Truck Designers Wear Skirts to Build a Better Car For Women

Posted by Jessica Valenti at 12:00 PM on September 10, 2007.

This post, written by Jessica Valenti, originally appeared on Feministing

What better way to find out what women want in a car then to dress in skirts, heels, and throw on some fake nails?

"A few times a year we go off-site and try to have a learning exercise that is a lot of fun," said [GM vehicle line director Mary Sipes]. "We took our group to the proving grounds and broke them into teams. One guy on each team had to be Mr. Mom. We dressed him in a garbage bag to simulate a tight skirt. We gave him rubber gloves with press on nails, a purse, a baby and a baby stroller and some chores like loading groceries."

The men were then required to go through what women do routinely every day. They had to put the baby in a car seat and buckle them in, fold up the stroller, pull up the liftgate and stow the stroller, put grocery bags in the back. They then had to walk around the vehicle and step into it not using the running board. Wearing the gloves with press-on nails they had to operate the key fob, adjust the radio and then figure out what to do with their purses -- without breaking or losing a nail. Lost or broken fingernails or torn garbage bag skirts resulted in points against the final score.

"We had a lot of laughs," said Sipes, "but the men's awareness of how women function in the vehicle really changed."

Okay, I'm all for thinking of women's needs when designing cars--but is this just a tad too stereotypical? I keep thinking about that horrible Mel Gibson movie (image above) where he waxes his legs and tries on nail polish to get into the "female mind." I mean, are women's concerns about their vehicles really all about fingernails and purses?

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Tagged as: sexism, cars

Jessica Valenti is the executive editor of Feministing.