Things We Couldn’t Do

Things We Couldn’t Do

When I watch the Olympics and see young women flying through the air in various death-defying sports, I get a vicarious thrill.  Only 50 years ago, that was TOTALLY UNTHINKABLE.

SPORTS

Prior to Title 7, passed in the 60s, there were few competitive sports available to women. An exception to this exclusion was the women’s baseball team during WWII, which disbanded immediately after the war. (Watch the film “League of Their Own” for more information). A handful of competitive bowling leagues and roller derby groups existed. But in the era in which I grew up, the 1950s, there were only moderate physical activities for women and none was competitive: ice skating for exercise in the winter was alright, croquet in the summer and perhaps a little badminton, maybe tennis. Recreational swimming and diving was permitted by the 1950s, augmented by sleeker swimwear and movies starring Esther Williams. Generally, however, girls who were physically active were called “tom-boys,” not an endearing term.

JOBS

Jobs were limited too, with the exception of WWII when women proved their mettle in the war-time economy. I was told, again in the 1950s, that the only jobs available to women were: teaching, nursing and secretarial/clerical.  This had been the case for years and years and continued for decades more.

Women were expected to marry and make a career of homemaking. Great, if your talents were thereby engaged, but bad news if you were gifted in other things. Women would certainly never aspire to public office as they do today. That would have been laughable.

EDUCATION

Education was, likewise, systematically arranged to make pursuits outside of domesticity impossible. Today, thankfully, women outnumber men at schools for law and medicine and many head large companies and universities.

A side note:  My grandmother graduated from high school around the turn of the century, and back then, it was considered quite an accomplishment. But if a woman found herself unmarried by age 18, she would run the risk of getting labeled “spinster” or “old maid.” The connotation was that of “undesirable.” My grandmother did marry, late in the game at age 22, and then to a man unsuited for matrimony. Perhaps if she had less pressure to “tie the knot” she would have found a better mate.

FASHION

Styles in the 1950s were different from what we see today. Jeans were only worn for hiking, otherwise you wore a demure dress or mid-calf length skirts with a modest blouse or sweater.  For dress you had to add gloves and a hat. No cleavage was on display unless you were a movie star.

In the 1800s, the numeral 18 was strictly applied to fashion as well as marriage..  It was the ideal measurement for a female waist. The corset which could, and did, injure internal organs and crack ribs made the daunting 18-inch waist possible.  No free-wheeling thongs back then, just a gut-wrenching squeeze all day long. This was worsened by the addition of several cumbersome layers of clothing, most notably the hoop skirt, an undergarment designed to make long dresses flair out at the hemline. (See the film “Gone with the Wind” for examples).

DOING WHAT THEY COULD DO

With all these limitations, what could a woman do to find a degree of fulfillment outside of hearth and home?  Starting with Jane Austen in England and George Sand in France, women began to write fiction. (See the film “Becoming Jane” starring Anne Hathaway for more details). Meanwhile George Eliot, a female, opened a path in non-fiction. But guess what?  They all wrote under a pseudonym, because it was not “ladylike” for a woman to take pen to paper in any serious way. This was the case in the 1700s, the1800s, and the early part of the 1900s.  Even today, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, was advised by her agent to publish using her initials rather than her given name, thereby hiding her gender and garnering more sales.

Author Virginia Woolf hoped in her essay, “Professions for Women,” that in time, women would enter a wide range of occupations; but in the meanwhile, Woolf said, women could write.  This is what they had done in the past and it was advantageous because it was cheap.  All that was required was paper, pen, an envelope and stamps.  Nothing would be missed from the family budget and nothing need be requisitioned from the head of the household.  Imagine!  Woolf’s essay was written in 1948, a mere 70 years ago.

Her advice was useful. It’s been noted that “writing is an assertion of the will.” That being the case, these early female authors were quietly asserting themselves–doing what they could do; subsequently they brought fresh voices to literature, and to the world at large: stunning new perspectives.