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| | THIS WEEK'S DISCUSSION IS ABOUT THE PAPERS TURNED IN, NOT THE READING. You are still responsible for the reading, but the posting should be about the papers. A link to the papers will be emailed to you by Wednesday, April 14. | | THIS WEEK'S DISCUSSION IS ABOUT THE PAPERS TURNED IN, NOT THE READING. You are still responsible for the reading, but the posting should be about the papers. A link to the papers will be emailed to you by Wednesday, April 14. |
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| − | NOTE: You do not need to post about the reading for April 15 (though you are responsible for reading it).
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| − | Class discussion: We will pick up the wiki discussion during class on Tuesday, April 20.
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| − | '''What patterns do you see? What experiences stand out? Did these interviews challenge or meet with the trends we've talked about in class?'''
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| − | I definitely see that '''"typical housewife and mother"''' trend with a majority of the women interviewed. The women who did work either had to work for economic reasons or because they really enjoyed their jobs. I think only one woman regretted working because she hadn't been able to focus on her kids and another felt bad about it at the time because it just wasn't what society expected. However, there were a few women who focused on a higher education and a professional career, whether they stayed single or got married later. With some exceptions, the trend was to work in female positions (i.e. nursing, teaching). Overall, I think it's important to note that most of these women can look back on their lives and are proud of how they lived them; even those who went with the flow and were homemakers. -- CBrau
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| − | I agree with CBrau. I was surprised by how many other women had experiences that were similar to the woman that I interviewed. Like CBrau stated, '''women seemed to enter into nursing and teaching the most, but it seemed like they were forced into these positions for lack of opportunity elsewhere.''' It also seems like most of the women were forced into these positions because their fathers or husbands believed that they would be starting a family and spending money on an education was wasteful. --Anna Holman
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| − | I thought it was very interesting and amusing that in Alices' paper, Lois Wagner had miniature army corps suits and have fake machine guns and little did they know that the real women in the WAC never saw any action in battle. Also, these were just young girls and had no idea of a feminist movement or what women were going through at this particular period yet they were supporting the efforts of women, even if they were too young to understand. -afrisk
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| − | I loved the story about the WAC suits! Normally you would think of boys putting on uniforms and imitating soldiers, and yet here was a little girl doing it. I've honestly never thought about little girls being interested in the military or what children had to balance during WWII ("fun and fear"). -- CBrau
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| − | I saw many similarities between the women who were interviewed including the roles they had as mothers, wives, and women in the workforce and society. I definitely saw the pattern of many women who worked in the domestic sphere who also sometimes worked in careers outside the home. '''Most of the women seemed to have had children of the baby boom generation or were baby boomers themselves.''' In Dvorak's paper, the woman she interviewed challenged some of the trends of the time by focusing on her education and career of dentistry rather than on finding a husband and starting a family right away. I also noticed in Rowley's paper, the woman got a divorce about the time in the 1960s that we talked about in class when there seemed to be a high divorce rate. I think it's interesting so see the similarities between the people who were interviewed but good to also note that all of their stories are still unique in their own way. -Avanness
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| − | The similarities between the women interviewed are clearly defined, many became mothers and housewives right after graduation and a few had careers but the majority of women thought they should fulfill the roles they were told to. They produced the children who led further reforms for women and '''I saw in a few papers such as Mary Ann's the women, who produced the baby boomers, did not have time to be politically active and brushed it aside'''. It reminded me of the woman I interviewed who admitted they were too tied up in their worlds to pay attention to outside influences. In a few papers I thought the women who were single mothers and able to support themselves and children were leaders of the Women's Movement even if they did not openly admit it. Those women started the trend towards independence and without their mark in the workplace and challenging "male dominated roles" women may not have acheived what they did in the 1960-1970s era. I agree with Avanness it is important to note that even with all the similarities all of the women were exceptional in their stories. -Megan W.
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| − | I agree with the sentiments already expressed here, that the majority of women who were interviewed and written about had similar experiences and how interesting that is. '''It also seemed that many of these women remembered feeling alone''' in their struggle to maintain the family and the struggles to either work or not to work. I find this very interesting because many of these women had friends who were having similar struggles, but I think that earlier in the 20th century talking about and sharing the daily struggles that individuals went through was not considered appropriate. I would have thought that these women would not have felt so secluded and alone in their struggle, but I think they lived in a different world than our generation does now and I think technology plays a major role in that openness that is seen now. These women were not raised in a technologically based culture and the technology that was around literally was new and never seen before which sometimes made life more difficult than it needed to be.
