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I think you're watching too much TV. What you've described is a scene straight out of "Mad Men."
Here's the deal...women are damned if they do and damned if they don't--and your last sentence says it all. To get ahead in male dominated corporate culture, women have to get "all tarted up" in order to game the system the men have put in place to begin with. Women who take their jobs seriously or don't subscribe to the playbook are perceived as no-fun, aggressive and demanding biatches. Women like that pose a threat to the men because men know deep down that women will be better at the job than they are.
Besides, it's none of your d*mn business WHAT a woman wears--it's what's "between her ears" that really counts.
There's also a 3rd type of woman hardly ever even discussed--us short, "terminally cute" types who are never taken seriously by either gender, but are always counted on to clean up the mess the others leave behind. We're basically persona non grata.....
Oh, and a special shout out to all you "mansplainers" out there who think you know everything. You are precisely what's wrong with this country.
Until you've walked a mile in my shoes and my mother's shoes please keep your lips zipped and your opinions to yourselves.
Well, you did have some advantages with your terminal cuteness. I am a six-foot-tall woman who can be presentable but who has never been considered attractive. When I was 20, in 1979, tall and skinny with my thick frizzy hair, I got a job in a construction office out of secretarial school. In the interview, they told me straight up that might hear bad language and that I was expected to make coffee and sometimes run for sandwiches. The office was on a major jobsite. There were three secretaries and about 40 engineers and inspectors, who of course at that time were all male.
One of the other secretaries was a woman in her 60s, and the other was a very pretty, petite, blonde, cutesy woman of about 30. Back then the 5-gallon water bottles for the cooler were made of glass and very heavy.
One day the water ran out and "Patty", the pretty petite woman, needed more to make the coffee, so she came out and simpered, "Can someone please help me? I need the water bottle replaced." Ten men leapt up and fell over themselves racing to get the water bottle.
The next week it was my turn to make the coffee and the water was empty, so I walked over to the guys and asked if someone could help me. No one moved, and one guy said, "You're a big girl--you should be able to pick up that bottle."
And I did and never again asked anyone for help. Terminal Cuteness Girl stayed in the clerical ranks until she retired close to 70. I moved out of clerical and into management after five years and retired at 57 with a much better pension than she has.
Sometimes, there was justice.
I know that sometimes the Terminally Cute might be disadvantaged if they aren't just playing their cuteness to get what they want. Near the end of my career, I found myself in a meeting with this tiny, little woman I didn't know. Short and so delicate and small that I bet she could have bought some clothes in a children's department. Then she spoke. She had this godawful baby voice, and I was sitting next to her. It irked me so much that I excused myself to go to the restroom because I couldn't stand hearing her voice.
It turned out, though, that she is a complete financial whiz about municipal bonds and public project finance. She rose quickly in the ranks, and I grew to like her and respect her as we worked together despite my initial repulsion. She wasn't trying to be cutesey--it was just the way she was physically. It opened my eyes a bit to how old prejudices can be carried into situations where they don't apply.
Even in the sixties, in my public school in CA, little girls had to wear dresses to school even in sub-freezing temperatures. Women were barred from even applying for certain positions, such as firefighter, because they were perceived as too weak.
Even in the sixties, in my public school in CA, little girls had to wear dresses to school even in sub-freezing temperatures. Women were barred from even applying for certain positions, such as firefighter, because they were perceived as too weak.
Yup. I can still remember my legs between my skirt and my knee socks turning bright red from the cold when I got home from school. We had no bus service and everyone walked to and from school, snow, rain, etc. My was house a mile from the school. It sounds like the old "uphill, both ways" joke, but it was real. We did walk in all weather. Kids who got rides were considered spoiled brats.
In 1970, when I was in 7th grade we were allowed to wear pants to school because my sister's HS senior class had staged a "sit-in" the year before to protest girls not being allowed to wear pants to school, so they changed the rules.
