Sexist Vintage Ads: Outdated Advertisements Directed At Husbands And Wives

Is a push-up bra the secret to snagging a husband?

According to one vintage ad, the answer is a resounding "Yes." (Can you see us cringing?) Click through the slideshow below to see that ad and 16 more sexist vintage advertisements targeting husbands and wives (and check out more here)!

Loading Slideshow

• Via <a href="http://www.mypointless.com/2009/11/more-sexist-ads-you-just-wont-see-these.html" target="_hplink">My Pointless</a>

• Via <a href="http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/Canuckistanian/LifeBuoy_comic.jpg" target="_hplink">Photobucket</a>

• Via <a href="http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/8935/pubvintage055.jpg" target="_hplink">Image Shack</a>

• Via <a href="http://www.tressugar.com/Offensive-Sexist-Vintage-Ads-3450398" target="_hplink">TresSugar</a>

• Via<a href="http://www.beutifulmagazine.com/" target="_hplink"> Beutiful Magazine</a>

• Via <a href="http://beingfeminist.wordpress.com/category/ads/" target="_hplink">Being Feminist</a>

• Via <a href="http://artsyspot.com/img01/sexist-vintage-ads27.jpg" target="_hplink">ArtsySpot.com</a>

• Via <a href="http://madcapheiress.tumblr.com/" target="_hplink">Madcap Heiress</a>

• Via <a href="http://www.nationalconfidential.com/images/2012/02/sexist-vintage-ad-34.jpg" target="_hplink">National Confidential</a>

• Via <a href="http://christm.us/wives-dream-of-kitchen-appliances-vintage-christmas-ad/" target="_hplink">The Christmas Club</a>

• Via <a href="http://www.toocool2betrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Vintage-Advertisements-19.jpg" target="_hplink">Too Cool 2 Be True</a>

• Via <a href="http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/l-q49rl8wshbbndt.jpg" target="_hplink">Vintage Ad Browser</a>

• Via <a href="http://www.lifeologia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/vintage-women-ads-25.jpg" target="_hplink">Lifeologia</a>

• Via <a href="http://www.lemondrop.com/gallery/sexist-vintage-ads-a-history-lesson/1076246/" target="_hplink">Lemondrop.com</a>

• Via <a href="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/50538ea5eab8ea2f67000007-590/gold-dusts-fourteen-hour-wives-1893-this-ad-showed-the-drudgery-that-often-came-with-marriage-in-the-19th-century.jpg" target="_hplink">Business Insider</a>

• Via <a href="http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/l-q1a47x8t1dzew9.jpg" target="_hplink">Vintage Ad Browser</a>

• Via <a href="http://missmeadowsvintagepearls.blogspot.com/2012/02/funny-ads.html_" target="_hplink">Miss Meadows' Vintage Pearls</a>

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Comments

[BigWillyG]

03:17 AM on 10/01/2012

Isn't cartoon on add number one just the back cover for the paperback edition of Fifty Shades of Gray?

[TT87]

05:20 PM on 09/30/2012

Remember back then women didn't vote, stayed home and took care of a few kids. So what's the problem of keeping the house and there private parts tidy and clean.

[lrn2luvagan]

10:49 AM on 09/30/2012

My mother had so many ridiculous rules about what it meant to be a woman. She drove me crazy with her ideas about femininity, like how you couldn't dare leave the house without lipstick. She had unbelievably archaic ideas about "what men wanted" and "how to trap a man." I cringe when I think about it, but I guess she was very susceptible to the advertising of her era. She was a small town farm girl who wanted to emulate the glamorous women in the magazines. Mad Men cracks me up, because I know that whatever they're selling-no matter the ploy-my mom likely bought it, or dreamed of buying it one day.

[1rpp]

10:40 AM on 09/30/2012

At least they inspired feminism.

[MrJames King]

08:00 AM on 09/30/2012

Here is my favorite: "Is it always illegal to kill a woman?"

I can't believe they got away with that advertisement.

[MissTake1989]

01:15 AM on 09/30/2012

This is why I laugh at those "Is it wrong to want chivalry" articles...

The flip side of chivalry was that he got to beat you and people thought it was funny.

Still want that chivalry?

[larashia]

05:11 PM on 09/30/2012

You are SO deluded it's pathetic!! Chivalry does not translate into physical abuse!! Chivalry involves respect and reverence for women. It is defined as a man who is gallant and distinguished; men who beat women do not respect women nor are they gallant in any way! Furthermore, only a small percentage of men from that era actually beat their wives. My father never struck my mother. If anything that ad was meant to be a joke; albeit not funny because there really were men who beat women, which is why it is being called sexist now. But you really need to come back to reality. It's the nuts like you that make women look feminist crazed loons. Get some balance!

