NYT Article: A Message for Girls about Womanhood

I know I’m not from the cohort of women being discussed in the article on 2 counts - I’m not American, and I’m from the generation before (I had my first child in mid-seventies). And from my perspective, things were different again from the experiences in the article, and from what many of you experienced.

Things were still quite gendered while I was growing up - in most families the woman stayed home with the children, or maybe had a part-time job. Women raised the children really, though from what I saw in my and my friends’ families the fathers were involved, they were absolutely not stand-off or some mysterious authority figure at all. But things were beginning to change - at intermediate school for example (ages 11-13) all pupils, girls and boys, did sewing, cooking, woodwork, metalwork etc.

But the biggest thing in this area for me, was the changing expectations for women by the time I was in mid to late teens and twenties, late-1960s and through the 1970s.
Women’s magazines (and that’s how we mostly got ‘indoctrinated’ into society’s expectations before the internet) were all about the women’s movements. Feminism! Women should go to university! No need to be the traditional nurse, secretary of teacher - women can do anything! Women can do everything! Don’t stay home with the children, become something important!

I very definitely got the vibe that being a homemaker and looking after children was a terrible choice for a woman to make. There’s far more important things for a woman to do than that!

Which left women like me, who wanted to be a teacher and later who wanted to stay home with my small children, feeling very “less than”. We were looked down upon by the women’s movement, we were letting the side down.

There really didn’t seem to be a sense of “women should do whatever they want to do”, it was all about proving we were at least equal to (but really better than) men.

Yes, I agree. Those of us with daughters who are young women need to be able to offer them some hope for the future. It’s difficult, though, when the best advice I can give them is to seek jobs outside their home state.

Yes - this is very much the vibe I got, especially from my mum.

I'm a boomer. So, I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I was encouraged by my mother to be a girly girl. I was not athletic and that lead to a lot of bullying, because the girls in my area were into sports. I couldn't run and was afraid of the ball. Plus, I was short. So, being a girl who played w/dolls was frowned upon. Being a sahm was normal for that time. Once I met a neighbor's mom who worked at a bank. Not only that, she was wearing jeans. OMG! That's when it occurred to me that women can be different and have careers. My dad never let female employees where pants until I worked there part time. I wore nice slacks and a nice shirt and he tried to send me home to put on a dress and I let him have it. The next day females wore pants to work. He got used to it. I told them not to give him the choice.

We were told we were going to college. It wasn't ever up for debate. Despite my mother's strong belief that women should stay home w/their children, they wanted us to be educated. My mother gave up a thriving musical career in order to marry my father and then she was a wife and later a mother. I hated my career and was grateful when I had the opportunity to be a sahm. Nowadays I see it as a luxury, because 2 income families are often so necessary. We had a strict budget and lived in an older home in order to allow me to stay home w/the children. Each one of us must make the choice that works best for us and if applicable, our families.

The NOW movement denigrated men. It did what we didn't want men to do to us. So, it made no sense to me. If I had burned my bra I would have hit myself in the face everytime I jumped up. Yes. Women should have equal pay and equal rights, but being aggressive and hateful isn't the way to get there. In my region women make as much as men. Women are often bosses and even CEO's. So, I've never experienced that gender gap in the workforce. I managed men and usually had female bosses. Plus, I made as much as my male colleagues.

I love having the door opened for me and I like it when a man pulls out my chair. Some of the old fashioned traditions are good things, imho. I don't like sexual harassment or being made to feel invisible when 2 men are talking to eachother. "Let the menfolk speak. You just iust sit there and look pretty." My mother was very old fashioned. She would tell us that women should wait until marriage, because they could control themselves. However, men have needs. Men are just being men when they have sex before marriage, but women are being tramps. I took human sexuality in college and boy was she ever wrong. Female sex drives can be much stronger than men. Who knew?

I don't feel that I'm a minority. I have a voice and I'm not afraid to use it.

I don't ever feel less than, because I'm a woman, but that might be due to my life experiences as a woman. Then again, I have no problem standing up for myself. For those women who have had problems due to gender my story might seem unusual.

And for me it’s the exact opposite, mine needs to stay right HERE, or in another equally blue state, if she expects to have any bodily autonomy at all.