Along the lines of my Sexism sells post from a few years ago, Automotive site Jalopnik recently posted about the difficulties they face when looking for images of women working on cars. As Matt Hardigree notes:
Every bad stereotype about cars is present when searching for something as simple as “woman mechanic” in the various stock photo services we typically use. Most of the photos aren’t even of mechanics who also happen to have two X chromosomes, but photos of women standing next to male mechanics trying to affect a confused pose.
As inaccurate as the photos of the women who can’t use tools are the photos of women who seem to use them only as sex objects. These women are typically sweaty, covered in grease, and somehow replacing a transmission while wearing only high heels, cutoffs and a skimpy top.
Check out the gallery for the seven types of images they identified. Here are a few examples:
A sweaty woman mechanic with tools
Conspicuously clean woman mechanic in a sundress and heels
A woman mechanic who wants to kill herself with jumper cables
And finally…
A normal woman mechanic working on a normal car normally
Memoirs of a SLACer 