Difference between revisions of "328--Week 13 Questions/Comments"
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(New page: '''In addition to the interview writing assignment, everyone is expected to look over the other interviews and discuss them in our wiki here. What patterns do you see? What experiences s...) |
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NOTE: You do not need to post about the reading for April 17 (though you are responsible for reading it).''' | NOTE: You do not need to post about the reading for April 17 (though you are responsible for reading it).''' | ||
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| + | When looking through all of the interviews, there were a lot of different trends that stand out. The first thing I noticed was that many of the women who grew up in rural areas had similar experiences in small school houses and growing up with farm life. Some of them noted that they had less technology available to them that many other women, who lived in less rural areas, started using earlier. --Jessica Kilday | ||
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| + | I think it is important to consider geography when looking at some of the different experiences of women in the 20th century. I don’t know how much it was emphasized in my paper, but in my interview with Pat Teevan she said that women were expected to stay at home until they were married, but she didn’t marry. If she stayed in Boston then she would have been expected to live in her parent’s house, that’s why she moved to DC. This was also seen in the interview with Mary Nolan in Pennsylvania, as a single girl, “she never considered getting her own apartment.” When looking at the interviews of many of the women who grew up in the north (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, NY, etc.), it seems like a lot of these women were more likely to be independent. --Jessica Kilday | ||
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| + | I think geography also played an important role in the educational opportunities for many of the women. The women that grew up on a farm often found themselves living the traditional and expected life of wife and mother, while some of the women that grew up in the northeast had more experience with higher learning. ~Juliann Boyles | ||
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| + | After looking through a lot of the papers the trend I noticed was that all these women had some type of education. Also a lot of theme weren't feminists, however their mothers did encourage them to go to school until high school and even a good amount went to college. But a good majority did leave high school get a job and get married, a trend that I noticed is a lot of them had children with in the first year or so of their marriages. There was no wait period like today, some people wait 5-6 years. -- Amanda Taub | ||
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| + | That's true, I wonder if that has do with the fact that everyone here is in college. --Justin Mattos | ||
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| + | It also might have been because that was what the norm was. Since so many didn't go to college they had extra time on their hands and were expected to start to raise a family as soon as they could. -- Kellye Sorber | ||
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| + | My grandma made a point of noting that when she was in high school her mother made sure she learned something she could use later in life. She took shorthand, typing and stenography, all skills used in clerical work, some of the other women I noticed had taken similar courses and took jobs as secretaries. The women in a lot of these papers took the jobs that were saved for women, secretarial and school teachers. My grandma before she even finished school was doing some clerical work, and when she graduated she went into the military but ended up being a secretary in the pentagon. All these women were your typical American women, taking the stereotypical job and then became a homemaker. -- Amanda Taub | ||
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| + | I noticed that as well. It shows how ingrained in society and the belief of these women that these were the jobs that they were meant to do. My grandmother actually ended up combining the acceptable work once her children were in high school by not only doing secretarial work, but doing so for the school system. I found it interesting that so many women did fit into the traditional roles, it shows that the women who pushed the confines of society might not have been as numerous as some sources may portray.- Elizabeth Frank | ||
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| + | That is the strange thing about all of these papers. None of the people that we interviewed were activists, apparently. The majority of them did not believe that a women should work and raise children at the same time, and all of them, apparently, chose to follow typically feminine career tracks, if they worked at all, without any desire to do anything else. --Justin Mattos | ||
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| + | I agree with Justin, it appears most of the women followed the typical path of t he 20th century woman: maybe go to school for a bit (either just high school or some college), get married, have kids, raise the kids, and after the kids have flown the coop, find a hobby. If the woman did decide to work it was typical women's work; clerical positions, teaching or nursing. ~Juliann Boyles | ||
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| + | Commenting on Jessica's point on how northern girls seemed like they were more important. I feel like this could because of the fact that a large portion of the north was cities, NY, CONN is very close to NY, Mass has Boston, with all these cities there are mor job options. Also girls that wanted to get out of their rural homes went to Urban area to find a job an a place to live and as we know there are thousands of apartments women could move into. From what we have learned, women in the past who went to the cities were always more independent, because they had left home. -- Amanda Taub | ||
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| + | After reading accounts of numerous women's lives it becomes quite clear how rare it was for women living during the 20th century to become professionals. Even when these women did go to college and were encouraged by their mothers to be independent, it seemed as if most ended up finding a husband and adapting to his lifestyle. I think that there would be such a drastic difference in the probability of getting an interview with a professional woman today. -- Meredith Bojarski | ||
