fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2929 ]

[ SECRET POST #2929 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2929 ⌋

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Agent Carter made me wonder was it really like this? Discrimination against women in workplaces and getting married to quit the job. Seems like the tv series went too far with misogyny.

Not the way my gramma tells it. It sucked, but she said it was pretty accurate. It was less obviously condescending, maybe, because it was just the norm, but I think that might just be the way we hear it now, too...

I get the sense that it was awful in the sense that it was a time when gender norms were VERY harshly enforced.

I know women who were interested in science fiction, for example, wouldn't be allowed to read any such books by their parents and would get yelled at if they were caught.

That actually gives me new respect for the early Star Trek fandom. I mean, fandom in general is considered geeky and a bit weird, but they were probably actually pushing the boundaries. Cool!

I recently read a book about Star Trek fandom and it did mention that many women had to give up their work on zines when they got married and that when they held conventions they would tell people who asked them what their group was that they were a regular fiction writing group.

According to my grandma - yes! Even my mother knew some older teachers who had to quit their job once they got married.

I think sometimes in our current times we're not really aware of just how BAD things in the past could be, and just how recent it was, too.

It's good to be reminded of that, and grateful for what we now have.
Thank god I don't live in the 50s because I'd probably be institutionalized or dead by now.

This is why I hate when people act like feminism was a totally radical and throw-away movement. It changed so much for women.

Yep, IA. It really grates at me when some women today are like: "lol i don't need feminism."

Like, disagree with it if you want, have your own opinions about the movement. Myself, I can't stand TERFS and radfems.

But acting as if you don't need it? Women died for the sake of feminism! I honestly wish the history of feminism and other similar human rights movements were taught more in schools. Suffragettes and force feeding.
The whole point of learning about history should be so that it doesn't happen again.

Re: Being a girl in US during 50s

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-11 03:27 (UTC) - Expand

You'd be surprised. I remember an episode of Star Trek (which was filmed in the late 60s), which featured an American air pilot from 1960s Earth coming aboard the Enterprise and being shocked to find women serving on the ship. And compared to today's standards, Star Trek was still a pretty sexist show.

Yes, I love to laugh at the crazy rampant sexism in old Trek, and my mom says, "But you don't understand - Star Trek was a progressive show."

My sense is that Agent Carter is somewhat different in that it makes a big deal of and repeatedly has characters say things to point out all of this stuff, instead of just leaving it in the background as an unspoken common set of assumptions and prejudices.

I saw a documentary where they were talking about there being a concerted effort (I think even by the government) to "re-assimilate" women back into "proper" place after they were allowed to work during WWII in factories. A lot of women felt really independent about that and wanted to continue. That's why there was such a Suzie Homemaker type image in the 50s (with Leave it to Beaver and the like) to get women back into the home.

Indeed, one of the major chapters in The Feminine Mystique was about the manifestation of that social enforcement in the fiction in women's magazines. After the war, those stories shifted from women making their own choices and doing their own thing to women accepting their proper roles.

In my end of geekery, it's worth noting that of all the superheroines who appeared during the initial WWII-era comics boom, only ONE survived to the 1950s, and that's only because the contract for Wonder Woman specifies she can't ever be taken out of publication or they lose the rights to the character. Admittedly, MOST of the wartime superheroes stopped being published after the war, but it's interesting that EVERY female superhero did.

Point is, you can see that shift in enforcement all over the place. Historically, it's pretty interesting.

It's actually pretty accurate, and that sexism was a root cause for the feminist movement. Once women started working thanks to WWII, they didn't want to give up the freedom once the war ended, and the idea that a woman's place was in the home was very much in place. Also, that boarding place she stays at in the second episode? Actually a common thing in big cities, so that young women could live somewhere and remain "chaste." /likes history

My grandmother, for reference, was a seamstress. She tried to open her own business but was shut down because it was assumed men wouldn't go to her, because they'd have tailors instead. She used to teach night classes as a result.

Now you have me wondering where you live that this seems particularly far-fetched to you. That era was a time of fairly strict gender norms and expectations, anon. People were especially touch about it after WWII, because during the war, things had changed up a bit. Women did have a little more independence simply because they were needed to do jobs young men couldn't do since they were away fighting in Europe. But when the war ended and the men came people, there were a lot of people who expected things to go right back to the way they were, i.e. women not working outside the home if they could help it, not doing certain jobs, etc. etc.

Russia. In Soviet time women were encouraged to work. Seriously, in the movies of that era they all worked either in factories or farming.

I also wonder how it was in France and Scandinavia in the 50s.

It's actually pretty close to how my grandmother tells it, and in my historical specialty (history of science) some of the shit men would say about the few women in their discipline would make your hair curl.

In the 20s-30s a number of occupations were getting more liberal towards the inclusion of women, then you have the war and suddenly they're pouring into all kinds of roles because it's simply necessary. The cat is out of the bag - yes, yes they can do men's jobs. Then the war ends and they have to be pushed/policed/bullied out of the workforce to make room for the men and so you have the 50s-60s Mad Men era which is quite a bit more regressive than even previous decades. Then the feminist backlash to that with the Second Wave that changed, well, just about everything.

The 20th century really was just the fucking pits in a lot of ways, wasn't it?

I mean, I suppose on the plus side that the 20th century also has feminism coming along and actually making a real change in some of those issues. But it sometimes seems like the more you learn about the 20th century, the more you see the massive awful impact of history coming in and just ruining everything again and again.

Re: Being a girl in US during 50s

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-12 05:13 (UTC) - Expand

About workplace discrimination: as late as the 70s, when I was a little girl, want ads were divided up into "Help wanted--Men" and "Help wanted--Women."

Eh, I didn't live in the 50s, but I know my grandmommy, who got a bachelor's degree (she met my granddad in college actually) only actually worked for half a year. She got pregnant with my aunt and quit working because, according to my family, that's just what was expected of her at the time. :/

My maternal grandfather and grandmother similarly met in college at Cornell. She then became a housewife and raised my mother and her siblings while he worked as an engineer. They ended up getting divorced in the 90s after like 40 years of marriage (all the kids out of the house obv) in large part, I think, because my grandmother felt that there was a bunch of shit that she really wanted to do, and that was not at all compatible with my grandfather's plans for their life going forward.

My grandma was kinda rad.

Re: Being a girl in US during 50s

diet_poison - 2015-01-11 21:28 (UTC) - Expand

My mom wanted to be an architect and scored highest on vocational tests for engineering, but her counselor and teachers said with those test results she'd be a great hairdresser. Her parents paid for her brothers' college education all the way up to one of them getting a doctorate, but they actively discouraged her from going to school and wouldn't pay for anything because she was female. She never got more than an Associate Degree, and that was years after both her parents had died.

My otherwise-awesome paternal grandfather refused to send my aunt to college. He sent my dad and uncle, and Dad flunked out after a year.

On the other side, my maternal grandfather wanted to call his business "George Hadjimalis and Sons. It was his lawyer who told him "Hey, your daughters are the ones doing all the work."

That's actually really sad. :(

I'm glad we've (I think?) progressed beyond that, today.

Technically, in the context of Agent Carter specifically, we're looking at the 1940s, not the 50s. :)

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Being a girl in US during 50s

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*40s