Public And Private Spheres In The United States

The evolution of transportation technology has begun with the invention of the motor car at United States in the last part of eighteenth century and has continued with the invention of electric cars, railways and the modern automobile. Before the invention of motor cars the physical distinction and distances between cities were compelling for the citizens. After the industrial revolution, with the development of transportation technology the distinction between private and public sphere became more visible because this technology made it possible for men to separate their public and private spheres physically. Public and private spheres represent different values, while public area is a symbol of men’s wild and aggressive world, private sphere

Mass production of car was also the beginning of the formation of urban cities (Sweezy, 2000). Easy access to automobile gave white, working middle class men a social dominance in the economic arena. While driving activity was giving men a chance to travel to distant places and ability to reach a wide range of goods and services, provided women freedom from private sphere and gave them a new political status (Seiler, 2008). But traditional gender roles were preserved in patriarchal society and were linked with driving activities. In 1932, American philosopher Walter Pitkin, describes the driving skills within the physical abilities of male and female. He claims that because of their nature and motor abilities, men are more suitable to drive a car; ““...boys and men on the average greatly exceed women and girls in the ability to manipulate mechanical contrivances,” and he concludes that “women are overcautious, they make poorer drivers than men, and “they cause more accidents on the part of their fellow drivers.” (Wachs, 1996). In 1950’s despite the increasing quantity of female drivers, driving activity was still sensed as a masculine activity and especially white men assumed as a kind of first class citizens in United States. Furthermore, concerns about feminist movements in American society offered that men must maintain their power and self-expression through their automobiles. Women who live in suburbs might drive cars in order to meet their household duties, but they were seen as incompetent and unreliable drivers (Seiler,