History Main / WomenDrivers

* Inadvertently invoked in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrKaQRIXPNw this commercial]] for a women only car insurance company. Three women singing about how women are safer drivers and deserve lower premiums, while [[DrivingADesk "driving"]] a pink convertible is made all the more hilarious by the fact that they don't watch the road, hold the steering wheel (instead, waving their arms in the air in time to the song), notice that for much of the commercial the car is in ''reverse'' (watch the scenery going by), and at one point even allow [[TooDumbToLive a kangaroo to drive]]. * A surprisingly early aversion is present in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ODExo7vESU Spinning Levers]], aq 1936 Chevrolet advert for synchromesh transmissions. In it, a driver operates a car equipped with the new transmission while the narrator explains how the transmission works. The driver--whose driving is even more ordinary than what's seen in most of today's car advertisments--is eventually revealed to be a woman. Not once does the ad draw attention to her gender, not even a comment along the lines of "it's so simple a woman can drive it!"

* Inadvertently invoked in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrKaQRIXPNw this commercial]] for a women only car insurance company. Three women singing about how women are safer drivers and deserve lower premiums, while [DrivingADesk "driving"]] a pink convertible is made all the more hilarious by the fact that they don't watch the road, hold the steering wheel (instead, waving their arms in the air in time to the song), notice that for much of the commercial the car is in ''reverse'' (watch the scenery going by), and at one point even allow [[TooDumbToLive a kangaroo to drive]]. * A surprisingly early aversion is present in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ODExo7vESU Spinning Levers]], aq 1936 Chevrolet advert for synchromesh transmissions. In it, a driver operates a car equipped with the new transmission while the narrator explains how the transmission works. The driver--whose driving is even more ordinary than what's seen in most of today's car advertisments--is eventually revealed to be a woman. Not once does the ad draw attention to her gender, not even a comment along the lines of "it's so simple a woman can drive it!"

* Inadvertently invoked in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrKaQRIXPNw this commercial]] for a women only car insurance company. Three women singing about how women are safer drivers and deserve lower premiums, while driving a pink convertible is made all the more hilarious by the fact that they don't watch the road, hold the steering wheel (instead, waving their arms in the air in time to the song), notice that for much of the commercial the car is in ''reverse'' (watch the scenery going by), and at one point even allow [[TooDumbToLive a kangaroo to drive]].
* A surprisingly early aversion is present in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ODExo7vESU Spinning Levers]], aq 1936 Chevrolet advert for synchromesh transmissions. In it, a driver operates a car equipped with the new transmission while the narrator explains how the transmission works. The driver--whose driving is even more ordinary than what's seen in most of today's car advertisments--is eventually revealed to be a woman. Not once does the ad draw attention to her gender, not even a comment along the lines of "it's so simple a woman can drive it!"

* A surprisingly early aversion is present in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ODExo7vESU this 1936 Chevrolet advert for synchromesh]], which shows a woman driving a car equipped with the new transmission without calling attention to it, not even a comment along the lines of "it's so simple a woman can drive it!"

* Highly averted in ''[[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/over_rev/ Over Rev!]]'', a manga similar to ''Manga/InitialD'' (street racing specializing in drifting), but with {{Action Girl}}s.

** Averted with Mako, who's the best driver of the Phantom Thieves due to the fact that she's the only member of the team who's actually got a driver's license. Her Persona even takes the form of a badass motorcycle.

* ''WebAnimation/BarbieLifeInTheDreamhouse'' reveals that Barbie didn't start taking driving lessons until ''after'' she got her license, which she lacked during a previous stint as a race car driver[[note]]Track racing doesn't require a licence[[/note]]. She does manage to build a sportscar by herself, though.

* Definitely averted (or subverted?) in 1914 silent ''Mabel at the Wheel'', starring Creator/MabelNormand, who stands in for her boyfriend in a car race after he gets kidnapped by the villain (unusually played by Creator/CharlieChaplin)- and, despite his attempts to thwart her at every turn, wins.

Any problems--or worse, accidents--she caused would be dismissed with a breezy carefreeness that husbands and traffic cops inevitably found grating, '''Women Drivers''' as often as not blaming the car for operator errors.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'', Jane goes in for her driver's license much to the horror of the driving instructor. The car has the standard "STUDENT DRIVER" sign flanked by a couple of barely-noticed decorative frames. When the instructor first sees Jane, he turns a dial, and the "decorative frames" flip to make the car read "WOMAN STUDENT DRIVER BEWARE". After Jane is forced by a bank robber to be his escape vehicle, the instructor professes concern for "that poor creature" -- not Jane, but the robber she's driving.

* Referenced but averted in ''Anime/AppareRanman''. Set some time in the late 19th or early 20th century, Chinese immigrant Jing Xialian works at a racetrack where she's constantly told that driving automobiles is something beyond a woman's capabilities, and that her simply getting behind the wheel would be a novelty circus act at best. Despite this, she practices driving on her off hours and is at least as good as any of the male racers she works with, since she ends up participating in a highly competitive race across America.

* [[http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/07/12/a-sexist-birthday-wish/ This sexist birthday card]] relies on this as part of the punchline. There are also [[http://lh3.ggpht.com/_e109kKH12do/TJjdkL72ptI/AAAAAAAABsY/5eaOwAp01AY/becarefulwhatyouwishfor7.jpg?imgmax=800 wishing well variants]]

* ''Used'' to be Defied in UsefulNotes/SaudiArabia, where until September 2017 [[NoWomansLand women weren't allowed to drive]]. SocietyMarchesOn, thankfully.

