the outrageously politically incorrect adverts from the time equality forgot

In a polit­i­cally cor­rect age, they seem like out­ra­geous anachronisms.

And there is no doubt these adverts — many taken from the first half of the last cen­tury — reveal just how much women used to be car­i­ca­tured as down­trod­den house­wives or hair-brained office girls.

Now, a new book — You Mean A Woman Can Open It?: The Woman’s Place In The Clas­sic Age Of Adver­tis­ing — brings together images which would surely cause a howl of protest if they were released today.

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1961: When you can’t wait for your din­ner, give her a Ken­wood Chef food mixer and let her have some fun prepar­ing your favourite dish

1970: Your wife won’t be able to stall the car or grind the gears — and there’s even one pedal fewer to con­fuse her with the Mini Automatic

1952: Is your cof­fee pres­sure packed for extra fresh­ness? If hubby can tell you’re not mak­ing Chase & San­born cof­fee for him, well, you’ve been warned…

1946: Women are seen as inde­ci­sive, try­ing to squeeze into some­thing too small, wor­ried some­one else is wear­ing the same dress and then tak­ing it back to the shop. Men need only one look at the Pacific label to know it suits you, sir

1953: You don’t need a knife, a bot­tle opener or even your hus­band to unscrew the cap of this bot­tle — just a lit­tle twist of the Alcoa HyTop Clo­sure, made of pure alu­minium, and that ketchup is ready to pour

1930s: You do all the housh­old chores — and still look fresher every day, dar­ling. What’s your secret? A bowl of Kellogg’s PEP vit­a­min cereal for break­fast, nat­u­rally

1921: If you can answer YES to the ques­tion, you are obvi­ously using pure mild Pal­mo­live soap that will leave your skin radiant

1953: Hus­band furi­ous because you’ve missed the post? The Pitney-Bowes Postage Meter prints the stamp and seals the enve­lope all in one go.

Related arti­cles

• Adver­tis­ing: For Those Who Want Their Cereal Extra Manly (nytimes.com)
• Inno­vate Or Die (slideshare.net)
• First out­door gig of 2009… (emilyanthony.blogspot.com)
• Media Week (mobhappy.com)
• The Aggre­ga­tor That News­pa­pers Like (cyberjournalist.net)

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