Well, Freud would have loved this ad.

Apparently, as a woman, it’s best to choose a cigar-smoking man because they live longer. There’s no truth to that, but tobacco ads didn’t really deal in reality.

We’re still trying to decide what’s sexy about being treated like a cigar.

Well thank goodness there’s a ketchup bottle women can open. We wouldn’t want a man to have to prepare any part of his meal.

Can you imagine all the trauma women went through before they made an easy-to-open ketchup bottle?

We clutch our pearls just thinking about it.

We’re sure some men are lured in by the thought of a necktie turning his wife into a subservient breakfast-in-bed-bringing servant. We just don’t know how a tie might accomplish that.

But he’s wearing it to bed, so maybe that’s the trick.

Poor Edna. She’s stuck in a time period when the greatest thing a woman could accomplish was to marry a man.

Even worse, she apparently has bad breath, which appears to be a major impediment to marriage before the “tragic” age of 30.

Believe it or not, “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” was first used by Listerine beginning in 1925 in these types of ads.

Sylvia looks like a real drag to hang out with. But this “foremost authority on the care of the feminine figure” also happened to be peddling Live Savers for weight loss. Because sugar is great for that!

We think the key is to skip an entire meal and have a Life Saver instead, which, to be fair, would help you lose weight, just not in any healthy way.

Ok, frankly, we’re all in here except for the part about how you have to woo your “boy” to stay home with you by baking a pizza.

Sometimes pizza at home really does beat going out though.

But you could also just tell your “boy” that since it’s so easy to make, he can pop one in the oven for you as well.

Oh, now we see, the projector is in her hands. We almost missed it.

Since we’re very surely supposed to be looking at Sabrina’s chest, might we suggest a less pointy bra next time?

Well, at least he’s not being a jerk about dinner being burned.

Give him a couple of Schlitzs and offer to let him buy you dinner at a nice restaurant.

We’re disgusted and mystified.

In this ad for Dacron Leggs – which is a brand of polyester wool pants – a man stands on an animal print rug and rests his foot on a woman’s head.

We have no clue what that’s supposed to prove or how it’s supposed to be attractive to people – then again, we’d rather not understand.

Hey ladies, did you know men suffer from menstrual cramps too?

No, not their own – YOURS!

They’re just so annoyed that you’re suffering. Doesn’t your heart just ache for them?

We can’t confirm that this is a real ad, but it did appear in the comment section of Ms. magazine a while back, so we assume someone authenticated it.

What could they possibly be selling?

Listen, no matter how bad your hair looks, don’t do any of this.

We’re also guessing Charles Antell’s Formula 9 shampoo isn’t going to do you much good either if the people who made it also concocted this horrific ad.

Don’t worry, ladies, let the men worry about war. You just pick out the furniture and then you’re even!

Frankly, it sounds like men are getting the raw end of this deal.

We’re pretty sure no one enjoys when their zippers split open, but it seems to be giving men very little credit for being able to get over simple things.

We’re glad “Gap-osis” isn’t the pandemic we were warned it might be.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just say “hey, we’re open on Sundays in case you want to get out of the house”?

Why do they assume women don’t like football?

Halitosis isn’t attractive but it’s not quite the scourge people were led to believe it was in the mid-20th century.

We wonder how many women worried about this unnecessarily.

And we want to know if some of these were geared towards men as well.

Domestic violence is one of the least funny subjects on earth, so why bother making a joke out of it?

Oddly enough, this is an ad for a bowling alley that assumes the wife is going to lose.

Yep, that’s a baby in a cigarette ad. Tobacco companies were shameless (in addition to costing people their lives with misleading advertising).

Marlboro was just one of many tobacco companies hoping to make people think that smoking was completely normal and healthy – so long as you smoked their brand.

Appliances are lame Christmas gifts. They belong to the household, where chores should be shared.

We really hope she got something nice and this wasn’t all that was under the tree for her.

Wow, men really used to care about breath.

They’d reject or even divorce a women for it, apparently.

Here’s yet another ad designed to make women worry about one more thing.

It’s true – the maker of Coca Cola really believed his beverage would make people smarter and it was first marketed as a “brain tonic.”

Apparently, we’ve been drinking it wrong all this time because all it gives us is indigestion.

Wow, men really had sensitive noses back in the day.

Apparently, you can go ahead and stop exercising. Your figure isn’t what’s important – the way you smell is.

This time it’s about armpits.

Frankly, we thought the best thing about air travel was getting one from place to another fairly quickly.

And as far as we’re concerned the next best thing is those Delta cookies.

Airline personnel is great, but we’re not into travel just for the eye candy.

Forget having a good personality – just hypnotize your significant other!

Maybe then she really will appreciate that Hoover you bought her for Christmas.

Before there were Spanx there were Chubbettes, for girls 6-16.

And they came with a book about how to raise a chubby girl.

Can you imagine wearing a glorfied corset at 6 years old?!

Ok, we’ve asked someone to get us a drink while they were up.

We’re more amused by the 8-year-old scotch sounding like a luxury item.

Apparently people used to think it was cute that you might spank your wife in anger if she didn’t store-test the coffee.

We’d be giving this guy decaf for life just to mess with him if we met him today. You know, after he gets out of jail for domestic abuse.