I get your point, but with every action is an opposite and equal reaction. Women today certainly have a lot more "rights" than they did, and that is great. But some women, in my opinion, took that too far and wanted to be "equal" to men in every respect.
While that looks good on the surface, it also brought on some side effects that were not so good for women. I see men all the time come through the door with their lady coming in next. I could never let a lady follow me through a door, I would hold it for her and let her go in first.
Language is another issue. In the back room at work the other day, one of our guys was using the F word like he was saying hello. I called him on it and reminded him that there were a couple of ladies in the room. He said " Oh, they've heard worse !"
And from my personal perspective, the biggest issue of women now able to have those jobs they always wanted is that we have created a whole generation of kids who never had the luxury of having mom home when they got in from school. Kids now have to fend for themselves, whereas we, from older generations, could always look forward to mom being there to give us a hug and ask how our day went.
With every good thing , something bad can happen too.
More moms work out of necessity than choice now. Most homes cannot make it in one breadwinner anymore. The economic structures changed, and with it women’s options to be a stay at home Mom changed. If feminism never happened but the economic landscape were exactly as it is now there still wouldn’t be stay at home moms. They would just have fewer job options.
Where does one attend secretarial school? I've never heard of secretarial school and definitely not in 1979.
I graduated from a 4-year university in 1970 with a bachelors degree, and had two masters degrees by 1977.
I remember the Katherine Gibbs schools in Boston well into the 1970s, although of course there were the universities around the corner. But in smaller areas, pre-internet, pre-cable, pre-electronics everywhere, there were certainly regions of the country that supported secretarial schools and cultural imperatives that encouraged girls to become secretaries as a major choice.
I don’t think feminism tried to sell women happiness, just tried to give us equal opportunity to pursue it. Slaves weren’t happy when slavery ended either, they couldn’t get jobs nor homes and some even wished they were back where they were. It doesn’t mean the movement to end slavery failed them, the politics of the times did. For women (and again men too IMO) happiness is hard to find because of economic factors and the high stress of the times we live in.
Nothing stops women from having the kind of marriages their grandmothers did except the economy. My niece would give her eye teeth to be a SAHM and watch her children grow but they can’t make it on her husbands income. That’s not feminism’s fault, it’s globalism and the resultant decline in wages and a changing economy, as well as the death of manufacturing and the good union jobs that went with it.
... If feminism never happened but the economic landscape were exactly as it is now there still wouldn’t be stay at home moms. They would just have fewer job options.
Exactly. And less control over their own well being and their families' well being.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheShadow
Even in the sixties, in my public school in CA, little girls had to wear dresses to school even in sub-freezing temperatures. Women were barred from even applying for certain positions, such as firefighter, because they were perceived as too weak.
THAT!! I went to elementary school in upstate New York and we had to walk to school in the winter in dresses. Which meant we had to have carpools to get us to school because the girls would have frozen. Literally. Can you imagine? Finally the principal agreed we could wear snow pants under our dresses to school, which had to be removed when we got to school.
I'm sad this thread has taken on such an argumentative tone.
It seems women had a variety of experiences in the 40's, 50's and 60's. My step grandmother had a "man's career" and was highly respected, and married late in life and never had biokids of her own.
My mother, in the early 50's, graduated from William and Mary and also had a career. When she married my dad, an officer in the Air Force, she was given a handbook on how to be an Officer's Wife. Most demeaning thing I've ever read, and honestly, it read like a satire.
I remember one paragraph - when he gets home from work, he deserves to come home to a clean home and a pretty wife, and adoring children. Slovenly appearance isn't respectful - run a comb through your hair and freshen your lipstick and remove your apron. Encourage your children to greet him enthusiastically and then retire to the playroom so you can devote all your attention to your husband. Remember not to bore him with details of your day or issues with the children, give your full attention to what HIS day was like. That's more interesting than yours anyway!
I swear, although I paraphrased it, that's exactly the tone and the instructions. *wonders if that manual is around here somewhere*
How thoroughly demeaning.
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