Advice For Women, circa 1955

Exhibit A

First and foremost: I stole Exhibit A from Lin…who has written a wonderful and provocative post about the guidance contained within Exhibit A and the mindset of the modern Pioneer Woman. Which, if you know Lin, is mostly tongue-in-cheek. And VERY few people “do” a post of the tongue-in-cheek variety than Lin. Do go if you haven’t been.

But let us continue. Here it is… 1400 hrs as I type (and 1500 hrs, as I post...this took a LONG time to write!) and I’m still working on my “morning” coffee and making the rounds, which are incomplete…still. But, time being of the essence and all that, I’ve decided to write today’s post and delay the completion of the rounds until this is done. If it gets done.

Now about Exhibit A, which you may or may not have already “clicked for larger.” If you haven’t go ahead and do it now…I’ll wait.

Back? Didja laugh yer a$$ off while absorbing that sage advice? Or did you read it while compressing your lips into that fine white line while muttering “The horror! The horror!”, assuming you’re a woman? Either reaction is normal in our post-feminist day and age, Gentle Reader. Especially if you’re younger than…say… forty. But reading this advice provokes an entirely different reaction in those of us…some of us… “of a certain age.” “Nostalgic” comes to mind. Or, the realization that the 1950s really were simpler times, a time when America had well-defined role models, there was little if any gender confusion, the term “glass ceiling” hadn’t yet been invented, and women were generally satisfied with their lot in life. That last statement most certainly will raise eyebrows. Let me digress just a bit and quote from the comment I left at Lin’s place:

Conventional wisdom aside, the world was largely populated with people of the female persuasion who didn't have a problem with the way things were. Really.

Things were different back then. One of my favorite memories of my adolescence is of standing in the kitchen with Mom, talking as she made the evening pitcher of martinis. There was a ritual associated with this act, and it was performed at precisely the same time, Monday through Friday... simply because Dad always arrived home at the same time, plus/minus five minutes, at the most. The penultimate act of this dance was Mom pouring the martinis into chilled glasses as Dad's car came up the driveway. She'd be at the door, martini in hand, as he walked in... (I could go on, but hey this is a comment... not my blog.) ;-)

I kid thee not. It really was this way, every single day. It was good to be the King, once upon a time.

The martinis weren’t the end of it, either. Dinner was already in its final stages of preparation, and it was dinner…not fast-food stuff. Mom and Dad always retired to their bedroom while he changed clothes and they emerged a few minutes later to sit down in the living room and have their second drink before dinner was put on the table. Children weren’t allowed to intrude on the adults during that period of time…it was Mom and Dad, only. But we kids had our moments, at the dinner table.

Dinner was a family-affair…none of this grazing stuff… we ate together as a family almost every night (there were exceptions to this rule, even in 1955). You might think that’s simply a ritual, and it was. But it was important ritual...family time, bonding, and all that. The family dinner is one of those items of conventional wisdom for the time that seems to have gone by the boards. I suspect if you dug deeper into any issue of Housekeeping Monthly in 1955 you’d find guidance on the hows and whys of family dinners. Among other things. But… digressions ‘r’ us.

There’s a bit of “over the top” sort of guidance that my Mom would have laughed at in Exhibit A (blood would have flowed freely had Dad stayed out all night), but there’s a lot more that she would have nodded her head up and down about. Some of the advice is simple common sense for any relationship, assuming you re-word the advice to make it friendlier to 21^st Century ears. Things like show your mate you value them. Do the “random acts of kindness” thing, like slipping off his shoes…or her shoes…and massaging their feet. Be happy and positive. I’m sure you get my drift.

My larger point is women generally bought into this type of advice back then. And, of course there were women in this age cohort that absolutely, positively rejected the conventional wisdom of the 1950s, and made very successful careers out of doing so. Women like Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, and Betty Friedan. That said, speaking as someone who grew up in the 50s and has watched the whole “feminism” movement unfold throughout the course of my life, I have to ask: Are we really better off today than we were back then? Really? Are our kids smarter and more successful in school? Are our neighborhoods safer? Are our marriages more, not less, secure? And…bottom line… are women happier today than they were back then?

Rhetorical questions, all. The answers might be yes, they might be no, they might be “sorta.” But as for me, I get a certain sort of sadness when I’m glancing at the magazine rack while in the checkout line at Safeway and see things like “50 Sex Tricks That Will Drive Him Wild” on the covers of Cosmo and other “womens” magazines. That, Gentle Reader, would be called smut back in 1955. And no…it’s NOT better. I’d much prefer to see stuff like Advice for a Good Wife, if’n I had my druthers.

And so endeth the (kinder and gentler) rant.