Women Drivers?

As you may know, I have built up a collection of old postcards related to early automobiles. Particularly the work of Cobb X. Shinn and his Ford Model T cards. So when I came across this  Shinn automotive card that wasn’t Model T related I felt I had to add it to my collection.
Shinn has a whole series of these “foolish questions” cards, and not all were automobile related. The premise was simple, one person in the image would make a blindingly obvious remark about a situation in front of them, to be greeted with a positively surreal reply. Let’s be honest. “Operating on a Sphinx for appendicitis“? That wouldn’t be out of place in a Monty Python sketch.
The card might be seen as a very early example of the long held belief that persisted even into the 1970’s that women know nothing about cars. Though even in these earliest days of motoring there were some very accomplished female race car drivers. From Hélène van  Zuylen, from France, the first woman to compete in a motor race, to the American Joan Newton Cuneo who would regularly beat the best male drivers of the day in the USA. Her racing career was put to a halt when women were banned from competing in Motorsport in the USA in 1910,  allegedly because of her success.
That's one thing I love about collecting old postcards. You can be sent off on a journey of research that you never expect.