Were things in the past really that bad for women? (trouble, cancer)
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Well how nice. It, along with Home Ec, was required of every female in my school. Amazing how every female in the school must have been unworthy of being in advanced academics - but that kind of emphasizes the problem with the way women were viewed, doesn’t it?
Short hand
Boy I really sucked at it.
Typing same.
Still had a career. Didn't pay all that much however, lord did I learn to make a dime.
Yes, I did the type while listening to some stupid drivel about yada yada...changed the content of the drivel and VIOLA... edit, copy print.
You threw filth at the idea of a nursing mother—extraordinarily strange behavior for a woman. You were obviously unaware that sheepskin (lambskin) is still used for condoms today. This is bizarre.
Why do you hate the idea of nursing? You seem to have very odd ideas for a woman.
To demand evidence is never an unsupported statement. It simply reiterates the onus of proof principle. That principle is simply that the one who makes a positive statement bears the burden of proof.
Hi Happy!
I think you mean that a statement (positive) (or negative) bears the burden of proof.
It sure wasn't bad for the kids! Coming home from school to a mother, running to the door all excited when your father got home from work and watching him hold my mother and tell her how he loves her, everybody eating dinner together and talking about your day, playing outside with all the other kids that came home to a mother instead of a daycare. It was perfect for the whole family, our home was happy.
I can only imagine how wonderful that would have been. What a wonderfully lucky girl you were. I hope that it brought out in you the beauty of such love and that you have passed it forward.
You threw filth at the idea of a nursing mother—extraordinarily strange behavior for a woman. You were obviously unaware that sheepskin (lambskin) is still used for condoms today. This is bizarre.
Why do you hate the idea of nursing? You seem to have very odd ideas for a woman.
Happy,
Why are you so angry?
Was it my logical conclusion that a sheep udder could be used for condoms in the year dot?
I find it strange that you have decided that I made an illogical (albeit could be discussed) conclusion that a sheep udder was used for the design of primeval condoms.
I do, also, find it strange that you remark I have a bizarre and strange behavior for a woman.
An udder may have been used (recall the softness of the tissue) for said condoms (I do know what it means to have udders, however, humans call them breasts) and that I do understand that udders are also a vehicle of the sheep to give food to the lambs as same for humans.
True, they may have used the small intestine. Smaller lining of the walls. Kinda like the skin of sausages.
So really, what is your point?!
I thought you were getting better, but now we have to deal with this upset again.
I was always under the impression that in those days, men were embarrassed that their wives had to go out to work. It made them look like incompetent, feckless losers who couldn't support their families. Remember Freddy and Marie in The Best Years of Our Lives. Or they were like Ricky and Lucy, where Ricky felt threatened by Lucy's aspirations to get into Show Biz and Ricky wanted Lucy to stay home and serve him. She would get "a spankin' " and that was supposed to be funny. Both men and women in the audience sided with Ricky. Also in some women's professions, such as secretaries, nurses, and teachers, women were not permitted to keep their jobs once they got married, nor was it customary to do so.
This was the case when my mother put her foot down and said she was getting a job in 1969. My dad's arguments always centered around the fact that he was supposed to be the one to put food on the table, the sole "bread winner". When another aunt took a job a few weeks later, my dad stopped arguing.
Back then, if the wife worked, the man was seen as a "failure"!
I remember a few years later when my mother got very sick (peritonitis) and was hospitalized for months. Even though I no longer lived at home, I had to go and help my father with the laundry. He did not know how to do laundry! Though he was an excellent cook and sometimes made our Sunday dinners, he had no idea how to sort clothes but I took the time to teach him how to do the laundry. My younger sister and two younger brothers also had no idea how to do laundry.
Dont even get me going. I was the only woman in my police academy class, in NM, in 1973. You wouldn't believe what I put up with. Back then, the harassment and such I got as the 2nd woman police officer on our force - phew. But.... in those days, we weren't wimps and didn't go crying to personnel. We took care of things ourselves. I recall, one officer who kept harassing me with obscene comments. Finally, after about a year of that, I grabbed him by his throat one day, lifted him up, slammed him up against the wall a few times, yelling "stop bothering me!" The other officers stood nearby, laughing their butts off. That officer got the message, and from that day forth, we became friends.
I would do almost anything to go back in time and witness that.
I was thinking more about the presumption that the husbands and wives were loving, that people ate dinner together, that they talked to each other and asked how they were doing, that kind of thing. My growing up was more like a very sad boarding house with four people under their own bell jars.
I hear that. Our dad came home from work and threw himself on the sofa, where he stayed the rest of the night. We got him the newspaper, the TV guide, switched the channels for him, got his slippers, and my mom served him dinner in the living room while we ate in the kitchen, all so he could lay there so tired. Oh, yeah, and she went to pick his plates up and serve him dessert when he was done.
I don't think I had one conversation with my dad in my entire life. Him talking to me was to lecture me or yell at me for something. Me talking to him resulted in his turning his back on me or walking away.
What a wonderful collection of remembrances from some truly remarkable women. I am a little young to have shared many of your experiences but had some common life events by coming of age in the 70s. The stories of walking to school while freezing in dresses resonated for it was such a relief when "pantsuits" were finally allowed. Purchasing a car as a solo female in the 70s could be a challenge if only because male salesmen seemed to expect to take financial advantage and could react somewhat personally when that proved not the case. Checking into a hotel with a female friend might bring a lecture that prostitution was not permitted. As late as the early 1980s I had a raise denied. My much older boss wanted to let me know that while my work excelled he wanted it give all the available money to a male coworker because he was married with children.
One theme that has not been well developed although it's been touched on in this thread is what life could be like for some women at home in the 50s and 60s. No longer did housework take the endless hours that it did at the turn of the century plus all sorts of labor saving devices were now being mass-produced and were readily available. Still, most middle-class women seemed to stay home, particularly those with children. The households could be supported on one salary and with pensions still common and job loss rare there was less reason to have a second household income.
For those who lived in the new bedroom suburbs there usually was only one family car in the 50s and 60s that the husband took to work or to the commuter rail. A lack of public transportation meant that women were largely confined to their neighborhoods during the day. Even those who lived in towns found they spent much of their time at home alone with children for post-ww2 migration patterns meant that families frequently no longer lived close by. There was not yet the variety of options for the children of stay-at-home moms during the day with few preschools. Boredom and frustration led in some to depression or perhaps was expressed through various physical ailments. A visit to typically male doctor might result in a prescription for valium or something similar.
This certainly was not the pattern for most women but it did depict a significant subset and it's one of the reasons that women today who might be able to stay home with children often do not choose that option. Even though juggling a career, a marriage, and children leads to lives that are undeniably hectic it is for many the better choice.
I remember when I was about four to seven years old we children spent most of our waking hours either in school or playing with friends at each other's homes. The neighborhood SAHMS socialized almost every day. I don't remember my mother being lonely, or other moms being lonely during that time period. This was during the late 60's, early 70's btw.
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