In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

But Will It Turn Me On?

Lauren

The inimitable Sarah Haskins on women and car advertising: [apparently I can’t embed it, so click here]

I’ve only had a hand in buying one car and thankfully the salesman didn’t latch on to the stereotypical trope of showing me the vanity mirrors and built-in car seats. No, he waited until after the papers were signed, stared at my boobs, and asked me out to dinner. When I refused his invitation, he sort of threw the keys at me. Has anyone else been so lucky?

17 thoughts on But Will It Turn Me On?

  1. Yes. I went to test drive a Mazda 3-series, with my boyfriend in tow, and the smarmy-as-hell salesguy was showing us features, when he said something to the effect of: “Oh, it has a huge glove compartment, so it fits all your makeup.” I remember it being sort of a wink-wink nudge-nudge thing with my boyfriend too, sort of like, “crazy women! all that makeup!”

    Well, that ended that. I never did get a test drive, either. And I don’t own a Mazda now.

  2. A few years ago, I bought a Hyundai from a dealer about 10 miles away. I had a good enough experience with that dealer. I had gone to multiple other dealers that day, and honestly the worst one was the woman (the only one I talked to that day) at the Toyota dealership. She kept telling me that I needed a Matrix because it would fit my kids (I kept telling her there were no kids in the picture and wouldn’t be.

    When that one wrecked and I needed another one, i figured I would try out the dealer in my town, knowing (after doing lots of research) that I wanted my old car again. I got there after work (they were still open for about an hour) and sat down with a sales clerk and the first thing he asked was “what color would you like?” I responded with a “what do you mean.” “Well, I know that you ladies find the look of your car to be very important.”

    I left and went back to my old dealer, where the sales clerk was a bit smarmy, but not in a “oooh, simple lady” way. Just in the typical “what can I do to get you to drive it off the lot today?” way, which stopped when I told him I had the insurance check in my purse. After that he was nothing but awesome.

  4. I had one embedded, then it disappeared, and I had a lot of trouble reembedding it again. I eventually got it, but I don’t know what the problem was.

  5. How timely, we’ve been shopping for a car for the past few days.

    I don’t think that people in my area are more enlightened about gender than anywhere else, but we haven’t had anything negative about me being a woman, or about my husband being not a US citizen or native English speaker. Show us the engine, answer our questions directly, talk about useful features that the competition doesn’t have – the only comment about things we might put in the car had to do with an iPod.

    This may be due to the fact that they are desperate to sell anything. But at every dealership, we’ve been treated very well. It’s been surprisingly pleasant.

  6. I once went car shopping with a friend. She had limited funds and sketchy credit, but with a baby on the way needed a reliable car. The day is mostly a blur, but one thing that really bugged me was that they tried to make me out to the uppity bitch who was trying to keep her from making her own decisions. For example, they would come up with a monthly payment amount, and I’d ask, “what’s the interest rate on that?” and they’d claim that was immaterial or that they didn’t know. I’d say… we need to know the principal, interest, and term. And then they’d try to tell my friend I was being such a bitch. I mean, literally saying that. She was visibly pregnant and in that stage where she was needing to use the bathroom a lot, and they would try to get her to sign paperwork before they’d let her go to the bathroom. When I’d insist on the use of the bathroom and go with her, the salesman would make comments about what we must be doing in there.

    While we should have just left, and we eventually did, my friend was reluctant to make waves because she really needed that car and didn’t have ideal financial circumstances. She was afraid to make waves. We eventually went to a different dealer, who was not great but much less insulting and she purchased a car.

    It was a grueling day. I think if we had been men, we they may have still tried their darndest to swindle us, but the approach would have been different.

    Recently, I was interested in buying an RV (serious dork, I know)… and a (female) friend and I went to the local RV dealer to look around. Despite several salesman standing around twiddling their thumbs, no one came to talk to us. A week or so later, I came with my husband (who has ridiculously bad credit) and they were all over him. I just sat back and let them make pitch out of pitch. Can’t get blood out of a turnip.

  7. Is it bad to care about the color? I really do like red. I use kelly’s blue book and other auto sites online so I know exactly what kind of car I’m going to get and probably the best price before I get there. I have gone to auto dealerships alone and they are nice as pie but do not call me back. They call my husband back, but perhaps that’s because I was miffed they did not have my color in stock of the car I wanted. I do not trust sales people to give me information about the car or set the price.

    I am so glad I do not own a television. Sheesh, sex with the car. How about ease of sex in the car? What happened to those unified front seats?

  8. I have a horrific tale of car buying. Back in 2001 I had an Acura that’s lease was about up. I needed a new car, had no $$$ and bad credit. So I tried to look for a deal whereby I could get a new car (used/new…didn’t matter).

    The salesman was nice at first, but when he found out about my credit his demeanor changed. My then BF, now husband was with me that day when I was told nothing could be done.

    Before we left the salesman leaned in to me to tell me something out of earshot of my BF. he told me:

    “Women have a hard time making it these days, you cannot afford a new car, will never be able to support yourself without a man. Get money from your BF or have him buy it for you. Women do not make it on tehir own – they need a man.”

    Reeling from the shock I felt, I left and exploded sobbing in my car and left the dealership shaking. I told my BF when we got home what he said and he was ready to go back and kick some serious @ss.

    I will never buy/lease or recommend Pohanka Acura of Chantilly….or any Pohanka dealership anywhere in the DC area.