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| − | I also found it interesting that these women remember the role of women as housewives and mothers, and some of them had fonder views of those roles than others. A few thought of housework as something other than unpaid labor (just something they had to do that didn’t affect the structure and stability of the family) and I think that those would remembered it as something they were expected to do rather than what they wanted to do voluntarily seemed to remember it less fondly. Would anyone else agree? Maybe I’m reading too far into things. --jmarshal
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| − | As I read through these papers, many of us focused on working women because I think that is something that changed continuously throughout the 20th century. The trends of women working never remained the same; they changed almost decade to decade. It seemed that many of the women interviewed returned to work after raising their children and I think for most women that was a way of raising self-esteem, that women were capable of being both a wife and a career women. '''I think the idea of women not working because of the influence it would have on their children was another recurring trend.''' In Taylor Brann’s paper, she talked about a woman who left her job in the 1980s to take care of her children. It was almost socially unacceptable for women to even think of balancing work and a career at the time, espeically when the focus was transitioning more and more towards the family. Although I say that most experiences seemed similar, I think some stood out, such as Meg’s interview and Fitch’s interview. In both these interviews, the women they interviewed seemed to have no problem finding jobs or even moving into the professional world and I think that was definitely a step in the right direction. These women seemed to have defied some of the odds against women, especially for Meg's interviewee, who worked as a dental professional. Another noticeable feature was the jobs women traditionally took on. Many of them were related to nursing, or clerical work. Along with everyone else, it amazed me that although these women lived their life at different times in the 20th century, their experiences were quite similar, with history being passed down from generation to generation. -- Alex M.
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| − | First, I’d like to add a detail to my own paper that was in my footnotes, but since the footnotes did not show up in Google Docs, I want to say it here, because I think it’s important. Why exactly Lois left Mary Washington is uncertain, since in previous conversations I’ve had with her, she claimed that the school kicked her out for getting married. Though, if it’s true that the school kicked her out, I’m under the suspicion that it’s more likely because she was pregnant. However, when I sat down with her in the interview, she changed the story to the one presented in the main body of my paper. In the long run, it doesn’t change the fact that she has no regrets about never finishing college, but it would effect how we view the college’s policy towards such a situation.
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| − | On a different topic, '''I found it interesting to see the women’s reactions to the feminist movement.''' Ms. Blalock outright opposed the movement, not because she objected to women working or equality between men and women, but because she saw it as detrimental to children. There is no denying the authority she has on the subject of children, having been an educator for so long, but it makes me think of our earlier discussions of how someone always sees the American family as being on the brink of failure. Other women, like Deb Lee and Sue Ward, don’t seem to particularly dislike the movement, but it did not appear to really play much into their lives, which judging from my own interview as well, seems typical. - Alice W
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| − | Ms. Bobbi Blalock had an interesting outlook on women’s view of the family. She seems to have traditional views based in older generations. Though this is not prevalent in the other interviews, it does seem striking because she placed a strong importance on the woman being in the home and that offering security to children. It does make me question if the brashness of the 1960’s and 70’s was a little too over the top for some women. -Mhimes
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| − | '''Some women, including the one I interviewed, struggled with maintaining their careers and being mothers at the same time'''. Working mothers have struggled with maintaining both for many decades, but for the most part (aside from WWII), society was against them working. As was mentioned in the lecture (which I wish I could have used in my paper), society’s view on working women began to change in the 1960s and 1970s. Some women, as the papers showed, managed to balance work and family and do it successfully, and for once they had the backing of the public while they were doing it. Daycares, for instance, were a great help in maintaining this balance. However, many mothers still struggled with the balance, and while they had society more willing to support them working, they now had a new ideal to live up to. My interviewee, for instance, drove herself into depression in her attempt to “have it all,” and she believes that the media helped trick women into thinking they can do it all. -- Taylor Brann
