I've referenced the shopping habits of the elderly in my previous post, "The Maddening Lack of Shame in Women", and it is with this thought I'd like to begin this post.
We've all seen old folks shop for groceries at 5 in the morning, and the reason behind it is very simple: modern parents drive them absolutely mad. They understand these people who stumbled upon parenthood merely by getting too drunk one night indeed have a communicable affliction. It goes by many names, but for now let us call it "obliviousness".
Older folks have been around long enough to know how quickly this affliction can infect one another, and it is why they distance themselves from large crowds.
They also know the culprit for this whole mess is Kleenex.
At one point in our country’s history, schoolchildren were expected to carry handkerchiefs on their person. It subconsciously made students aware that personal hygiene was their own responsibility, and taught that privacy and discretion were quality traits expected by society.
These ideals carried over into adulthood: men carried practical handkerchiefs in their pockets, and often fashioned silk into a breast pocket as a sign of social stature when they dressed for an occasion. Women carried lacy versions in their purses, though it was understood this was meant to be used only as a last resort, because runny mascara is simply impossible to get out of eyelet seams.
The measure of offering a hanky to a disparaged woman, as was expected of any gentleman, was a universal sign of chivalry, sympathy and goodwill. It was the ultimate speed date: whether or not a handkerchief was monogrammed, the quality of the stitching and the type of fabric he’d chosen told a woman how financially well- off her potential suitor was. The brush of a man’s hand when accepting the hanky gave women a hint of his hygiene and profession. And how long he allowed the woman to hold his hanky told her a great deal of his patience and interest in her.
In turn, offering a hanky allowed men to begin an otherwise very personal conversation. Since a handkerchief was offered in emotional situations, it gave men the chance to gauge how dramatic a woman might be in high- stressed situations, or even what she deemed as stressful, often very telling of her childhood and family values.
Once she accepted the hanky, he might sit next to her or place a hand on her back as an additional means of support: if she allowed this, it could be a sign she’s single. It could also give men a better idea of her style and fabric preferences, and how expensive she might be to maintain.
Following this experience, chemistry could be assessed and an invitation to coffee could ensue. If all worked out, they would be married in a year.
Try pulling a crumbled- up Kleenex from your pocket and offering it to a crying woman.
Not quite the same gesture, is it?
For that matter, try finding a man who carries Kleenex at all.
Kleenex goes back as far as 1924, when Kimberly- Clark began to offer women a disposable tissue to remove cold cream and makeup. Before long customers began to comment how convenient these were for wiping noses and the company’s market went in a whole new direction, and the product flew off the shelves.
It paved the way for the Q-tip, which came along in 1926, and later, the paper towel, an absorbent tissue paper intended for use only once before it was discarded. This replaced the unsightly household rags we’d been using for years to clean our windows and walls, which despite repeated washings kept the thought of our home’s filth at elbow’s reach and therefore always in our minds.
That’s it: the cleanliness of our households, and our persons, used to be always on our minds.
But as appearances would become so vital in proper society of the 1950’s, discarding our waste was deemed of higher importance than ever before.
Housewives of the 1950’s had an easy life compared the struggles of their mothers, who suffered the Depression and the subsequent Dust Bowl, but these women would have deemed even the rationing of the 1940’s as better life.
World War II efforts were so extensive our government limited the amount of various items one could purchase because of high military demand: coffee, tea, butter and meat were rationed so deployed troops could eat. Even sugar was rationed, because its byproduct (ethyl alcohol) was turned into fuel for gunships and dynamite.
Thanks to this, mothers had become creative: enter Spam, Jell-O pie, fortified margarine, and the old standby in times of hardship, chicken pot pie.
Women gave up nylons as silk; wool, rayon and cotton were collected from neighborhoods and used to make parachutes, tents and military clothing. People were even encouraged to donate scrap metal- even brand new car bumpers- for the building of military hardware.
Though the government encouraged women with young children not to enter the workplace unless they’d exhausted all other options for means of survival, 19 million housewives and mothers flocked to replace men called to kill off Nazis. Many worked long hours in dirty, hot, unventilated factories building tanks, planes and ships- all without the many comforts we enjoy today under the Family Medical Leave Act (1993); the Civil Rights Act (1964, 1968); the Age Discrimination Act (1967); the Sex Discrimination Act (1984).
But in the summer and fall of 1945, men returned home to their families and sweethearts, creating a marriage boom, a baby boom, and an economic boom. We’d beaten the Nazis and saved the world: morale was at an all- time high.
