On the gendering of the early American electric car

Abstract

The role of gender relations in shaping technological transitions is widely acknowledged but remains understudied. This study uses historical data to analyze the gendering of early 20th century American cars and its consequences. Previous research has argued that early electric vehicles were construed as a women’s car, contributing to its demise. Other work has questioned to what extent automotive preferences were gendered. The results of this study suggest a partially new interpretation. Early advertisements for electrics targeted business and family men, challenging the view of cars as “adventure machines”. However, as electrics declined, producers turned to feminization to survive competition from gasoline cars, a response to declining market shares, rather than the opposite. This made electric cars part of a conservative separate spheres gender ideology. The results stress the co-construction of gender and technology and how gendering processes can create powerful lock-in effects and barriers to (sustainability) transitions.