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| − | It is interesting how strikingly similar the experiences of many of the interviewed women were. Among the slew of really well written papers that I read, I focused on three in particular, Taylor Braun's, Catherine Brau's, and Ellen Fritz's paper. These three interviewees shared a similar view to each other in the fact that they rejected or simply cared not to participate in the NOW movement and women's liberation. In Braun and Fritz's papers the women felt that they wanted to focus on raising their children and maintaining a healthy family. In Brau's paper, her interviewee had very little time to devote to the women's lib movement, though, like my interview subject, she was involved in the anti-war movement. These women expressed many of the concerns and comments that we have been discussing in class about a women's balance between domestic and public life, with their family and work, and the roles they played in all of these arenas. I appreciated how some of the other papers focused on the academic efforts that their interviewees pursued. My interviewee also received a college degree and returned to school later in life to pursue her law degree. What I thought was really interesting is that my interviewee felt that she did not live the “typical” life that many baby boomer women did, but after reading these papers, her answers turned out to be so similar to many of the others. I agree with Megan to an extent about how the women fulfilled the roles that they were “supposed to” fill, but some of them really seemed to want that life. In Taylor’s paper, her interviewee felt guilty and wrong for returning to work once the children were in school. It seems that some of the women did not want to fulfill the typical roles but others seemed content in their actions. -Caryn
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| − | Coming off what Caryn said I think it is interesting that her subject felt that her experiences were not typical yet this project showed that alot of women had similar experiences. I think it reflects that perhaps some women felt they were alone in there desire to continue there life after children and marriage. It reminded me of Betty Friedans article where she found women discussing this "unnameable problem" as if it were taboo. I know my interviewee felt isolated in her experiences as a working mother and eventually a divorcee yet this study shows that many women were dealing with the same issues. But i do think it is interesting that the subjects would feel like there experience was atypical of other women, yet in reality it may not have been. -Emma
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| − | Like Caryn, I noticed that a lot of the women had similar life experiences, or that there were at least some common themes among a lot of the papers. '''The fact that so many women were happy being housewives always strikes me, because I always revert to the image of the depressed and oppressed mid-century wife and mother.''' Yes, some women felt restricted by that life, but not all, and we shouldn't forget that many women were happy when we look at what, to many of us, appears to have been a pretty limiting situation. Socioeconomic status also played a huge role in these women's lives in terms of the education and opportunities open to them but also in the expectations set for them. For example, Women whose parents had some money were expected to go to college, meaning that they probably weren't marrying while still in high school. Finally, '''many of the women broke traditional norms in different ways, from not marrying at all, to going to dental school, to raising children as a single parent.''' The big name leaders of the women's rights movement did a lot, but it's really the collective actions of all of these everyday women that created the more egalitarian society we have today, yet most of them seem largely unaware of the changes they were helping to bring about. -Mary Ann
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| − | I agree with Mary Ann how it can be a little surprising to hear how women could be happy being housewives. I''' think sometimes in class we forget that many people were happy with society's expectations.''' This ties back into what we talked about earlier in the semester with paid vs. unpaid work. It is interesting how some of the woman took the role of being a mother as the focus on their life, while others did not seem to compare it to a job at all. There seems to be a little difference in how some of the women who raised kids view their life versus the way those who choose not to, though really each woman is just as much of an individual regardless of what choices they made. -J Rowley
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| − | Even if women were limited to specific fields when trying to obtain work, I found that many were working for at least a point in their lives. Many of these women were middle class and attended high school and even college. Most women got jobs after college or after high school and either kept working or got married. It seems like a fair amount of women stayed in the home, but it was becoming less expected of them and many worked even if they were also raising families. There were a few single mothers and they worked mostly because they had no choice and were the sole provider's for their family. Working women were certainly becoming more prominent. -afrisk
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| − | Many of these women had similar life experiences regarding their role in the latter half of the 20th century. '''What I found fascinating was that the women that had children at an early age often sought a career after their children were older. These women found a second life at the age of 40 or 45 in which they had raised their family and now had the opportunity and freedom to pursue their dreams.''' Additionally, these women have the benefit of life experiences which would affect their choices for the future. The professional women who had gone to college right from high school often waited to their late 20's or early 30's to start a family and then were either forced to choose between their career or their kids; or to put their children into daycare. They are also more financially secure and stable than the women who married at a young age. Who's to say which option is better. Women, unlike men in society, are forced to be put in the position of making these decisions and living with any ramifications. - EFritz
