s getting a “sex change” for 2011.\u00a0 Brit S. pointed us to a story in the Anaheim Examiner<\/em><\/a> detailing this surgery.\u00a0 Jim Cherry writes:<\/p>\n

\n

New Beetle is about to get a testosterone injection. A mean-looking chopped top, 200 H.P. motor, widened stance, and a larger interior will transform the quintessential chick car into a rock-hard rock star.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So being mean-looking, wider, and larger (with a Porsche engine) are all equated with masculinity, a characteristic that will supposedly improve the cars appeal to men (and non-girly women).\u00a0 Here’s what the new testosterone-injected Beetle will look like (in red, of course):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new “manned-up” VW Beetle is in the news again and\u00a0J. Dawn Carlson, a PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley, asked us to write about it. \u00a0We covered it in July of 2010, but figured this was a good excuse to revisit the post. The VW Bug was introduced in 1938 for economical, powerful, fast, and […]<\/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":[373,55,2096,2102,2087,1777,221],"class_list":["post-24952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-color","tag-gender","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-history","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-nation-germany","tag-cars"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24952","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=24952"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71351,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24952\/revisions\/71351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}