15 Vintage Household ads in which women are not entirely condescended to

As I was browsing through Woman’s Day—What? I like their coupons page—I found this collection of 15 vintage household ads. [Or I found it on Serious Eats]

1. [grimc]

   The message this ad sends is horrible. How is she going to get any housework done if she’s on the Picturephone all day?

2. [kaosmonkey]

   She’s not being condescended to because she’s not being targeted in the ad. The woman on the screen is the recipient of the call, and she will be your mistress too, if Western Electric’s awesome future comes to pass.

3. [OM]

   …I actually saw one of these picturephones demonstrated in 1969, with the promise that they’d be widely used by 1976. Nowadays, with webcams and Skype, a picturephone is almost obsolete and unnecessary. Which is probably why despite the technology Ma Bell still hasn’t implemented them 40 years after they were first promised to us.

4. [cowtown]

   Anybody know anything about mid-60s (?) rechargeable battery tech, as in the GE lint brush?

   http://www.womansday.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/ge/541181-1-eng-US/GE.jpg

5. [dculberson]

   Video phones seemed like such an awesome idea when I was younger. Now that I have the technology, it’s just not that interesting of an idea. One of those things that seems good until you actually try it.

6. [zuzu]

   Vidphones never materialized until the introduction of TCP/IP because the telecommunications companies insisted on “smart networks” to deliver the functionality. (In addition the monopolies they were granted through Universal Service laws, so there was no pressure to compete with other telecoms.)

   Turns out that dumb networks allow for faster and more flexible innovation, such as video chat. (Particularly due to the competition between Skype vs. iChat AV vs. H.323 etc.)

7. [Halloween Jack]

   I’m imagining an early ad for the Hitachi Magic Wand: “Because he’ll never find your clitoris!”

8. [HitachiMagicWand]

   The earliest ad for the Hitachi Magic Wand was in the July 1985 issue of Mother Jones Magazine (right below an ad for Birkenstocks!)

9. [Vanwall]

   I love those photo-realist adds from the Cooper Studios style – it defined an era in magazines.