Questioning the Values we Absorbed - pleasant and pretty

Dear Babyboomers
Once I get started on this ie Women's Movement, I have to keep going because it is 'History in the Making" and we were there........ I need to take it through to its conclusion.

What should women have done?
One value which I absorbed, and still has credence was that "If you were pleasant and pretty that you would be OK / rewarded." I almost edit the "rewarded'" aspect but realised that this was all part of the Set-up / Payoff. The movie "Stepford Wives" depicted women / society who went along with all this stuff which in retrospect could be beneficial to both partners in a marriage; but at the same time the feminist movement in the late sixties and seventies was happening.
Educated women fought to separate their identities from the idea of motherhood, knowing that until the two came to be seen as wholly distinct, they would never be taken seriously - and in any case , who wants to be defined by only one aspect of their life?

The Women's Room' by Marilyn French, published 1977, (I actually bought it in a second-hand book store recently) questioned the traditional role of women. Like the main character, Mira, a conventional and relatively submissive young woman who ended up in a traditional marriage and encountered male-female power politics, I had expected to have an equal voice in my marriage.

Young educated women of that time were right on the cusp of change - largely educated by women who endorsed the Women's Movement, and nurtured by home-maker mothers, influenced by the changes and independence the war forced on them. Women needed to move forward from the war experience - and they did - rejecting stereotypes, exploring new possibilities, challenging old limitations and insisting on defining themselves. Women, after realising this independence, wanted to achieve beyond child-raising, home keeping; to where society valued her in a paternal society.

This is still the way it is - but society doesn't value the most important contribution - ie bringing up healthy, well adjusted children to secure the future - not only for them but for past and present generations.

When money became the goal, real values were diminished and women started to think that they needed to adopt the principles in order to be valued. She also demanded the same rights as men, to be able to own property, the ability to borrow money for whatever reason. Women didn't just want to become men - to grow balls - all they needed was to feel that they had the ability to operate in the world with the same rights as men.

Women, those who are able to progress along these inroads, remain few in number. The few who do attain high positions still have to deal with traditional attitudes towards women: the belief that they are less capable than men, sexual harassment and public focus on their appearance and their family responsibilities.

For the majority of women, things have changed even less. A natural order remains to put pressure to get married and have children, and once women are in this position it is very difficult for them to exercise freedom and independence. Within a marriage, women take most domestic and child rearing responsibilities.

It is more possible for women to lead interesting and fulfilling lives these days than it was until the 1970s, but for women who choose this path it is a long and difficult one, and the vast majority do not get to exercise their newfound freedom.

ps I still try to be pleasant and look pretty.

Cheers Clara


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