Thanks, Betty. You saved my life.
From Chapter 2 of the Feminine Mystique:
In the early 1960's McCall'shas been the fastest growing of the women's magazines. Its contents are a fairly accurate representation of the image of the American woman presented, and in part created, by the large-circulation magazines. Here are the complete editorial contents of a typical issue of McCall's(July 1960):
1. A lead article on "increasing baldness in women." caused by too much brushing and dyeing.
2. A long poem in primer-size type about a child, called "A Boy Is A Boy."
3. A short story about how a teenager who doesn't go to college gets a man away from a bright college girl.
4. A short story about the minute sensations of a baby throwing his bottle out of the crib.
5. The first of a two-part intimate "up-to-date" account by the Duke of Windsor on "How the Duchess and I now live and spend our time. The influence of clothes on me and vice versa."
6. A short story about a nineteen-year-old girl sent to a charm school to learn how to bat her eyelashes and lose at tennis. ("You're nineteen, and by normal American standards, I now am entitled to have you taken off my hands, legally and financially, by some beardless youth who will spirit you away to a one-and-a-half-room apartment in the Village while he learns the chicanery of selling bonds. And no beardless youth is going to do that as long as you volley to his backhand.")
7. The story of a honeymoon couple commuting between separate bedrooms after an argument over gambling at Las Vegas.
8. An article on "how to overcome an inferiority complex."
9. A story called "Wedding Day."
10. The story of a teenager's mother who leerns how to dance rock-and-roll.
11. Six pages of glamorous pictures of models in maternity clothes.
12. Four glamorous pages on "reduce the way the models do."
13. An article on airline delays.
14. Patterns for home sewing.
15. Patterns with which to make "Folding Screens--Bewitching Magic."
16. An article called "An Encyclopedic Approach to Finding a Second Husband."
17. A "barbecue bonanza," dedicated "to the Great American Mister who stands, chef's cap on head, fork in hand, on terrace or back porch, in patio or backyard anywhere in the land, watching his roast turning on the spit. And to his wife wit without whom (sometimes) the barbecue could never be the smashing summer success it undoubtedly is . . ."
The Third Time is the Charm
2 months ago
5 comments:
:lol:
How quickly we forget...thanks for the reminder that it wasn't that long ago...
I loved Betty. I'm thinking of the high profile feminists that inspired me as a young woman. Who do young women look up to today? Do they realize what women like Friedan DID for them? Do they realize what it was like back then? I don't think they do. Thank you Betty.
We truly stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. Thank you, Betty, and thank you to those who came before you.
Betty's gone and Phyllis Schlafly's decrepit, useless carcass is still around.
There's justice!
Incidentally, I think those "women's magazines" as crap........just like they were back in the day!
Quite appropriate example.
I gave my parents a magazine from the year of their marriage, for their golden wedding anniversary. It was all about preparing massive hunks of meat while wearing a dress and high heels. My mother found it all very interesting and the one good thing she could come up with for the times "well at least no mention of cancer, as so prevalent in our times." (though environmental health regression,still great personal advances for women.)
cgreen
Post a Comment