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| + | I agree many of these women never became anything more than store clerks. I do wonder why they did not try to get a higher profession once society changed slightly. Could it have to do with the fact that many had just grown accustomed to their jobs and enjoyed them? -- Kellye Sorber | ||
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| + | I agree that after reading these accounts it really is obvious how rare it was for women to become professionals. And when I say that, I'm excluding the teaching profession because that was an occupation at the same level. There are a number of women in these interviews who taught, or had the intent to teach, but it was rare for a woman to run off and become a nuclear physicist. --Kelly Wuyscik | ||
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| + | Something I noticed alot in the interviews were how many women actually went to college. That relates a lot to what we've been looking at in this class, because so many women did go to college but it oftened so to be a waist because they didn't really use their education, and that is apparent too in these interviews. Some either thought they were going to college but then suddenly decided to get married instead, or others did go to college and then they got married but still ended up staying home once married or had children. In one interview it talked about how married women didn't work or simply weren't hired as well as didn't come back to work at all once married or pregnant, which is something we've talked a lot about in this class. Even in my own interview, she realized that a lot her friends got married right out of high school and if you didn't then you went off to college.--Michelle M. | ||
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| + | Also I there were several women who experienced war at one point in time in their life, whether it was WWII or Vietnam, they remember it and the affects it had on their family. I liked Jessica's remark about geography, because two of the interviews (maybe more) were women who were from West Viginia, and I thought it was particularly interesting how segregation played no part in their part of the country, and even how her school had a black student body president. I think that is amazing and even goes to prove that racism wasn't everywhere, even though it was wide spread through the country that there was at least once place were it didn't seem to matter. I wonder if there were any other places like that? Because you mostly here about the segragation in the south, well what about the rest of the country?--Michelle M. | ||
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| + | Ashley's interview with Audrey Gunnoe really struck me as different from other interviews of women who grew up in rural areas. The fact that she was discouraged from school and expected to marry so early seems very out of place compared to the US as a whole. I also thought that her transition from the extremes of rural to urban life also made her experiences (her career and later beliefs) stand out from the others. It seemed that so much of what path the others eventually took was determined by where they grew up and what ideals their parents enstilled in them. With Gunnoe this was not the case. -- Meredith Bojarski | ||
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| + | Mrs. Gunnoe is actually my mother, I didn't want to state it out in the interview itself because I wanted it to be about her. I do feel my mom led a very interesting life. I know her mother was nagging all us grand-girls about getting married early and thinks I'm wasting my life with going to college right now. She doesn't treat me like a human unless my husband is with me because I'm worthless without him according to her. However, Mrs. Gunnoe dealt with all that growing up and met my dad and he is just so... not the average guy. He always helped with housework with mom, he encouraged her schooling, had to encourage her A LOT to even think of driving (that was a HUGE no no where she came from). Dad really changed mom's life and showed her that everything didn't have to be stay home and have babies. Which in essence is funny because he grew up not too far from where my mom lived in Cyclone. My mom from when I was little has pushed for both myself and my brother (but more pressure on me... *Sighs*) to get a good education and pick a field of work where I can support myself in case something happens to my husband. --Ashley Wilkins | ||
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| + | Another pattern that I noticed was just how pervasive WWII was on these women specifically because of how many had husbands/boyfriends who served. I don't think that there is the same impact on women today because of how rare it is to hear a woman in college talk about her boyfriend or husband serving. Although it definitely happens it is nothing compared to the recollection of the women we interviewed. All the men, rural, urban, suburban, were serving. The impact of the distance between loved ones seemed more relevant on the memory of these women than the jobs the war opened. -- Meredith Bojarski | ||
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| + | That's true, the difference between the times of the "Greatest Generation" and our own is fairly remarkable in this regard. Maybe if UMW had a ROTC, things would be different? --Justin Mattos | ||
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| + | Yeah, although it is exactly what we read about in class, it is strange and slightly counter-intuitive to read about women whose sole focus was happily their husbands. --Justin Mattos | ||
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| + | I noticed that many of the women fulfilled the role of stay-at-home mother and did so willingly. Many said they enjoyed being home for their children and would not have done anything different if given the chance. I was also surprised by the number of them who said they did not feel presured into that life. - Christine W. | ||
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| + | I was shocked to read about how many women were divorced. We have learned in class that divorce was not common and sometimes even looked down upon yet several of the women interviewed were divorced. I also found it interesting that none of them gave a really solid answer when asked why they got a divorce. Most seemed to just ignore the question all together. - Christine W. | ||
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| + | So far, I have noticed the obvious, the women from wealthy families went to college. Women from poor families did not. | ||
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| + | Jean Fay Scott- divorced … poor…. Worked in a cigarette factory ... did not go to college. | ||
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| + | Heidi Brown- German Immigrant married an American. Poor childhood... no college. | ||
