All right ladies and gentlemen. Today we are boarding the way back machine. We will be traveling back to the year 1964.
Consequently, I am not your captain. I am your stewardess. Ha!
Our captain is most assuredly male because we don’t want to cause a social crisis when we land. Heh!…The fact that his control panel consists of only a dial–much like an “oven” dial–is irrelevant. Ouch!
The purpose of our journey is to observe the mores concerning the day to day life of the typical American woman circa 1964.
…Excuse me?…Why 1964?
Because that’s the year the film, The Naked Kiss came out. And this will all tie into to to my next post about the film. Rest assured. So “wait for it.”
Now then, if everybody will have a seat and buckle up we’ll be there in the time it takes the captain to turn the oven to 350°…I mean the dial back to 1964. Ha ha!…
Okay, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve landed. What?…Yeah, it’s fast. It’s 2020. Or Not!
The captain has asked that everyone stay together so nobody gets left behind. Okay. Everybody out…Ladies first. Ha!
American women! This is your life circa 1964!
You are married. That is, unless you want to be a social outcast. A whopping 80% of the citizenry think single people are immoral, neurotic and sick. This especially applies to women.
You’ve married young–-probably by the age of 20, giving birth to the first of your 2.5 children by age 25. If you desire less than 2.5 children you can now take the pill, but it’s only prescribed to married women. Keep in mind that in Connecticut and Massachusetts there are laws–rarely enforced, but still on the books–prohibiting even married women from using contraceptives.
Your only diploma is from high school. Only about 7% of women have a bachelor degree or higher. The few women who obtain a college degree do so to make themselves more attractive to socially upward men. I’m working on my MRS, is a common saying among the few ladies on college campuses. Should you desire an Ivy League education, you’re out of luck. With the exception of Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania, Ivy League schools do not admit women.
You can’t get a credit card without your husband’s signature. There are exceptions. Liz Taylor, for example, has her own credit cards.
Uh. What?…Yeah…Okay…Uh huh…Yeah…I GOT IT!…
Ladies and gentlemen may I have your attention please…Ladies and gentlemen there has been a sudden change of plans. The captain has ordered everybody back on board…Excuse me…EXCUSE ME! Everybody listen up! We have a situation here. SO PAY ATTENTION! If you don’t want to be left behind circa 1964 you better get your ass back on board! NOW!!
So, whew!…Ladies and gentlemen I’m sorry about that…I really am. I want to apologize for loosing my temper but I had to get everybody back on board because we had a little emergency on our hands. We had to interrupt our trip and comeback to 2020 a bit early because several of our ladies started having panic attacks. Myself included…
Even though I don’t have a college degree…was married at the age of 20…had the first of my two children at 25…and never took birth control pills…
Personally, that thing about the credit cards really threw me for a loop, but it’s all terrible.
Thank God we’re here!
All Things Thriller 
Ha Ha! Great job, Pam! Thanks, Honorary Ginsberg for changing the statutes that gave us our freedoms (some, like the credit card). We need these reminders–maybe not you or me, but certainly our daughters and grandaughters who have no iota how life has changed for them. I remember my Mom was on the birthing table and she told the doctor she wanted her tubes tied (this was her third child) and my stepfather did not give his concent; no one told her! She thought she was sterile. What a surprise when baby number 4 came along.
LikeLike
Oh wow! Your poor mom! I’m sure she feels blessed now, that she loves her surprise child very much and wouldn’t have it any other way, but that’s not the point. It really is difficult to look back. My mom, she worked from the time she turned 17 to about 6 months before she died. Out of all that time, she had–maybe–four years that she didn’t work. The sad thing is, though she loved her work–she was a hair stylist–all she really wanted to be was a wife and a mother. But my dad was a womanizer and she wasn’t going to put up with that and so she left when I was 5 and my brother was 1. My oldest daughter, that’s what she wants–to be a stay at home wife and mother. That’s great. I support her 100%. The difference is, she is choosing that life, it’s not forced upon her. That’s a huge difference. God bless the women who fought for our rights. God bless the women who continue to fight for them.
