Jezebel: oldies (but not so) goodies

Vintage Ads: Women Can't Drive, And Other Misogynistic Messages

dodai — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:00:00 EST

Today's Daily Mail runs excerpts from a new book, You Mean A Woman Can Open It?: The Woman's Place In The Classic Age Of Advertising which features those oldies but goodies we're oh-so fond of. It's hard to imagine a world in which advertisers actually got away with this stuff: A car ad with a ditzy-looking broad claims an automobile is "for simple driving"; a coffee ad features a wife about to be spanked by her husband for "taking chances on getting flat, stale coffee." And, most disturbing of all, a postage meter ad from 1953 has the headline "Is it always illegal to KILL a woman?" (The copy reads "Husband furious because you've missed the post? The Pitney-Bowes Postage Meter prints the stamp and seals the envelope all in one go.") (These ads may seem outrageous, but have you seen the billboard a concrete company ran recently?)

The following questions come to mind when looking at these ads: Did men really think this way? Did these ads work, meaning did the men and women they were meant for actually buy the message, and the product? Did women viewing these ads feel the sting of embarrassment and anger they prompt from us now? Have we come very far at all, considering the strippers, airheads and disembodied skirts we've got today?

The Outrageously Politically Incorrect Adverts From The Time Equality Forgot [Daily Mail]
Related: Killing Your Wife is the Best Gift You Can Give Yourself This Holiday Season [Shakesville]
Earlier: Aussie Chicken: Finger Strippin' Good
In Australia, The Perfect Woman Is Cold-Hearted & Knows How To Clean
Speechless.

Abortion Then Was Lot Like Abortion Now

Dodai — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:30:00 EDT

In an article from the 1959 issue of Sexology, writer Isadore Rubin covered a three-day conference sponsored by Planned Parenthood. One of the doctors present was Dr. Alfred Kinsey! Rubin's story, "Illegal Abortion... Disease Of Society" reveals the facts surrounding the issue of abortion at the time and many of the problems faced then are still issues today. Of course, in 1959, the differences were legal versus illegal:

Since the vast majority of abortions in the United States are illegal, it is impossible to estimate the number exactly. Commonly given figures range from 200,000 to 1,200,000 a year, with many authorities tending to accept the larger figure.

While many abortions were performed illegally, but by doctors, others were do-it-yourself situations — often resulting in death. Also under discussion at the conference? The psychological impact to the women who had abortions. Some doctors reported "disturbances" in patients, like guilt, resentment (toward a husband who insists on a woman having an abortion), loss of self-esteem, etc. But maybe that was because having an abortion in the U.S. was so complicated?

A recent study in Norway found practically no psychological reactions following abortion. Of the group of women studied, only two showed any reaction to the abortion and their reaction was just a feeling of distress and embarrassment that lasted for a few weeks and disappeared. Dr. Kinsey, speaking as a biologist, expressed considerable disagreement with many of the conclusions drawn by the psychiatrists. We have no right to assume, he asserted, that the disturbances found in patients who had abortions were necessarily the result of the abortion. These same disturbances may have resulted from other situations as well.

The experts at the conference also found that it was easier for a rich woman to have a legal abortion than a poor woman. (Imagine that!) A number of recommendations were proposed in the hopes of reducing dangerous illegal abortions: Psychological evaluations of patients; consultation centers, (modeled after the ones in Scandinavian countries); freely available birth control advice; and of course, a unified abortion law (instead of one that varied from state to state, city to city and even from hospital to hospital in the same city).

Coincidentally, there is an obituary in the New York Times today for Lorraine Rothman, a feminist health movement leader in the '70s. Ms. Rothman, who was a schooteacher, developed a device called a menstrual extraction kit, which could be used for early abortions in the home, without the need for hospitalization. The kit, which was patented by Ms. Rothman in 1974 (The Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade occurred in January of 1973), could also be used to remove menstrual blood and shorten a woman's period. Ms. Rothman was part of a group that advocated self-help medical procedures, because at the time, there were concerns about the availability of legal abortions in hospitals. She died last week at the age of 75.

Illegal Abortion... Disease Of Society (Jan, 1959) [Modern Mechanix]
Lorraine Rothman, Women's Advocate, Dies at 75 [NY Times]
Related: Would "Seeing" An Actual Abortion Change Your Mind About It?

In the advertisement to the left (click the ...

Dodai — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:45:00 EDT

In the advertisement to the left (click the photo to enlarge), which appeared in American magazine in 1937, a new bride is coming down with a cold. Her groom wishes she had a laxative and something to "counteract acidity." The cure is offered by a porter, who is black, and speaks thusly: "Pahdon me, fo' overhearin' yo', but Sal Hepatica does BOTH dose things. It's a min'ral salt laxative and it helps Nature counteract acidity, too. Las' trip a doctah tole me." That was a long time ago, you say? Well, think of it this way: 4 out of 9 U.S. Supreme Court Justices were alive when this ad was published. [Modern Mechanix]

Clitoral Mutilation: Not Just For African Girls

Anna — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 11:28:25 EDT

Everyone loves a clitoris, right? Well, not really! Yesterday our favorite old-magazine-article blog Modern Mechanix posted a piece on 'the female penis' from a mid-1960s issue of the journal Sexology and sparked a mini-debate within the blog's community after one reader intimated that clitorises are immodest, indecent, and therefore un-Christian. (That reader won't be reading the blog anymore, she says!) Anyway, the article — from January 1964 — doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know (Clits get bigger when stimulated! They have cute hoods and like to draw back under them, "like a snail into its shell") except, um, maybe this:

Girls born with an enlarged and unslightly clitoris usually prefer to have it removed, for the sake of feminine appearance.

Uh, what the fuck??? We're aware that the 1960s weren't exactly known for tolerating freedom of expression or celebrating differences among, you know, blacks, gays, or women, but genital mutilation in the name of 'beauty'? We thought that was more 21st century!!!

The Female Penis (Jan. 1964) [ModernMechanix]
Earlier: For 2 Grand This Man Will Plump The Inside Of Your Pussy
Pimp My Vadge
Chlorine For Your Cooch