Beyond the Wheel: Historicizing Race, Gender, and Automotive Insurance in California
This research uses historical methods and approaches to provide insights into the evolution of automotive insurance redlining and mobility-justice movements. In California, where auto-related development was adopted early and lenders required protections before issuing loans, car insurance took on particular significance. As one example, a multiyear campaign in the 1970s around automotive insurance in Los Angeles estimated an overcharge of $13.8 million a year in minority communities. Alongside race, gender has been a consistent factor in how insurance rates are calculated, with women consistently incurring higher rates than men. Women of color have been doubly impacted by insurance discrimination. Where race and gender have often been treated separately in transport and mobility studies, focusing on women of color provides new insights into the uneven impacts of uneven mobilities on marginalized communities. With the support of the CSW | Streisand Center, this work aims to historicize race, gender, and automotive insurance in California.
Additional Reading
- “Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race“
- Carpio, Genevieve. “Her Crazy Driving is a Key Element of Cruella de Vil’s Evil. Here’s Why: The History of the Crazy Woman Driver Trope,” The Washington Post, April 2021.
People
Genevieve Carpio
Dr. Genevieve Carpio is an associate professor in UCLA’s Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Her research and teaching interests include relational studies of race, 20th century U.S. history, and spatial theory, particularly as it relates to notions of place and mobility. She has a long-standing interest in the public and digital humanities. Carpio is author of Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race (University of California Press, 2019).
