Women in a man’s world
Tina White explores a woman’s world as displayed in print, 64 years ago.
It was created to provide ‘‘a weekly burst of inspiration, education and escapism . . .’’ Founded in early 1953, the youngest in a stable of Australian and New Zealand women’s magazines catering for the 25 to 55-year age group, Woman’s Day (and Home) was sold in New Zealand newsagents and dairies.
The proprietors would save each new weekly magazine (price ninepence) in a folder behind the counter for regular subscribers.
Today, reading the Woman’s Day issue of April 6, 1953 – its pages tattered with time and handling – is to glimpse the world of our Britishoriented foremothers.
It’s a special coronation issue, so most of the articles are geared to that theme.
The cover features a young Queen Elizabeth II, less than a month away from her coronation, pink-cheeked and smiling in tiara, white furs and pearl drop earrings.
The featured story inside is advertised: ‘‘Beginning: Happy and Glorious! By ‘‘Crawfie’’, the royal governess for 17 years; the wonderful story of our Queen from classroom to coronation.’’
Marion Crawford tells of her years at the palace, with details of princesses Elizabeth and Margaret’s upbringing. She recalls Elizabeth, 11, and Margaret, 7, having a test ride in the coach that would take their father, King George VI, and family to his coronation in 1937.
Since the coach was very lightly sprung, and swayed when horsedrawn, he’d wanted to make sure his daughters didn’t get motionsickness on the way to Westminster Abbey. He’d also had a book printed explaining the coronation ceremony to his daughters, for ‘‘Crawfie’’ to read to them.
In hindsight, it’s now known that when Marion Crawford retired from royal service and published her memoirs, the Queen Mother allegedly took exception to the book’s ‘‘revelations’’. She abolished Crawford’s grace-and-favour house and never spoke to her again.
Well-meaning ‘‘Crawfie’’ had become the first – but not the last – writer to publish inside stories on royalty.
Among the dress patterns, ‘‘ways with pears’’, knitting instructions, hints to turn shirt collars and darn stockings, the fiction is a good read: a serialised version of English author H E Bates’ Love For Lydia, and an American crime-mystery, Who’s The Blonde? by John A McDonald.
In the magazine’s second year, the April 5, 1954, issue is still royalty-oriented (it’s the year of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh’s visit to Australasia) but a different tone is showing in the Oscar Wilde quotation on page 10: ‘‘There are three types of women: the brainy, the beautiful, and the majority.’’
The readers’ letters page contains this missive from Mr J N Smart, Sydney: ‘‘Why are women cookery snobs? They talk down to men about cookery, forgetting the world’s best cooks are, and always have been, men.
‘‘A meal of more than three courses – soup, entree and sweets with a cup of tea and bread and butter – is beyond the average woman. She gets in a flap, wrings her hands and has to lie down afterwards. I’ve yet to see a woman cook good zabaglione (an Italian dessert).’’
A full-page colour ad features a sophisticated woman in a brightred lipstick by Lournay called ‘‘Come Hither’’, beckoning an unseen admirer.
There’s now a family doctor column, advising the housewife to eat healthily and regularly and not smoke on an empty stomach; fashion news advises ‘‘it’s feminine to hobble’’, picturing a new style of tight, slinky skirt (but ‘‘a lot of nonsense, say local men – doesn’t suit our girls’’).
A page of out-and-about young people includes Undiscovered Australian Beauties.
The week’s beauty is Dawn Spry, 23, a ballet dancer in the chorus of the new Sydney hit musical Call Me Madam, who tours with the J C Williamson company but also finds time to make all her own clothes, play the piano and whip up delectable cakes.
The short stories now have titles such as The Lady Wouldn’t Wait, The Designing Man – ‘‘when you’re efficient there’s time for everything’’ – and Her Private Life (‘‘Only in the still of the night did she face the truth; she loved her boss, not her job!’’).
Over in New Zealand, a sister magazine was the much older New Zealand Women’s Weekly, founded by freelance writer Audrey Argall, and Otto Williams, assistant editor of the Manawatu¯ Daily Times and former editor of a short-lived social women’s magazine, The Mirror. They formed the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly Publishing Company, and the first issue appeared on December 8, 1932.
Its early slogan was ‘‘value for money’’ and it’s still going strong.
On December 24, 1953, the Weekly’s main story featured the royal visit of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh – the first time a reigning monarch had visited.
A photo showed crowds of young Aucklanders waiting overnight to see the royal couple, passing the time by singing Christmas carols.
There was also a story about the new hula-hoop craze, and the emerging fame of a young ballerina named Rowena Jackson.
Women’s magazines of all kinds have come and gone in the past 64 years; these (and another oldestablished import, the Australian Women’s Weekly) have stayed the course, adapting to changing times and providing weekly bursts of inspiration, a little education and plenty of escapism.