You know the names of the primary players, Jimmy Carter.

Our country is not strong anymore.

Ronald Reagan. We have perverted our Constitution.

Gerald Ford. But how they acted, it's just about the opposite of their popular images.

Those are the seeds of the culture war.

Landslide, how a presidential race led to today's political divide.

Subscribe now to Landslide, part of the NPR Network.

This is fresh air.

I am Terry Gross.

Women drivers.

That was my father's complaint if a woman drove too slowly or didn't signal before turning.

Plenty of men on the road aggravated my father too, speeding, jumping stop signs, recklessly

passing him, but they were just drivers. They weren't men drivers. My father was nothing

unusual. Lots of men of that generation had the same condescending attitude toward women drivers.

My guest journalist Nancy Nichols has

written a new book about how cars became our most gendered technology. Women

weren't considered qualified to drive. Beautiful women were used to market cars and magazines and TV ads.

Special clothes were designed for women when they did drive.

Cars became bedrooms

for teens and adults who wanted to get away from home to have sex.

Cars have mostly been designed for male bodies in ways that put women

drivers at risk.

...