Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is for the activity of driving a car / car-analogue to be widely percieved as something associated more with women than men.
AH Challenge: Driving a 'feminine' activity
- Thread starter Justin Pickard
- Start date
Unfortunately not. I meant as a general activity (i.e. all driveable road-based vehicles).
Justin Pickard said:
When the first vehicles are developed, only the upper class can afford it. As they are far too high up the social chain to belittle themselves with actually driving the vehicles themselves, they have chauffeurs do the actual work. It's widely seen as 'menial labour' (but nevertheless somewhat respectable work).
Professional horse driven carriage drivers refuse to drive the horseless carriage ('It will never replace the horse, it requires no true manly skills whatsoever and it's just a fad anyway') so the only people that they can get to actually do the driving are women.
After 20 years or so, even when cars become more affordable, the 'stigma' of women drivers is still retained.
Doctor What said:
That's the right kind of idea. Any social / cultural butterflies you can see arising from this?
1960's -Men fight for the right to drive vehicles and not be seen by the public at large as being effeminate but rather 'empowering themselves'Justin Pickard said:
Hendryk
Banned
One very interesting butterfly is that cars will be built with practical criteria such as safety, fuel efficiency and carrying capacity in mind. Since cars, being associated with women, won't be used by men as substitute penises as in OTL, we won't have sleek, dangerously fast, and useless sports cars, nor huge, my-engine's-bigger-than-yours, gas-guzzling, and useless SUVs.
Who knows, in that TL the USA, being considerably less oil-dependent, might even leave the Middle East alone.
Who knows, in that TL the USA, being considerably less oil-dependent, might even leave the Middle East alone.
hammo1j
Donor
Make them more like duvets. My soon to be ex-wife could put a cover on a duvet in about 40 seconds and it would be perfect. I have just spent about 10 mins on one and it is still lop-sided.
Joke:
Q: Why is a woman so bad at parking when a man's trying to help?
A: Because she can never trust him when he says "It's alright darling, you've got nine inches."
Joke:
Q: Why is a woman so bad at parking when a man's trying to help?
A: Because she can never trust him when he says "It's alright darling, you've got nine inches."
Hendryk said:
In the 1960's and 70's as the feminist movement is in high gear, a group of men decide to point out the double standard of cars being okay for women and not for men. In various garages they worked for months before coming out with the "He-man woman hater" of HWH. It is large, has a newly designed V-8 engine bought from a military vehicle, given an odd body shape design to look nice, instead of being safe. Eventually the car becomes a success for the small clique of men interested in fast cars. Gerenal Motors believed it would never sell due to it only able to carry two people.
Trucks might come to be seen as working vehicles, thus alright for a man to drive. They would also become to be seen as working class vehicles.
Driving trucks could be seen as an activity akin to women driving ambulances during WWI.
Count Deerborn said:
I like it. Trucks would be less noisy and less polluting, speed limits would be respected, habitacles more comfortable, ...