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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Babyboomer Women Influenced by Women's Movement

Hi R, and other friends
R wrote - For some reason I have never been a good lister (is that a word?). Maybe it's because I don't like being told what to do, even by myself. Now my husband, HE likes lists, especially grocery lists. He also likes to dictate while I dutifully take the dictation. It must be the boss, secretary relationship between men and women that he revels in and I rebel against. Another problem with lists is I lose them. They just seem to disappear. Never the less, I will start a list of COG words for you.

Clara says:- Thank you. There is, as usual, so much of what you write which triggers my jostling ideas, but the winner today has to be the relationship between men and women, since I have just read another article re Germaine Greer, from SMH 'Call to a New Generation' - Gabriella Coslovich.

I would like to state my position re the Women's Movement. I am not a women's libber or against men, nor do I believe either gender is better or more important, just different. However, we were young adults in 1970 when Greer's 'The Female Eunuch' was published, and we lived and were no doubt influenced within this climate of change for women.

Paraphrasing this article - Germaine wanted the book to provoke, polarise and galvanise, "...if it is not ridiculed or reviled, it will have failed it's intention", she wrote in the introduction. She incited a generation of women, US, to ponder the significance of their lives, challenging concepts of marriage (domestic servitude), the nuclear family, the obligation to breed, and the culture of sexual harassment. She encouraged women to study, to become doctors, pilots and even fashion designers, stating that being successful was not incompatible with 'femininity'. 'The Female Eunuch' was then and has remained symbolically important, giving a generation of women, US, the impetus for change.

Greer monopolised the limelight with her brash behaviour but it was left to other second wave 70's feminists, such as Eva Cox, leading spokeswoman for the Women's Electorial Lobby, and it's current chairwoman, to effect changes such as domestic violence and sexual assault laws, equal pay legislation, no-fault divorce, unpaid maternity leave, child support and anti-discrimination laws. Cox says,"...she had her role to play and she played it well. Greer galvanised, others organised."

I now see how different we were from previous generations of women, but did we realise how different our underlying idealism and expectations were? How much influence did the movement have on our expectations of our men, who were probably bewildered by the difference from their motherly example of domestic goddess / slave and their wives, US!

Cheers Clara






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< Welcome to my journey as I photograph something I create everyday for a year... RRT

What a Difference a Day Makes...March 9th

Necklace of copper and jasper with shard pendant

What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours. I feel a song coming on. Necklace of copper and jasper with shard pendant.

Clara - Where has that sun gone? The background is wonderfully bleak and your piece very significant and bold in the foreground. What is shard?






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