Now that the men were back to take the reins, women returned to their kitchens and household duties; some, happy to be rid of dreary and dirty factory life; others, sad to be going back to the grind after having a life and a voice- some for the first time- outside the home.
But they’d have to deal with any perceived demotion some twenty years hence during the Sexual Revolution: now they had shiny new… well, everything they’d never had before.
Suddenly, women all over the country had their first house during the “white flight” to suburbia. Every family would own a brand new car in short order. Soon, women who grew up knowing strife and want would own new furniture, a television, washing machine and toaster, and would decorate their kitchens in soothing blues, yellows and greens.
They had new shiny appliances: food mixers, hair dryers, electric sewing machines, fridge/ freezer combos. With the advent of saran wrap, nonstick pans and instant ice tea, came obligatory fondue and Tupper wear parties and church socials.
Now that rationing was over, Americans had everything they never knew they wanted at their fingertips.
And they had to do it with perfect hair.
At least that’s the way it seemed in Look magazine and The Saturday Evening Post.
But common of the day was kind of female servitude deemed laughable and even offensive by today’s standards. Conditioning for being a “good wife” began in high school, as shown in the following excerpt from a 1954 home economics textbook:
· Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal, on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
· Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so that you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your makeup, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift.
· Make the evening his. Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure, his need to be home and relax.
According to the now- defunct magazine Housekeeping Monthly, a good wife’s goal should be to make the home “a place of peace and order where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.”
These “duties”, of course, were not for want of nothing; husbands, in turn, were expected by their wives, their children, and certainly by society, to maintain fulltime employment and pay all the household bills. They were expected to make all the arraignments for little Johnny’s college tuition and annual family vacations, and deal with plumbers, electricians, noisy neighbors, crank callers, insurance agents and car problems.
All in all, it’s not a bad trade- off.
But the stresses of that homemaking, mixed with the very relevant red- baiting and blacklisting of feared Communists, the threat of nuclear fallout, not to mention girdles, petticoats and corsets, crying babies and now the f*!&ing cookies burned, caused total mental meltdowns, and wives felt distant from the outside world, lonely and overanxious.
Their husbands had his nightly Gin and Tonic to relieve his stress.
Women had valium.
What become known as a “mother’s little helper” kept women calm and quiet for most of the 50’s, until its affects were replaced by the socially- friendly marijuana in the late 60’s.
By then women had spent a decade stoned out of their gourds.
But 1960’s society freed women from the oppressive duties of baking casseroles and waxing floors: The Beatles, The Graduate and The New Left gave birth to a braver, looser and more vocal society. Men burned their draft cards as women worked to change their status as a mere homemaker.
And they did it without their girdles, their curlers or their bras.
Today’s “people of Wal-mart” ought to take note: not wearing a bra was meant as a social statement, symbolizing freedom from rigid 50’s life. It is not an option if you are larger than 200 pounds. And it should be an offense punishable by public stoning if you’ve had more than two kids.
That once- revolutionary social statement has since morphed into a new kind of overpowering feminism that permits hairy legs, unwashed hair, pit- stains and ill-fitting clothes. And by “permits”, I mean “burns holes in our corneas every time we turn a corner but we’re not allowed to say anything”.
By the time the 1980’s rolled around, pot and valium had moved to the backburner as means of recreational entertainment (though clearly not used enough) thanks to numerous anti- drug programs publicized by Nancy Reagan and the Rockers Against Drugs PSA’s. Besides, the new threats of Russians lobbing nukes at the Heartland clearly outlined the dangers of being mellow.
Were women to not have given up their drugs and provided such incredible upheaval, the great social changes of that decade might never have happened. By this time, women had found a new drug, and it has proved more addictive than any other the country had known: pity.
The term “feminism” goes back as far as 1895. It is defined as an “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests”, and it began as a spearhead for the woman’s voice in a world of suffrage and domination.
The cause began with women gaining employment in fields once dominated by men, went on to provide anti-discrimination support and equal rights under the law, then on to break the glass ceiling, and eventually peaked with feminine- laced legislation we are likely to suffer for years.
Through the struggle, what did women find?
They found a louder voice, and greater influence over office politics, business policy and legislation than ever before. They found greater affluence, greater pull over household decisions and finance.
They found Victoria’s Secret, Maybelline and the Power Suit.
They also found themselves negotiating hostile takeovers 50 hours a week. They found themselves out of touch with their two kids, their two cars and their two televisions.
