Television
My mother-in-law, 88, fully believes a woman's place is in the home, where she should be icing cakes and dusting the bric-a-brac. That my wife got on with having a career and only seldom ran the church fête was a great moral crime.
On the other hand, there's my own mother, 85, still to this day seething that she was shoved in the kitchen, expected to do the laundry and the shopping. Her volcanic intelligence had no outlet – despite her passing the 11-plus and going to grammar school, her father made her leave early, saying, ‘There's no point educating women, as all they do is have babies.' These differing fates are the subject of
Mrs America (BBC2), in which to well-groomed matrons ‘equality for women' is anathema. Mrs Phyllis Schlafly, played by Cate Blanchett, quite accepts the patriarchal way of doing things, and if women are ‘kept in their place' it is only for their own good. They are not level-headed. They are not equipped to earn a living. It is their privilege to swap muffin recipes, bake bread, raise the children and put up with bad sex on demand from boorish husbands – all in the name of ‘the traditional American family'.
The scene is set in 1971, the era of orange and brown furnishings, big hair and bigger spectacle frames. Songs from Hair are on the radio. Revolution is in the air. Feminism is getting going – there are 40 million ‘homemakers' who might not be as keen as Mrs Schlafly on ‘dirty diapers and dirty dishes'. Women, if questioned, if offered a choice, may quite enjoy being ‘liberated from men and housework'.
The Republicans view such a notion as unpatriotic. In any event, the ‘libbers' are simply frustrated old bats, easily ridiculed. ‘No one likes feminists,' we are told. ‘They're no fun.'
Furthermore, if the Equal Rights Amendment came to pass, this would mean, says Mrs Schlafly on talk shows and in her newsletters, that no alimony would be payable, widows' pensions would be scrapped, women would have to serve in the armed forces, and there'd be a mushrooming of day-care centres and unisex lavatories. Furthermore, how comical it would be, when the genders are equal, to see men looking after babies, pushing prams.
Women can function, runs the traditionalist argument, only because they receive the ‘love and protection of men'. It is simply not possible to be single and have a good life – you'll be a bitter spinster.
It doesn't quite help, in this series, that the opposing ‘feminist totalitarian nightmare' is populated by actresses like Tracey Ullman, who portrays Betty Friedan like a character in a Woody Allen film. Margo Martindale in a little red hat is also comical. At least Rose Byrne looks like Gloria Steinem.
But it is Cate Blanchett's show. Smiling like a razor, she has always been very good at witches and bitches, from Queen Elizabeth I to Cinderella's stepmother. Phyllis Schlafly joins this band – and the paradox is that she was a bright woman, an expert on military matters and the Soviet threat, who ran for Congress and had her own political career. Her secret to having it both ways? In the background, a rich, compliant husband, and black maids to run the household.
One of the ways the ‘institution of marriage is being eroded' is legalised abortion, or what Gloria Steinem
euphemistically calls ‘reproductive freedom'. The compelling series The Secrets She Keeps (BBC1) shows the sheer madness procreation (or nonprocreation) can induce. Laura Carmichael, as a stalker and babysnatcher, is intense and evil, carrying out her elaborate plans – disguises, murder, theft, endless lies and deceit.
In an attempt to curry a bit of sympathy, there are flashbacks to her own terrible upbringing: paedo rape by Jehovah's Witnesses, road accidents, enforced adoption – the usual. Her sorry life is contrasted with lovely Jessica De Gouw's, who is having a fling with her husband's best friend; so questions arise about who the biological father of the new (stolen) baby might be. The husband, not to be left out, is banging an estate agent. It is set in Sydney, which looks as dingy as Skegness.
I recommend a documentary on Amazon Prime, Love, Marilyn, based on readings (by Glenn Close and others) from Monroe's diaries and letters. Used as she was by overbearing men, the two main villains in her life were Lee Strasberg, who intentionally broke down her spirit, made her dependent on him and sent her to psychiatrists – all that Fifties belief in pills and electric shocks – and Arthur Miller, who could see she was good for his career.
Yet Monroe wasn't really an actress (hence her driving directors to distraction) but a sort of hummingbird in flight.