HERBIE, THE IDIOT GIRLIE CAR
Cosmopolitan Magazine (yes, it’s still alive and kicking and
probably still asking you on it’s cover if you’ve taken it’s latest ‘sex quiz’
to liven things up in the bedroom) and SEAT the car manufacturer recently confirmed
all women’s suspicions: that the world still looks at our gender like a bunch
of myopic, shallow idiots.
Recently they unveiled a new car specifically designed for
women. It’s purple (clearly they ran out of sassy pink paint) Need I say more (oh but I will, I will). It
was recently introduced at FashFest here in London (I’m sensing this has
something to do with fashion cause of that zippy name) and received a bit of a
lukewarm welcome. Actually I’m being kind, many women found it offensive and
took to Twitter to let the manufacturers hear it, and frankly, I don’t blame
them.
In addition to the simply ‘fabulous’ colour, the car also
comes designed with jewel effect rims (cause little ladies love sparkly shiny
things. Oooooh so pretty!!), a handbag hook (fine, I will give them this as the
one practical idea they came up with), and eyeliner headlights. Yes, you heard
me, the car is wearing make-up! I
honestly want to puke. Cause I have finally realised that in all my life, that
hole in my heart, that aching void I tried to fill with so many other
meaningless, fleeting things, could only be filled with a car wearing make-up.
Hallelujah!!!!
Wait, sorry, give me a moment; I have to reapply my liquid
liner so my car doesn’t upstage me. Be right back….
Apparently the car’s “thoughtful feminine touches” are the
result of a two-year period of research and development with Cosmopolitan
readers into what women want. I’ll remind you that the average Cosmo reader is
around 18 and shouldn’t be trusted with car design let alone knowing not to
wear white after Labor Day. So as for
what I want, it’s not purple and sparkly wearing make-up.
Of course SEAT came out and strongly defended the car saying
they in know way meant to cause offense. And if we crazy little woman calm
down, they have a pink fuzzy handbag with our names written all over it.
Here’s the thing, I don’t mind the notion of a car with a
specific design catering to women (in fact, I’d like to see more things
designed with us in mind as most products are designed by men, for men). But design
it for actual women, not the stereotype of women. Make the seat contour
us differently as we’re genetically smaller than men (for the most part), put
in a LARGER coffee holder as we need so much damn caffeine because we sleep
less and are always the ones waking up with our children. Make the glove
compartment have a more organized compartmentalized structure for the many
things we have to shove in it in order to care take for so many people. And
here is the kicker, put a window in between the driver seat and the rest of the
car (actually make it a large thick sound proof capsule) so we can get 5
minutes peace as we drive to our JOBS and use our brains to take over this
planet from the male dominated car designers! Yeah…that should do it. Oh, and
make it black or charcoal grey. Purple is for…well, my six year old son digs
purple.
So, SEAT, you can keep your jewels and your make-up and your
flashy purple car and design a car that is intelligent, efficient, pragmatic,
and sexy…you know, like actual women.