They also fell out of touch with their traditional place in the home: cookbook sales plummeted while frozen dinners and fast food- early precursors to the obesity phenomenon 20 years hence- found a new place at the kitchen table.
Family finance began to include buying everything on credit; and now that many women brought home just as much, and sometime more, bacon than their husbands, newly fangled superstores enjoyed a surge in sales as in- store plastic saw a peak in popularity.
What women forget during all of this was the honor once found in homemaking.
Women forgot that ruling the home was just as important, if not just as life altering, as the good ole boys club that debated war and trade in smoking rooms and Senate halls. After all, the home is where future leaders are first suckled, reared and taught. It’s the one place that gives the men that go on to rule councils and nations their first spanking, first taste of a chocolate chip cookie and first definitions of comfort after mom tucks them into bed on crisp, freshly- washed sheets.
Women forgot that ruling the home is not a perpetual state of infancy or second- class citizenship.
Women had begun to turn their husbands into sniveling Al Bundy’s who tiptoed around their wives’ monthly cycles lest they be faced with another self- help book or women’s group meeting in the living room. Children began to turn into gelatinous masses demanding more of everything, as they sat in awe before the birth of MTV and Atari.
And then there was the music: a scene dominated by spike heels, lipstick and lots and lots of hairspray.
And sometimes the women dressed up, too.
But women had finally done it: they had effectively turned their men into women, and no genre was immune: Michael Jackson, Motley Crue and The Oak Ridge Boys all adorned their album covers dressed like dolls and in rouge and eyeliner.
Television shows of the 1980s should have erased any doubt that feminism also had begun to take over the FCC either by direct involvement, or through any number of watchdog groups like the PMRC and Parents Television Council.
Hardened John Wayne- types that stared in Bonanza and The Untouchables had virtually disappeared from Hollywood. Instead, even the most intense cop shows were replaced by inticing studs of 21 Jumpstreet and Miami Vice and the female- friendly Cagney and Lacey.
Funny men Jackie Gleason and Red Skelton were replaced with the sexier Dennis Miller and Eddie Murphy.
Matriarchy overpowered male- geared advertising with the saturation of tampon and shampoo commercials, Golden Girls, and the precursor to sensitivity training, the After School Special.
Even the NFL suffered a feminine overhaul with the introduction of ridiculous- sounding penalties that included ‘grasping a facemask’, ‘taunting’, and ‘late arrival on the field’, and later, feminine- laced products endorsed by the league, the latest of which includes Febreeze, the “official air freshener of the NFL”.
Feminine values have even infiltrated the DMV: the Department of Transportation is permitted by law to refuse issuing any license plate that could be deemed offensive to good taste, whether a requested personalized plate or a random combination of letters and numbers.
Feminization has also invaded nature: male fish in several major river basins throughout the nation are exhibiting female characteristics, to include laying their own eggs.
Even our cars are feminized; nagging one just like a wife with loud buzzers and bells that ring for every little discretion from leaving the lights on, to failing to strap your 8 year- old into his car seat within an inch of his life.
Black studies, women’s studies, children’s studies and media studies were new fields gaining credibility in matters of legislation and society. Women ruled the country.
The only bastion of true manliness to have survived is the jock strap aisle at Dunham’s.
It became a world unlike any humans had known before. Trends began to turn towards public welfare, as seatbelt, helmet and child safety seat use became mandatory though out the nation. Cigarette ads began to disappear from magazines, billboards and television. After school specials taught our kids to Just Say No to sex- because you’ll surely get AIDS and die- and drugs, because they come from places like Columbia, and once we declared Satan having left Russia, it was surely the only place he had left to go.
Conservative Christians, also known as the Christian Right, also rose to popularity in the 1980’s. Hardly fast friends with feminists, they did at least agree on the evil of sexuality during the anti- pornography movement.
But the similarities ended there: the Christian right was terrified of feminists, simply, because they spoke. They didn’t stay home to take care of the children. The asserted their own thoughts and insisted on recognition. So when AIDS gave these puritan values a shot in the arm, it seemed to prove them correct: sex had become dirty- and not the good kind.
And so, enter the stereotype of the frigid feminist: a busy body so eternally turned off and uninterested in sex with men that her only emotional release is in supervising the lifestyles and choices of other people. Modern women had been raised to be sexually independent, but the fear of STDs and seemingly the reasonable religious and feminist arguments, coupling would just have to wait.
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