[MissTake1989]

05:31 PM on 09/30/2012

The flip side of chivalry was that women where property of those "gallant" men.

Fair deal?

[Kitten Auspicious]

12:23 AM on 09/30/2012

Well, now we get back with all of those cringe-worthy "natural male enhancement " ads. :)

[BeasleysMom]

06:11 PM on 09/29/2012

Poor women from that era. But now the ads are great for laughs. I sometime pick up old magazines at tag sales just for that very reason!

[Scott Sacramento]

05:36 PM on 09/29/2012

What I was thinking about when I was reading these ads, is that it was common for a woman to be a stay at home mom. You didn't need to be wealthy......We've moved from being a sexist society to being a destitute one......

[BrainandPinky]

08:19 PM on 09/29/2012

You are so wrong! Father Knows best was just a TV show not the real world.

[gblatham]

06:06 PM on 09/30/2012

Did you live back then?

If so, we can always compare notes. If not, then please understand - and accept - the difference between revisionist history and fact!

[slbushway]

10:41 AM on 09/30/2012

You need to go back to school - it was only common in a specific time span for mothers to be stay-at-home moms. Before that time and since that time - mothers worked outside the home to supplement their incomes and children as young as 8 did so as well.

[gblatham]

06:36 PM on 09/30/2012

Well...

I'm sure we could all use a bit of remedial education.

The "stay-at-home mom," of any era, finds most of her responsibilities revolving around her family's house (and the areas immediately surrounding it). This is especially true in rural settings.

Prior to the eras depicted in the [ahem] "sexist" ads, the agrarian segment of U.S. society was fairly large - and the farther back one looks, the more substantial it was.

Please don't get so caught up in Scott's use of the word "common" that you miss his other, more salient points.

Garl Boyd Latham

[Daniel Locke]

04:46 PM on 09/29/2012

This makes me want to watch Mad Men.

[MikeDu]

02:55 PM on 09/29/2012

Read those ads THEN read the Huffpost 'womens articles' with their bullet-point lists of how to catch a man, keep a man, aaaaall the things you're doing wrong, how you're messing up in every conceivable way, how everything would be better if only you could turn yourself inside-out. The tone may have changed but the message has stayed pretty much the same.

[traceymarie]

07:04 PM on 09/29/2012

you are absolutely correct, and the women get into word cat fights on those articles, it is hilarious

[Justice Beaver]

09:51 AM on 09/28/2012

Uh how is 4 sexist at all?

[Wonder Woman2]

08:42 PM on 09/29/2012

It assumes that only women are responsible for keeping the marriage together.

[Justice Beaver]

11:42 AM on 09/30/2012

I don't think it does at all. It suggests that women don't keep up in one particular area and that the marriage will suffer because of it.
Similar ads targeted at men telling us to "get the right diamond or lose her forever" haven't been declared sexist. 
I think women really need to calm down on the accusations of sexism. Simply by slapping the sexist label on everything you don't like but not on things that benefit you make YOU the sexist.

[Edward Sommerman]

03:04 PM on 09/27/2012

Yes its all womens fault that we have lost all of the manly arts such as hanging from trees while peeling a banana with our feet. Hunting our own food and picking bugs off each other. Yes those good old days when men were king , no social groups no indoor plumbing no homecooked meals no......oh yeah , Never mind.

[FalstaffsMind]

01:21 PM on 09/27/2012

Ironically, the modern ads directed at men deserve just as much scorn. I am just a receptacle for body spray, beef jerky and beer. Apparently my life is devoted to competing smells.

[lking4trbl]

01:02 PM on 09/27/2012

these ads are funny in that "i can't believe we let them get away with that crap" way. seriously....why more women of the previous generations didn't become alcoholics or mass murderers escapes me.

[Cold in Michigan]

04:04 PM on 09/29/2012

What has changed? Look at the ads we run now and what sells. Women still fall into that trap of dressing to look sexy, to spend a fortune on creams and lotions, to buy books and mags on how to increase their sex lives and how to catch a man. No difference from what I see.

[lking4trbl]

07:27 PM on 10/01/2012

I don't disagree. sex sells. whether it's victoria secret selling crap that a skeleton can't fit into or automakers selling cars with women in bikinis...it's what moves and shakes society.

[BeasleysMom]

06:21 PM on 09/29/2012

Women married at a younger age. Many were NOT educated. Most attended church and had it drilled into their heads everyday from childhood to OBEY their husband. They had few, if any, options. My mother was always unhappy, but she told me she put up with it because she felt she had no way to support herself and two babies. As I aged, I thought how that just wasn't true.  But, she believed it  because he told her so every day