I remember around 22 years ago that a colleague was embarrassed after someone remarked on the firemen calendar in his office.
At my workstation on the old factory floor I had a humorous, maybe sexist, picture which I believe was an inside cover of a National Lampoon. The picture was of a guy’s face in clown make-up, with four or five pairs of large breasts pressed into it. That’s all you could see, the breasts and the face. He had an appropriate expression on his face. I can’t find the picture anywhere.
When I was working with Ford in the early 90s they were deep into their joint ventures with Nissan and Mazda. Whenever the Japanese engineers came to visit the Ford engineers, they would exchange small gifts. One time one group decided to give their Ford counterparts small desk calendars with a photo of a topless woman. Not exactly prurient, but also not the thing you wanted on your desk next to your family photo.
The Ford engineers were embarrassed to keep the gifts but didn’t want to risk offending the Japanese engineers, and spent the visits alternately hiding the calendars and then putting them on their desks whenever the Japanese engineers would come to visit their department.
For some different posters:
The first building I worked in (1964) at NASA’s Lewis Research center was the vast Building No 5, the Engine Research Building. The interconnecting, nested hallways were designated like Central West, South East, etc.The hallways were constructed of very heavy masonry with vault-like doors to protect from engine failures. And in between many of the doors were posters left over from WWII hung on the Spring Green walls. Very patriotic with subjects ranging from Rosie the Riveter to “Loose lips sink ships”. Lots of great artwork of planes and ships. Each was framed in glass. I wonder if they kept them.
Just an anecdote.
The last one I saw in the wild was around 2010. I was working at a Big Pharma site, which had long since made such things illegal. But the janitor (Bob) who was assigned to my building (it was a large campus) had a closet with not much more than a slop sink and one of those drains in the floor to make it easy to pour out the bucket. It wasn’t even the storage room for other supplies- just basically a bathroom, but for mops and buckets.
I walked by and saw Bob in there, and there was a girly calendar on the wall. She was in a bikini, and posing next to a 55 gallon drum. I don’t recall if it was from that year or not, but I do recall it was of high enough printing quality that it wasn’t that old.
Bob was ancient. And I was shocked to see one in the wild, at a Fortune 50 company, in 2010.
Probably that calendar company’s version of Rule 34! Maybe he was allowed to have it, because nobody else was going to see it.
Back in the 1980s, when I worked at City Hall, our engineer had a Rigid Tools calendar on his wall. He was an extremely nice guy without any stereotypical “man” behaviors. I wondered how he was allowed to do that, even though no nudity was involved. This wasn’t out in the field, where most of guys like that worked, but an office in City Hall in downtown. He had to work with the field guys so this might have been a signal to them, but few of them ever came downtown. He left a few years before I did and nothing like this ever appeared again.
The barber shop I started going go to a few months ago has some girly calendars on the wall. It’s weird to see because of its rarity. I’ve never seen a woman in the place (apart from the calendars), but a lot of guys and their young sons in there. My impression is that the calendars are a combination of dog whistle that this is a non-PC “Man-cave” space and “screw you” to anyone who doesn’t like it. Never seen anyone comment on it or even notice the pics, although I’m only there once a month for as little time as possible.
It’s not just cars. Look up Dillion Precision, they make weapons. They still have posters and calendars with women wearing outfits that are not combat ready* (though for some definitions they might be considered “tactical”) holding large handguns and rifles and automatic weapons.
*maybe if you are the Taarna
Minor point: Dillon makes reloading equipment and accessories. They do not make actual weapons, per se, although one’s actual feelings on the matter of what constitutes a “weapon” depends on one’s actual feelings on the matter.
It’s a nitpick along the lines of the difference between a “bullet” (the projectile that leaves the barrel of the gun) and a “cartridge” (the assembly comprised of the bullet, shell, gunpowder, primer). The cartridge is often referred to as a bullet which is a really minor thing but I had a few moments to type…