Jungnickel, Kat and May, Katja. 2023. From 100-year-old women’s motoring masks to contemporary PPE: A socio-political study of persistent problems and inventive possibilities. Sociology, 57(6), pp. 1430-1449. ISSN 0038-0385 [Article]

Preview	Text 00380385221143654.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview
	Text From 100-year-old women’s motoring masks to contemporary PPE- A socio-political study of persistent problems and inventive possibilities .pdf - Accepted Version Permissions: Administrator Access Only Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (6MB)

Abstract or Description

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, personal protective equipment (PPE) became central to daily news. Face masks may have been critical, but they were clearly not equally designed or distributed, compelling many women health workers to make their own. These issues are neither new nor specific to health-oriented fields. We offer insights from another case of individuals taking PPE into their own hands. We analyse patents for women’s motoring face masks invented in America, Canada, England, and France (1900 -1925). Our findings suggest that women invented and wore face masks not only to drive safely, but to position themselves as legitimate motorists and as citizens with equal rights to technology, public space, and resources at the turn of last century. We propose that a study of historic motoring face masks might offer insights into persistent problems and inventive possibilities relating to contemporary PPE.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385221143654
Additional Information:	The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article: Politics of Patents: Re-imagining Citizenship via Clothing Inventions 1820-2020 has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 819458).
Keywords:	citizenship, gender, invention, masks, motoring, patents, PPE, resistance
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Sociology
Dates:	Date Event 9 November 2022 Accepted 1 February 2023 Published Online December 2023 Published
Item ID:	32587
Date Deposited:	18 Nov 2022 10:50
Last Modified:	22 Nov 2023 23:50
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/32587

View statistics for this item...

Edit Record (login required)