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| + | Molly woody went to college … wealthy family.. family had servants. | ||
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| + | Marye Ostwald went to college… wealthy family.. had servants. | ||
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| + | I also noticed that in two of the interviews, the mothers wanted more for their daughters than they had. | ||
| + | Nikole Wellman | ||
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| + | I also noticed that many of the women interviewed either had their mothers want something better for them or even know they wanted something better for their own daughters. I think part of that might be that although they were happy with the way their life turned out- they realized that there were other things they could have done and didn't want their daughters to be limited based on society's dictations.- Elizabeth Frank | ||
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| + | I think that all these women did what was necessary for their families to survive. I feel that in most cases it is the same today. If the family needs the second income the wife works. Women have always and will always be mothers and wives and will, in most cases, do what the family needs. --Nikole Wellman | ||
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| + | Yeah, but I think today women tend to focus more on being self-actualized which makes being a mother a slightly different concept. Today, there is more than a single way for children to be raised. Then there was only one, the wife stays at home. --Justin Mattos | ||
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| + | I see a lot of the same patterns of women growing up and doing some schooling, some higher, most not... They worked for a while and then had children and in the end stayed home with the children. Some returned to work after the children were out of the nest, some stayed home. There are always breaks in patterns though, like with my mom Mrs. Gunnoe, she stayed home until my brother was almost 2 and went back to work. She stayed home because of the car accident and I was born... she stayed home until I was about 5... but has worked ever since. --Ashley Wilkins | ||
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| + | What I want to say makes sense in my head, so let's see if I can spill it out for you all. What I noticed in these interviews ties in a lot with what some other people said about being happy housewives and mothers. For most of these women, it seemed to me that independence was not a top priority, and when I say independence, I mean the type that most of us strive for today by going to college, getting jobs (professions) and taking our time finding marriage. The idea of an MRS degree still floats around, but it's falling further and further into obscurity these days. These interviews really placed a "face" I guess you could say with the time period. I mean, yes, some of these women did go off and get jobs and help fight in the war, but most of them went into the commonly thought of "female positions." A lot of what we talked about in class seemed to kind of become more apparent for me while reading these interviews. --Kelly Wuyscik | ||
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| + | I think I know what you are getting at Kelly. Like these women did want jobs, education and all but at the end of the day it was also a competition as to who got with the best husband and the best family, house, etc...Girls didn't only have to focus on school but in looking available and pretty for men.- Emely Amaya. | ||
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| + | Overall I think what I liked most about reading these interviews was that these women really were the normal women of the century. While our readings for class are pretty well rounded, when writing my paper I found it extremely hard to find experiences in the readings that would relate to my interviewee because she was not that active and was a military wife, not in the military herself and unfortunately there were no readings about the experiences of military wives (though I think that would have been a very interesting read). So I definitely thought these papers and the projects were useful in giving a realistic face to the women of this century. - Elizabeth Frank | ||
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| + | It seems that most of the women didn’t have any problems with society in their life. Most women accepted their roles and had no regrets with the paths they chose. Today, women read these stories and feel that it was not fair with what women were expected to do. It definitely is based on the time period you were raised. –Ashley Scutari | ||
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| + | With jobs, it seems that women liked their jobs, but felt ok to just leave it if it got in the way of taking care of the family. Some women left their jobs to have children then returned when the children were older. Also, some women went back to school to get an education after they had children. There are still women today that do this. –Ashley Scutari | ||
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| + | I thought it was interesting how many of the women did not seem to identify with the women's lib movement. It seems that a lot of women were satisfied with their choices of staying home with their children in a more "traditional" role. I also thought it was interesting that most of the housewives volunteered in some capacity. My mother volunteered at the schools and through church but she would never consider herself an activist, it seems like some others were the same way. It was really interesting to see that a lot of these women lived similar lives in a lot of ways.~~Mary Beth Conrad | ||
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| + | After browsing all the essays one thing that stood out was how good of a sample this seems to be. There were examples of alot of things we talked about in class. There were examples of poor farming families, independent city women, activists, docile housewives, various roles played by women in WWII, differences in how families were affected by the depression, immigrants, and alot more. I did not expect the essays to be so diverse or so broad in their scope. -- Landon Davis | ||
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| + | It appears that alot of the women were poor growing up, most of them worked at some point or another, most of them quit work when they were married, most of them were married (young), and most of them were fairly well educated more went to college than I expected. -- Landon Davis | ||