    I did get rid of my car, but used public transport instead…where no sexist innuendos were tossed about in trying to get a sale.

  9. Makes me remember that horrific BMW ad a month or so back…

    Where the nice lady on the tv tries to convince women that they don’t need to be pregnant (They played off an epidemic of women becoming pregnant to get–presumably by SOs–their product) to enjoy the german engineering of their latest SUV…

    I was too fuckin’ shocked for much of it to register so I had to look it up at on the web…

  10. My husband and I have bought a number of cars together. We always play good cop/bad cop and I’m always the bad cop. Most car salesmen don’t seem to know what to do with this is it’s worked out pretty well for us. Of course I’m now at the age where I’m invisible to most of the asshole salesguys but back when I wasn’t it really threw them. In the last big recession we needed to buy a car. Had our eye on a particular used Honda, went back to the dealer after a few weeks and made a lowball offer, the salesguy got all huffy about why should I sell to you at that price and I pointed to the blackboard tracking sales and said “nothing has sold since we were here last 2 weeks ago” – they caved. If you need to buy a car this is a good time to do so in terms of pricing although getting a loan could be a whole different situation and it certainly should make it easier to call out jerks for being sexists – point out why you’re leaving as you go!

  11. Having transitioned from living as a man to living as a woman, I’ve seen both sides of the coin. I’ve bought my fair share of cars over the years, a few before transitioning and a few after and the difference is simply HUGE!!!

    I’ve never been the sort who knows a lot about cars. I like a comfortable car (I drive a lot, so that’s important) but beyond that I’m not all that spec driven.

    Before my transition, the sales process was completely focussed on the size of the engine, the speed. They automatically assumed I was mechanically capable and sold me the car I asked for, though tried to upsell me on the engine (it must be big, loud and fast if you’re a man).

    After transition I was amazed by the difference. I walked into the dealership with a blank cheque from my employer (it was a company car) ready to buy a car and knowing exactly what I wanted. However, they were determined to sell me a completely different car (yes, a people carrier) whilst insulting my intelligence at every step and asking when my husband is going to come to help me (I told them I don’t have one and my girlfriend isn’t interested in cars!!) 🙂

    I ended up leaving them after shouting at them, buying a similar car from another brand and coming back to show the manager of the first dealer the paper work and explaining to him exactly how he lost €40,000!!!

    The look on his face was quite precious! 🙂

  12. In most states you have the right to cancel within a few days. Basically if they give you crap after the sale, remind them about lemon laws and the right to cancel within a few days.

  13. What is it about car salesmen being so stereotypical? I mean, do they interview these people to ensure they’re hiring an asshole before they bring them onboard?

  14. I fell in love with that “when you turn your car on, does it return the favor?” Cadillac ad the first time I saw it. I love driving and love cars (and am a Transformers and Knight Rider fan), so it resonated with me something fierce. It was also the first time I’ve seen a car ad associate women with loving cars in that way, which is generally considered a guy thing (loving cars and driving from the driver’s seat, and loving the car itself, rather than as the driver’s girlfriend, with the car’s allure mostly in that it added to the driver’s status).

    I’ve never bought a car, but I’ve had two encounters with salesmen and both have been positive. My first year of college, I had an assignment to compare the various costs and issues of buying vs. leasing a car, and talked to a local salesguy who’s a friend of my dad’s; he was both incredibly helpful and perfectly polite and noncondescending. The other was a Saleen dealer at an auto show, who, as I admired, petted, caressed, and cooed over a car that probably would’ve cost three years’ income for me, talked with me about its tech specs and the changes made over the years and his own 80’s era one and the regional Saleen enthusiasts’ club, and mentioned at one point how it was great to meet a woman who was into cars.

    That said, I do keep plenty of righteous rage and nasty language in reserve for anyone who tries the condescending/sexist/dismissive routine with me.

  15. I am so glad I do not own a television. Sheesh, sex with the car. How about ease of sex in the car? What happened to those unified front seats?

    *laviscious grin* The unified front seats were phased out to put the gearshift on the center console, thus making it easier to have sex with the car.

    (In all seriousness, both front and back seats are overrated when it comes to sex-having locations. Cramped and annoying to clean. I recommend sex across the hood, preferably with the engine left running so the vibrations add to things.)

  16. Is it bad to care about the color?

    No, not at all, but it’s a favorite delusion of condescending sexist pricks in sales positions that women only care about what the car looks like. It’s dismissive and condescending to ask for that first as if it’s the most important thing about what you’re buying, sort of in the way that the financial negotiators will ask an ignorant-seeming person how much they want their monthly payment to be rather than agreeing on a price.

  17. What is it about car salesmen being so stereotypical? I mean, do they interview these people to ensure they’re hiring an asshole before they bring them onboard?

    Beats me. I interviewed a guy once for a position at my workplace: two of us on the interview panel, me to ask the technical questions, the other one (a man: my supervisor) to ask the managerial questions. Supervisor went first, guy was all let-me-establish-a-good-relationship-with-you… and told a sexist joke. While I was sitting there.

    My half of the interview followed. Didn’t take long to work out that half of the guy’s resume was bullshit and the other half wasn’t to our technical standards. But, he would have had to be the perfect candidate or at least yards better than the other candidate for me to recommend hiring him after that joke.

    And yeah… he was an (ex) salesman.

Comments are currently closed.