Visit any Whole Foods Market and chances are you’ll run into (or find yourself waiting behind) some variation of a pastel-colored electric car. While it may appear that electric cars have sprouted up in the past two decades, their history can be traced way back to the early 1900s.
The first decade of the 20th century was considered a “golden age” for electric vehicles. According to the IEEE, nearly 28 percent of the 4,192 cars produced in the United States in 1900 were electric. In 1910, Thomas Edison even declared that “in 15 years, more electricity will be sold for electric vehicles than for light.” While he may have been off by just little, his prediction is understandable given the obsession with electric cars during the early 1900s.
The Baker Motor Vehicle Company was a large manufacturer of electric cars out of Cleveland from 1899 to 1914. Unlike the cars of the day, Baker cars had no gasoline smell, needed no cranking, drove silently, much like today’s hybrid vehicles, and were primarily maintenance-free. Therefore, they were chiefly marketed toward women—and even came with makeup kits inside. What a deal!
But what happened to this awesome car, and electric cars in general? As gas-powered cars became easier to operate with the invention of the electric starter, and the noise became more tolerable thanks to the newly introduced muffler by Hiram Percy Maxim, electric cars were reserved almost exclusively for the wealthy. On top of that, improved road infrastructure required cars with a greater range than electric cars, and the discovery of large amounts of oil allowed gas-powered cars to be sold even more cheaply. Henry Ford changed the game yet again with the mass production of gasoline-operated cars, and by 1912, an electric car sold for almost double the price of a gasoline car.
Although these early electric cars reflect a bygone era, their ingenuity and environmental friendliness foreshadowed a trend that would emerge almost a century later, in 1999, with the introduction of electric and hybrid cars by GM and Toyota. Maybe if we’d figured out how to mass-produce electric cars back then, our planet wouldn’t be decaying from global warming? Just a thought.
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Problematic homework question
A student’s brilliant homework answer outsmarted her teacher's ridiculously sexist question
From an early age, children absorb societal norms—including gender stereotypes. But one sharp 8-year-old from Birmingham, England, challenged a sexist homework question designed to reinforce outdated ideas.
An English teacher created a word puzzle with clues containing “UR.” One prompt read “Hospital Lady,” expecting students to answer “nurse.”
While most did, Yasmine wrote “surgeon”—a perfectly valid answer. Her father, Robert Sutcliffe, shared the incident on X (formerly Twitter), revealing the teacher had scribbled “or nurse” beside Yasmine’s response, revealing the biased expectation.
For Yasmine, the answer was obvious: both her parents are surgeons. Her perspective proves how representation shapes ambition. If children only see women as nurses, they internalize limits. But when they witness diversity—like female surgeons—they envision broader possibilities.
As Rebecca Brand noted in The Guardian: “Their developing minds are that little bit more unquestioning about what they see and hear on their screens. What message are we giving those impressionable minds about women? And how might we be cutting the ambitions of little girls short before they've even had the chance to develop properly?”
X users praised Yasmine while critiquing the question. Such subtle conditioning reinforces stereotypes early. Research confirms this: a study found children as young as four associate jobs with gender, with girls choosing “feminine” roles (e.g., nursing) and boys opting for “masculine” ones (e.g., engineering).
Even preschoolers avoided careers misaligned with their gender, proving sexist conditioning begins startlingly young.
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The problem spans globally. Data from 50 countries reveals that by age 15, girls disproportionately abandon math and science, while boys avoid caregiving fields like teaching and nursing. This segregation perpetuates stereotypes—women are underrepresented in STEM, and men in caregiving roles—creating a cycle that limits both genders.
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This article originally appeared last year.