Those Old Ads

 I enjoy watching old advertisements about most any product that no longer exists, particularly the sexist ads from the 50's and 60's.  A number of these sexist ads stick in my mind, but the ones mentioned more often today are ads about cigars and cigarettes.  One ad isn't really sexist, but it was assumed back then that most professional people were men and women were relegated to the kitchen.  One such ad showed a male doctor smoking a cigarette with the ad saying 9 out of 10 doctors recommend smoking Camels.

Sex was used to sell anything from washing machines, shaving cream, to car tires and spark plugs.  It was assumed a lot of women didn't drive and if they did they needed automatic transmissions and tires that wouldn't go flat.  As for spark plugs, those ads said that getting a particular brand of spark plugs would make sure she gets home, presumably from the supermarket.  And when there is no man around a brand of a particular car tire wouldn't go flat assuming most women can't change a tire, particularly on a rainy night, which made one wonder why any woman would be alone at night driving in the rain.  

It was the swinging 60's that sex sold everything.  Women were play things that had to smell good, have good breath, and have great figures.  Oh, and they had to cook, make great coffee, and do the laundry, or they feared losing their husbands.  And husband's worked to pay for all those household conveniences to make sure she would stay at home.  Car designers catered to women's tastes by making interiors of cars and car paint to appeal to women.  It was assumed not many women bought cars, but helped their husband's choose what they liked.

These sexist ads often featured attractive women because every man wanted an attractive slim wife who stayed at home doing women's work, as it was often referred to.  And perhaps no industry was more sexist in its advertising than the tobacco industry.  And pipes and pipe tobacco were perhaps the most egregious of all of them.  The sexy Erin Gray of Buck Roger's 25th Century fame got into the act saying in an ad for Dr. Grabow pipes, that "all her men smoked Dr. Grabow pipes."  And Tiparello asks whether a man would offer one to a woman.

One Tiparello ad shows a man blowing smoke in a woman's face saying, "Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere."  Carter Hall used a tag line about its tobacco saying that "chicks dig it."  Okay, as an old pipe smoker, I have to say there is something about sexism that one might miss in today's world because all these ads are part of our history.  But as Virginia Slims used to say in their adverising catering to women, "You've come a long way, baby."

Even Virginia Slims trying not to be sexist was still sexist.  And sexist ads existed up to the early part of this century.  Advertisers on Madison Avenue still could not shake from the sexism of over a hundred years of advertising.  But spanking wives and keeping them "barefoot and in the kitchen" have fortunately given way to making women equals and in many cases, superior to men.  Now it's the Internet that caters to the basic instincts of men with the mega Internet starlets who show off what they have for the likes and comments.  Maybe social media has brought us full circle by being too sexy.

I'm not sure men will stop seeing women as sex objects, but it works the other way for women, too.  In fact the Internet has become inclusive for every taste imaginable.  And I'm not so sure that is good either.  As long as there is sex, there will always be sexism of one kind or another.  Maybe we haven't come so far after all.  

Today I am smoking one of my newer Nording pipes with Aitumn Evening tobacco; and my thinking is that if my wife for some reason didnt like my tobacco choice, I won't look for another wife, but might look for a different tobacco--maybe even Carter Hall.  Thanks for your time and Peace to each of you.

Dave