People will try to sell just about anything, even a slightly smaller pen for “girls.”

There’s a lot of subliminal messaging going on in that photo, but at the end of the day, we’re fine with a “manly” pen.

It wasn’t only women who were made to feel bad about their bodies (although women are bombarded with body talk relentlessly).

Apparenently, skinny guys just can’t get any respect on the beach.

But we’re sure that 32-page illustrated book did wonders.

Dude, keep your action zone to yourself.

And are we sure it’s not the same thing as the snack pack? Because that dog seems to think there’s a snack in the zone.

Yes, Lysol used to advertise itself as a douche and make women worry that any odors “down there” were chasing their husbands away.

In fact, if you read this ad closely, it would have you believe that no matter what your virtues are, they simply aren’t enough unless you smell like Lysol.

In this case, an “indelicate” women is one who doesn’t seem to sprinkle talc powder all over her body and in her shoes.

We wonder how it guards a woman’s freshness AND wholesomeness.

Talk about a 2-for-1!

You’ve got to love when an ad plays on fears and uses the fact that it won’t poison you as a selling point.

These companies manufactured a problem in order to sell a solution.

Actually, people could really use another lesson or two in phone manners.

The only thing retro about this is the landline phone.

It’s been a while since anyone has seen an Aunt Jemima commercial so we tend to forget just how awful they were.

The stereotype is one that shouldn’t sit well with any of us.

How terrible it must be to have middle-aged skin. Apparently, that wasn’t even allowed if you were middle-aged!

Sadly, we haven’t moved very far beyond these kinds of worries.

And our “solutions” are a lot more expensive than Palmolive now.

Pear’s Soap made some of the most offensive ads in history.

In a time when colonialism was seen as a good thing, dark-skinned people had to be cast as the “other” and “lesser-than” in every way.

But this blatantly calls them dirty.

Sure, smoking may keep you from overeating, but your lungs won’t thank you in the end.

Nevertheless, tobacco ads would basically sell any idea they could to get people to smoke.

Apparently, all your need is soap to “brighten the dark corners of the Earth.”

And they very clearly meant Africa.

Plenty of people still teach their children to shoot, but rarely do you see guns advertised as something thrilling.

That’s some pretty scary rhetoric.

But hey, at least it comes with an educational booklet for parents.

We’re confused. Do you want a snack or do you want a hot stewardess? If you want that latter, what’s up with comparing them to a mom?

That’s not a look mom’s normally give their kids.

Women belong on the floor next to your shoe?

Interesting take on relationships. We’re sure that’s a recipe for mutual respect.

Now, to be fair, a lot of kids learn things on educational television shows.

But it’s a big leap to say television benefits children.

And we’re pretty sure it never improved anyone’s performance in school.

Listen, Dave. If you would prefer your wife put her health in jeopardy by douching with Lysol, you just go ahead and stay on the other side of that door.

But in reality, there is no Dave because Lysol made these ads just to make women feel paranoid.

Marketing innosense as sexy is way too close to sexualizing children.

Can you imagine the (totally warrranted) uproar this ad would spark today?

Women just can’t win.

We’re putting 6-year-olds in corsets and then we’re telling women who are “too skinny” that they have no sex appeal.

We wonder how many women tried to bulk up with ironized yeast.

Well that’s an interesting tactic.

And to be fair, women had lots of ways of assisting in the war effort.

Not only did advertising have all sorts of ways of shaming women about their periods, they even led some women to question whether or not tampons would interfere with their virginity.

What a world we live in!

Don’t try this at home. Or in public. You’re just going to get kicked out of the bar.

And you’re going to deserve it.

We’re so confused.

We’d like to keep our flesh. But now we’re curious to see what this Frown Eradicator looks like.

In yet another attempt to make women feel unsightly, companies didn’t address the cracking and drying skin that happens when you have your hands in dishwater all day.

Instead they just sold something the would make them less unsightly – you know, for their men.

Tired? Want to carry around a whip and look excited for no discernable reason?

Well pharmaceuticals can help with that!

This vintage Ritalin add sure raised our eyebrows.

First of all, that fly looks scary and no pill is going to make it look less scary.

Of course, the real thing being sold here is downers for women who men find to be too “exciteable.”

We promise you can’t wash away fat.

If we could, there’s be a lot more of this around.

We’re sure that putting a metal trap on your kid’s finger to prevent him or her from engaging in a soothing behavior made for a lot of really well-adjusted adults.

How do you think they managed to make it sanitary?

We didn’t have any of the research we do today about the heath effects of asbestos when this ad was made.

But let’s just say this is truly an ad no one could print today.

In case you didn’t get your daily dose of future skin cancer, there’s a pill for that!

We didn’t realize there was anything wrong with being pale, but Dr. Williams sure did.

You’ll be shocked to know they didn’t work.

Vintage Christmas ads really blow our mind.

This guy looks so excited about the toaster that we don’t know why he doesn’t just keep it for himself and go out and buy his wife a real gift.

Tobacco ads frequently featured doctors as they battled to be considered the most “healthy” cigarette.

Incredible, right?

20,679 doctors say that Lucky Strikes won’t irritate your throat as much as other cigarettes.

And somehow that was convincing to people.

It explains a lot.