Lost world of womanhood
As I was flipping through some TV garbage trying to induce sleep, I came upon an old Western starring Kirk Douglas, Dorothy Malone and Rock Hudson. Once upon a time the above names would have been common points of reference — a collective vocabulary signifying the Fifties. No longer. Common points of reference today are unrecognisable, at least for yours truly, still stuck on blackand-white movies, good manners and correct dress. At one point in the film, a young, beautiful girl tells a middle-aged Kirk Douglas that she loves him. He dismisses it, telling her she’s just a girl who will one day find a young man who’s right for her. “I’m not a girl,” she cries. “I’m a woman who will wash your clothes and cook for you, and take care of you…” Just as well that only a kiss is exchanged because Kirk turns out to be her father, conveniently shot dead by Rock at the end of the movie. Phew, that was a close one. The beautiful youngster was Carol Lynley, whom I once lunched with at Mark’s Club back in 1979. But that’s not the point of my story. It’s what she said to Kirk in order to get him to change his mind about her: I’ll wash your clothes and so on. Oh, for those good old days.
Which brings me to how very different things
Pwere for all of us, but mainly for women, back in the Fifties. Mind you, I’m not Virginia Nicholson, the lady who has written Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, a book about the lost world of womanhood during that decade. Excerpts in a daily newspaper hinted that the last thing a man wanted was a clever woman. In my long life I’ve read and heard a hell of a lot of rubbish, but that takes the biscuit. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever met who wanted a dumb woman as a wife. It was Hollywood that made up the role of the dumb blonde, in films starring Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. Nicholson writes that, according to a survey, the aspiration of women in 1956 was mostly to get married.
I finished school in June 1955 and entered university in September.
Throughout the midFifties all I did was visit women’s schools chatting up girls. Most of the girls were studying history, English, the liberal arts in general. I don’t think I ever met one that was reading deportment, cookery, laundry skills or embroidery. In the good old US of A, of course. Did they study such skills at Oxford? I doubt it very much. So what the hell is Virginia Nicholson talking about? Sure, there was domestic drudgery, but for those who couldn’t afford to hire help. The man brought home the bacon, the little woman took care of the house and the children. What’s wrong with that? Career first, motherhood second is a myth, but not much of one. According to Betty Friedan, her sex back in the Fifties was acting out the expected role of wife, and homemaker. She claimed there was a fundamental sense of uneasiness and a vague unhappiness that most women had trouble articulating.
Friedan became an overnight sensation during the Sixties, when she published her book The Feminine Mystique. The women she interviewed reminded me a lot of soldiers who are prompted by reporters. “So you realised that your platoon was about to be overrun, so you threw yourself up front…” says the hack. “Yeah, if you say so,” answers the soldier. Men react automatically to danger. Their lives do not flash before their eyes just before they act. Ditto for women being interviewed by women about lost opportunities.
The Fifties were great. The young were split between those who wore suits and ties and had short hair — the girls had full skirts, high heels and perms — and the “greasers”, who had long, duck-tailed hair and a goscrew-yourself attitude. I belonged to the former group but kinda liked the greasers’ lack of respect. And the girls who went out with the greasers secretly liked us squares, as long as we weren’t real squares but only pretended to be. It’s still the same old story. By arrangement with the Spectator