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| − | So, reading through a couple of these papers, I started to notice a trend around the third paper of women who were being (what is recognized today as) oppressed, but never really felt that it was that much of an issue to them. By that I mean, most of these women recognized that "women" in general were not permitted the same opportunity as men, but that it wouldn't affect them (Holman’s paper even says “Although she never felt restricted from any job she desired, she did observe that there were only so many positions open to women.8” which I think perfectly exemplifies my point). And of these women, I have to say, it seems to have produced a biased opinion that it worked out for every woman. I feel like these women in particular were very successful in their lives. They are now fairly old, have lived a long life, and seem to not fret and worry about the money or other particulars in their lives now. Maybe their life wasn't always easy, but it still says something that they made it to be over the age of 55. I think sometimes it is forgotten that that is a huge life accomplishment, to be old. I think it also may have been to the benefit of these women to ignore the fact that the oppression of women may affect them, because if they ignore it, then they can surpass it. As all of the women who are mentioned in the 4 papers, (Holman, Brau, Whiteaker, Makarios) in particular that I noticed this trend of not noticing the oppression of themselves in, have done. It also really surprises me that no one above me seemed to have noticed this. –ssellers
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| − | As most people have stated, I noticed a lot of similarities between a lot of the papers I read. I noticed that a lot of women worked and attended school. After doing my own interview and comparing it with the trends discussed in class, it feels like more women were able to attend school than actually did. I agree with a lot of what Taylor stated above, "Some women, including the one I interviewed, struggled with maintaining their careers and being mothers at the same time." This was a trend I noticed as well among the papers. It appears that a lot of these women who were interviewed either had to work or chose to work, but there was some ultimate cost to it. Whether it was relationships or their own health. I think that Sarah brings up a good point that I myself did not catch until reading her post. '''A lot of these women are old and their opinion is biased. My interviewee for example never once stated that her situation was hard, even though she worked as a full-time nurse, with four children and a husband who was a doctor and in the navy. I think that a lot of time as older people look back, things might not seem as bad as they were.''' -abratchi
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| − | There seemed to be trend in which the women in these interviews maintained motherhood and work so well in spite of society saying that you cannot achieve both. These women overcame challenges, heartaches, and divorce and at the same time embraced life, love, and raised their children. The women coming out of middle class families had more opportunities. I recognized the shift in expectations and push for oneself to go to college in these women’s experiences also. But I agree with Sarah, these are reflective memories, so we can't get a total feeling of what that person felt at that time, it's more glossed over sometimes. I think it's important to remember that we only captured pieces of their lives in the interview. There was a lot of really interesting things that I couldn't all fit in 2 pages, did anyone else have that problem? -MHimes
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| − | I found it fascinating that despite the geographical location, '''many of the women who shared similar socioeconomic statuses had similar experiences.''' For example, Mrs. Ripley, who Megan interviewed, seemed to be a well-off woman from the South. She had a very similar story to the upper class Northern woman that I interviewed. The main difference I found was that the Northern woman I interviewed was very progressive, while the Southern woman Megan interviewed seemed to be more conservative. – Erin Sanderson
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| − | A very surprising trend that I noticed was how easily many of these women would drop what they were doing to get married! Alice Wagner, for example, described the life of Lois Wagner who was attending Mary Washington and quit school in her junior year to get married. This is similar to the person I interviewed who got a highly prestigious grant to do medical research at the Rockefeller Institute for sickle cell anemia and methadone, but met her husband and chose not to attend Rockefeller Institute. '''These women put so much work towards their education, and they just stop as soon as they got married.''' That is why I am not surprised that the U.S. Government eventually saw women as a misused resource. – Erin Sanderson
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| − | I noticed many of these women working as secretaries or doing work in the clerical field. Two worked as secretaries in the government and these were jobs that were deemed as "acceptable" by society. This seems to follow the trend of what we learned in class in that women worked, but they were often confined to specific jobs. Nursing seemed to be another one of those "accepted" positions and through the papers, it seemed as if it was very female dominated. It seems like after and around and during the war, women were confined by societies expectations to specific jobs, but over the years, thos restrictions lifted and they have spread their skills. -afrisk