I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for reading.
–Pam
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just had a conversation earlier with my 30 year old daughter. I was saying that it was expected to marry and perform within the home sphere — for some women it was confining and unsatisfying. For many others, they enjoyed running their home and providing for their family. I know when I was a single parent, working, and going to college, I was superwoman and it was crazy tough. Trying to be two people is not fun. There’s a lot of harmony and symmetry with partnership where one is the breadwinner while the other is the nurturer at home. You are right. It’s a choice and that’s the way it should be.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow… no credit cards? That’s not right…women should have had the same chance to be in the same hole that us men dig ourselves into…
Since we were in 1964…could we not have seen the Beatles before we left? Ok ok…nevermind. We are back.
Fun post Pam
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ha! You know, I actually thought about The Beatles while writing this post. I thought, well, The Beatles came on the scene in ’64 so it wasn’t all bad. Ha!
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading, Max.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good one, Pam! I just want to remind that feminist foundations already existed in the 1950s. “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir is a book that is still quoted today. At the time, she was very lonely with her feminist ideas. Later in the mid-70s, you could say that there was really something like feminism, a lot was actually a parallel to what we have today with the MeToo debate.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Actually, first wave feminism was ushered in during the the women’s suffrage movement dating all the way back to the 19th Century. The stifling of women in the 1950’s, regressing them back to almost Victorian standards, was a reaction to what women had achieved during WWII when they kept the country going doing “men’s” work. Of course, I am writing about the American Women’s Movement.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The movement around the suffragettes in England and the states fought for the rights of white women, but many of them were racists and colonialists who separated themselves from people of different colors like many white men separated themself from their women. While the privilege of men to vote has been abolished since many decades racism still remains part of our society.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good points. All very true.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was 12, so remember the male-dominated society all too well. My dad never did any ccoking, housework, or ironing. If he went out in the evening, he didn’t have to say where he was going, or what time he would be home. If he didn’t come home, he wasn’t expected to explain himself, but he did expect to have some food prepared when he finally turned up.
I watched all this as an observer, and some of that undoubtedly rubbed off on me.
But I also learned a valuable lesson. Home and family depended completely on the women. If it had been left to the men, us kids would have been running barefoot in the streets, hungry and out of control
Best wishes, Pete.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, the standards were very unfair. Women were second class citizens in every way, except they didn’t have to go to war. And that’s big–in my mind anyway. I would be scared to death to go to war–especially as a ground soldier or a marine. But, if given the choice to either be condescended to, told what to do, to be considered inferior, imprisoned in a Stepford Wives domesticity or to scale the bluffs of Omaha beach, I really believe I’d go for the beach. I’m not kidding.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Loved that Pam..today’s young women should be reading this 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, June. I agree. They should. It would help my stats. Ha!
No really, I know what you mean. Things were drastically different for our mother’s–and pretty different for us too. Thanks for reading.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s so hard to believe things like that were still happening in recent history! We’re ALL freaking out about the credit cards! It’s the same incredible thing with interracial marriage. I think it was still illegal in several states up to the early or mid-’60s !!!!!!
My mom was *almost* an exception to some of this. My mom was always into dance and choreography and after Dad was set up, she started her own dance school and then later was asked to choreograph some big shows out here….but that was just about the time my brother and I were 6 and 9, respectively, and I was acting up in school and my brother was doing his stuff–so she stopped. To raise us. And yes, we had to hear about it every single year of our lives after that. But I do feel bad for her. I wish she HADN’T stopped. We might have been juvenile delinquents a little bit here and there but I doubt we would have robbed any banks or anything. Mom was even working with Duke Ellington at one point, a couple years before she pulled the plug. She got to hang out with Billie Holiday! She probably would have been a great choreographer…if she’d jut been born…a little bit later…………….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! That amazing about your mom! Very impressive. Billie Holiday is one of my idols. In fact, I have a poster of her in my bedroom. It’s rare and I payed a fortune to get it framed. My husband was pissed…Ha! But it looks good.