* 90's danish sketch show ''Finnsk Fjernsyn'' has [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNNPzifp-0 one scene]] where a man makes a perfect parallel parking, walks into a gender-change clinic, comes out as a woman, and promptly drives into both adjacent cars.

* Definitely averted (or subverted?) in 1914 silent ''Mabel at the Wheel'', starring Creator/MabelNormand, who stands in for her boyfriend in a car race after he gets kidnapped by the villain (unusually played by Creator/CharlieChaplin)- and, despite his attempts to thwart her at every turn, wins.

* ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'': Major Anya Amsova is [[ActionGirl skilled at many things]], but DrivingStick is not one of them. For that scene, Barbara Bach was [[EnforcedMethodActing genuinely struggling with the transmission]], while all of Creator/RogerMoore's snarky commentary was unscripted.
* The 2000 remake of ''[[Film/GoneInSixtySeconds2000 "Gone In Sixty Seconds"]]'' remake (with Nicholas Cage) makes a two-scene joke of an Asian Woman Driver that was not only horrifyingly bad at driving, but had some pretty destructive misconceptions about traffic laws...
--->'''Asian Driver Woman''' ([[FunnyBackgroundEvent after failing a test at the DMV]]): "It's not fair!! I thought that you were supposed to '''go faster''' if someone was following you!"

* ''Film/ChittyChittyBangBang'': Truly Scrumptious has trouble starting her car, and Caractacus Potts takes notice.
-->'''Potts:''' If women want to drive motor cars, they should learn to operate one.
* In the campy BMovie ''Film/QueenOfOuterSpace'', our straight-jawed heroes express disbelief that a [[LadyLand planet of gorgeous dames]] could invent the DeathRay they saw destroying a SpaceStation. TheCasanova asks how they could even aim it properly. "You know what women drivers are like!" Even his fellow astronauts look exasperated at that line.

* ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'': Major Anya Amsova is [[ActionGirl skilled at many things]], but DrivingStick is not one of them. For that scene, Barbara Bach was [[EnforcedMethodActing enuinely struggling with the transmission]], while all of Creator/RogerMoore's snarky commentary was unscripted.

* Similarly, Yukari from ''Manga/FamilyCompo'' is a {{Transgender}} {{housewife}} who has a driver's license but hasn't actually been behind the wheel in fifteen years. On the one occasion when she does take the car out, she winds up driving against traffic and ''jumping a barrier'' to get onto the right side of the road.

* Near the end of ''Disney/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'', Cruella tries to run a truck off the road because the puppies she wants to use for a fur coat are escaping in it. The truck's driver, unaware of any of this, yells at her for her to get off the road, before turning and muttering, "Crazy women drivers!"

-->'''Indian Boy:''' How can he be Asian? Santa doesn't drive his sled 20 miles under the speed limit with his blinker on! Go back to your rice paddy, Disney/{{Mulan}}!

* Played with on a 2000 episode of ''Wrestling/WWESmackDown'', when Wrestling/TripleH pulled the WomenDrivers card while trying to figure out who ran down [[Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin Stone Cold]]... [[BaitAndSwitch and then immediately called out]] Wrestling/KurtAngle.

* This trope makes a BloodyHilarious appearance in the television show ''Series/MadMen'', when [[spoiler:a John Deere lawnmower is brought into the office. Everyone's having plenty of fun until a secretary jumps abroad and drives over the new executive's foot, crippling him for life. Possibly in combination with the constant drinking that is Sterling Cooper.]]

* ''Film/{{Speed}}'' plays with this with Annie, the woman who has to drive the bus against all odds when the driver is shot, had her drivers' license suspended for speeding. As it happens, she does great under the circumstances, no matter how [[DrivesLikeCrazy crazy she has to drive]] to stay alive.

Still sometimes used in fiction, often set in the Asian parts of the world and UsefulNotes/{{California}} or [[HollywoodNewEngland Massachusetts]]; the common joke here is that everytime you see a car do something incredibly stupid (as opposed to incredibly dangerous or obnoxious), chances are the driver is a woman. With a high probability of them [[AsianDrivers being Asian]] [[note]] unless Massachusetts is used. [[/note]]. It's also very popular in the comments sections of car accident videos on sites like Website/YouTube.

* For all the [[{{Pun}} stick]] they give to [[AcceptableLifestyleTargets some people]], and despite their TestosteronePoisoning personae, the hosts of ''Series/{{Top Gear|UK}}'' never have a bad word to say about women drivers. In fact, they even had racing driver Sabine Schmitz coaching Jeremy Clarkson (in a Jaguar) round the Nürburgring, and then trouncing his lap time. Then in a later episode nearly beating his time in a ''Ford Transit van''. Having guest stars like Jennifer Saunders, Billie Piper, Jodie Kidd, and yachtswomen Ellen [=McArthur=] (who set the fastest lap in the old car) drive the Reasonably-Priced Car round the track quite rapidly also subverts this one rather nicely.

* Completely averted in an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFvj6RQOLtM advert for synchromesh]] way back in ''1936''. To show how much easier this new technology made shifting, their featured driver was a woman.