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| + | I also noticed that most of them avoided strong language, or at least it was left out of the papers. Again I did not read every word of every essay, but no agressive or controversial lines jumped off the page. -- Landon Davis | ||
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| + | After looking over the essays, I really noticed how all the women seemed to be so affected by their life experiences. I found it particularly interesting the comments some women made about looking at today's feminist movement - I think their perspective adds an important historical element that still largely incorporates the pressures and expectations of the past. - Cat Debelius | ||
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| + | It is clear from our classes sampling that every women had a fairly different life experience. It was amazing to me how different some of the women's stories were... some women happily stayed home while other eagerly pursued other options. I feel like our class's collection of stories is probably very representative of women's lives in the 20th Century. Not all women were revolutionary, progress, or even feminists. - Cat Debelius | ||
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| + | After browsing through the essays, I am wondering if there is a pattern here between the lives of rural verse urban women... I know we have learned about the rural vs. urban experience in class... how accurately is that reflected in these essays? - Cat Debelius | ||
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| + | Good pickup Cat. I noted that the women that had it the most difficult growing up were women living in rural areas, especially those who lived throught the Depression. I liked the one story about the "huckster" who came around and brought the groceries and household goods right to the rural residences. I just learned where a word came from! All that said, my Grandparents were all teenagers during the Depression, and the experience was a drastic one for all of them, both the females and males... perhaps more scarring on many than World War II. At least during WWII, the possiblity of starving or being constantly unemployed seemed to have lessened. - Phil N. | ||
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| + | I used a pseudonym for my mother. I thought that she was kind of conservative, until I read the other interviews. Even the more independent working women... did not appear to feel as if they were working for a movement, they just made the decisions that they made. I didn't read every line of each paper, but I don't recall Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan's names coming up often... and when they did... the women's responses were either negative, or guarded, rather than positive. - Phil N. | ||
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| + | My favorite paper was Justin's about Charlotte Corbett Parker. Being one of the foot soldiers of desegregation, and having all of the white kids ignoring her, must have been difficult. However, she went on to become an accomplished woman and doesn't appear bitter in spite of her difficult encounters with Jim Crow and desegregation. I think there is a lot we can learn as men and women from the civil rights generation of the Fifties and Sixties. It takes a strong person to just ignore the hatred being directed at them and channeling that abuse and treatment into a positive life experience... - Phil N. | ||
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| + | I got the vibe that a lot of these women did understand the importnace of being strong, independent, working women yet also were aware that they had to stay at home to keep their family together. Emely Amaya. | ||
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| + | I think it was Mary Beth's essay in which when she asked why her interviewee why she stopped working and the the answer was "...because i got married". Like hello? common sense! That's what women DO when they get married. - Emely Amaya | ||
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| + | The first thing that stuck out to me was the “restrained feminist” or proud-homemaker voice that many of the interviewees seemed to speak with. Sue Conrad noted she considered herself a feminist because she supported the right to vote, but she preferred life as a homemaker and the doctrine of separate spheres. She viewed some feminists as extreme. Virginia Kyser had a similar opinion, stating the feminist movement carried things too far. Connie Barna believed she was not against feminism but that she herself preferred to stay at home and create a pleasant atmosphere. -- Matt Struth | ||
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| + | Another trend that stuck out to me (and seemed to fit very well with what we learned in class) was the occupations of the interviewees. It seemed like upwards of 90% of the interviewees at some point worked as either a teacher or secretary. -- Matt Struth | ||
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| + | The most interesting essay to me was the interview of Sue Conrad. The discussion of segregation in Sue’s early life was completely the opposite of what I would have expected (she said that at a time when integration was a contentious issue, she attended a majority-white integrated school in West Virginia which a black student as the senior class president). The location and timing of this narrative is surprising, but in a good way. -- Matt Struth | ||
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| + | I read the same thing as Emely. It's interesting that getting married meant that you would quit your job. But what I also thought was interesting was that women who were nurses didn't mention quitting their jobs, at least from what I read. Maybe when you were a nurse, it was easier to combine home life with your job? -Kendall Haring | ||
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| + | The proud homemaker tone did prevail in many of the essays. It seems something these women were so proud of and something I didn't understand until my own interview and reading other people's. Sometimes I think women who want to stay at home are called unambitious or lazy but really, these essays show that it was in fact a job. -Kendall Haring | ||
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| + | I felt that by reading these alot of stereotypes about women in the past were proven true with the few odd women who did not do what was expected because of extenuating circumstances (war, marriage, children, etc.) It did seem like alot of these women were very similar, and like several other people have said, jobs seem to be all the same: nurse, secretary, homemaker. I feel like all these women, although not at all from the same places and walks of life, had very similar experiences and i feel that this reflects the times during which they lived. --Julie Robert | ||