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| − | I found a great variety in the interview papers that we as a class created. In some interviews the women held tight to those typical roles of women in the early 20th century as mothers and wives. Others challenged the trends, either by fate or their own ambitions and tried to maintain an independent and family lifestyle at the same time. I noticed a pattern in the lives of the women as they fought the battle of being a working women or a housewife. These were the two extremes to being a woman, and many tried to have both but more times than not returned to being a housewife in the long run. A few challenged the trends of being a “normal” housewife by either unintentional manner’s like Rowley’s and Smethurst’s interviewee’s did by trying to balance being a mother and an independent women. Both, while having children, continued with their education and motherly duties. Other’s such as Leckner’s interviewee and my grandmother conformed to the prescribed roles at the time; marrying young, having children, and never working. While even others were neither part of one or the other extreme. Brau’s interviewee was the perfect example of a women who was somewhere in the middle. She did not get married, even after the loss of her finance and earning herself a degree. At the same time though, she took care of the household at a young age and then always took care of family when they fell ill. The experience that stood out to me most was that Brau’s interviewee was seen as “self-fish” when she finally started taking care of herself and spending money on herself. One the most important life lesson’s I’ve learned so far has been to first take care of myself and then others. We as women always put others before ourselves and sacrifice our own happiness. No one should have to do that and that was just what these women were battling with, trying to make themselves and their family happy at the same time; a battle that is still fought on today in the hearts of many women. -Morgan
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| − | I really enjoyed reading all of these interview assignments. For me, this has been the most interesting part of the course because these women who were interviewed provide us with a direct link to the past and reflect many of the themes we have covered. The main theme I recognized in most of these are the stereotypes in the roles of women, more specifically their role in the house. It seems like most were comfortable with being wives, mothers, and domestic oriented. Another trend related to what we have talked about in class was the role of women working during World War II. It was a temporary role for women and when their husbands came back it seems many were willing to go back to the way it was before. The most interesting quote I liked was in Emma Pecks paper, where her grandmother got married after WWII because it was "the fashionable thing to do." The movement to suburbia was a big thing too that some mentioned. Many of these papers reminded me of "Leave it to Beaver," just from looking at how communities functioned. Another thing was the lack or not lack of jobs available for women depending on what period of time they lived as well as the types. Overall these interviews gave a great perspective of womens' achievements, oppressions, and have made me gain more respect for the contributions of their lifetime. --David Fitch
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| − | While each one was interesting and enlightening, '''I did not see a single uniting pattern in these interviews.''' I think with the varying ages, locations, socio-economic backgrounds, etc. finding one would be unlikely. Each woman had her own ideas about woman's issues. Just like we learned about in class, how once women got the right to vote, they did not vote exactly the same - no two women, no two people are going to feel exactly the same about education, working outside the home, motherhood, marriage and a host of other issues. However, all the interviews were alike in their richness and insight. I think the interviews agree with we have learned about it class. Historically, the woman was usually at home, raising the children, completely out of the public realm. During the lives of these women, that was becoming increasingly only part of women’s experiences. Some women were single and worked, some were married and worked; Married women, mothers worked or stayed at home or both. The experiences of women were becomingly increasingly varied, as seen through the very diverse lives of our interviewees. --kokeefe
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| − | I found the different experiences interesting, but '''the theme of education united a lot of the essays I read''' (O'Keefe, Fitch, Whiteaker, Levine, and others). '''''I think just the fact that all of us, the interviewers, are ourselves benefiting from higher education means that the interviewees that we chose to interview (whether we're related to them, or they are close family friends, or other convenient arrangement) are probably in a similar socioeconomic class and probably have similar views as to the importance of education.''''' In other words, just the fact that we are the interviewers means that a common theme in the stories of the people we interview will be education of some sort or another. Most subjects participated in some sort of college (whether 4-year or 2-year) or sometimes job training (such as secretarial school), and their views on the importance of education may very well have been passed on to us, the interviewers and the recipients of this history. --Sarah Smethurst
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| − | This assignment is really interesting, especially getting to see how varied these experiences are. Naturally, the nature of the class and assignment contributes to the impression that there was a sense of comprehension of shifting ideologies, but i do believe that this is also an essential part of the experience of being a woman in the 20th century in America. Several themes run through these interviews and tie together different sets. The choice between college and marriage or work and children appeared in several and that these choices were often felt to have played integral roles in their association with an identity. Again - this can probably be attributed in part to the nature of the assignment. I was interested that a Valium-ish "mother's little helper" appeared in one of the papers. In our class discussions about the post-WWII move to the suburbs/domesticity/baby boom, I couldn't help thinking of the Rolling Stones song. -Erin B
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