I know you feel bad, but you were just a kid.
My mom worked super hard as a hair stylist raising my brother and I as a single parent. But she only worked 4 days out of the week so she could be with us, more. When I was little I didn’t want her to go to work, but when I got older I was glad when she went–so my brother and I could get away with more stuff. I feel bad about that–so I know what you mean. But this stuff is natural.
Your mom was a great choreographer. She just wasn’t a famous one. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t of done what she did. The twist and turns of fate…We just don’t know.
Yeah, it’s hard to believe how different things were…how much the government could get into our lives when it was/is none of their business. Geez! That stuff always pissed me off.
Interracial marriage wasn’t illegal in my time, of course, but it was frowned upon, at least it was in west Texas. I always thought, what’s the problem? It’s not anti-Christian (some of my family is very religious but, boy, at one time were they prejudice–not my mom).
Anyway…I enjoyed writing this post. Thanks for reading.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, lots of fun! I forgot to say that. This post is hilarious! Yeah, please, please, PLEASE don’t leave me here! I’m getting back on board with everybody else. Get me outta here, lol !!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
No worries I wasn’t fishing for a compliment, but I’m not adverse to them either. Ha!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My mom has always said the only real college options for her were nursing or teaching or home economics (do you remember that ‘major’?) She chose teaching and worked from 1958 all the way into the ’90s.
I’m glad things are different now…but we still have a long way to go.
Thanks for taking us on the ride!
dw
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, DW. Teaching and nursing are great professions, just like being a stay at home mother; the problem is–like you “say” is the lack of options and the narrow expectations.
Thanks for reading, DW.
–Pam
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, BTW, DW, I do remember home economics, but not as a major! Ha! That’s funny. I read about that when I was researching this post. We still had home economics as an elective in high school. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. Ha! Consequently the first pot of pinto beans I cooked were a disaster. Beans were as hard as a rock. There were a lot of very useful things home economics taught–I just didn’t like the optics. On the other hand, my husband took bachelor foods in high school (home economics for the guys). He taught me how to cook. Ha!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Holy crow,this is playing out like a dark episode of the Twilight Zone the way you are writing …..dark days indeed back in the 60s for women and that isn’t even taking account the barriers minorty women faced back in 1964…..can’t wait for the next chapter!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, you are right. Blogger hotfox63 also pointed that out. A lot of minority women rolled their eyes at what they perceived as the trivial travails of the white “American” housewife. It was trivial to them because their lives were so consumed with making ends meet and coping with the systemic racism that permeated every facet of their lives. I understand that. I sympathize with that–empathize with it too, but the women’s movement had to start somewhere. Sadly, if it had started with women of color it most likley wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. Since white women had such difficulties obtaining their rights, can you imagine the insurmountable obstacles women of color would be confronted with?
Oh well, is all debatable, I suppose. I know its sad.
I appreciate your thoughtful comments, Michael.
–Pam
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re very clever the way you use humour to make a serious point. Some of the facts in your post are staggering, and it wasn’t that long ago. I don’t think things were quite as bad here in England. My mum had her own hairdressing business for a few years in the sixties, before she got married. She chose to be a housewife, although she did return to work later in life. It’s funny when I was talking to her the other night I mentioned that I’d never even seen my old man iron a shirt. Men went to work, women looked after the house, in those days.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. The roles were clearly but, in my opinion, oppressively drawn. Of course, it varied from household to household. I have no problem with “traditional marriages,” in some ways, my own marriage is traditional. But it’s my choice. It hasn’t been dictated to me. My husband and I have pretty close to a 50/50 relationship. One thing for sure, he works harder than I do.
Thanks for reading Paul–and for the kind words, of course.
LikeLiked by 1 person