The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[xoxoxoBruce]

This sucks.

[xoxoxoBruce]

We think of women in academia, attending, no less teaching, as fairly recent. But this shows a woman teaching geometry to boys who look very skeptical, way back in the 13th century.
Of course she must have memorized the lessons because women clearly can't understand math. Cue monster...

[Lamplighter]

She's an Irish lass just taking a break from sewing knots into the drapery.

.

[BigV]

[xoxoxoBruce]

The following is an excerpt from the July 1943 issue of Mass Transportation Magazine. This was written for male supervisors of women in the work force during World War II.

Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees:
There’s no longer any question whether transit companies should hire women for jobs formerly held by men. The draft and manpower shortage has settled that point. The important things now are to select the most efficient women available and how to use them to the best advantage.

Here are eleven helpful tips on the subject from Western Properties:

1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they're less likely to be flirtatious, they need the work or they wouldn't be doing it, they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.

2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. It's always well to impress upon older women the importance of friendliness and courtesy.

3. General experience indicates that "husky" girls - those who are just a little on the heavy side - are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination - one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.

5. Stress at the outset the importance of time the fact that a minute or two lost here and there makes serious inroads on schedules. Until this point is gotten across, service is likely to be slowed up.

6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they'll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.

7. Whenever possible, let the inside employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change.

8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.

9. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can't shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman - it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.

10. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl's husband or father may swear vociferously, she'll grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.

11. Get enough size variety in operator's uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can't be stressed too much in keeping women happy.

[DanaC]

Wow. 1943 isn't a terribly long time ago. Some of that stuff is really startling.

[Sundae]

When I think about the men Grandad used to work with (and this came directly from his stories) shirking off, thieving, having altercations that could only be sorted by fisticuffs, drinking on the job... You'd think any company would welcome the chance to have some nice civilised ladies working for them for a change!

And yes, I am well aware that women can do all of the above.
I just mean that in 1943, with men in short supply, they should have taken what they could get!

[DanaC]

In fairness, a lot of that notice seems aimed at making the working environment comfortable, encouraging and welcoming for the ladies.

In much the same way one might tailor the environment to make it more suited for children.

[Sundae]

I know. It's just so patronising.
I shouldn't expect anything different from the time I suppose. But as you say, it was so recent. Dad was born by then, so it was only a generation ago.

[Clodfobble]

The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that the women they were discussing were specifically women of the day. If you had been indoctrinated from birth that your appearance was your number one priority and responsibility, then yes, you would be uncomfortable, unhappy, distracted, and inefficient if you were thrust into an environment that ruined your appearance at every turn. If you had been taught subservience from day one, yes, you would not be good at taking the initiative. For heaven's sake, quite a few if not most of the women being considered for the position had been born in a time when women weren't allowed to vote. That speaks to the men of the day, yes, but it also speaks to the nature of the women such a system produces.

On the one hand, yeah, "women" were only like this at the time because of the culture in which they'd been raised, and there is nothing deterministically feminine about any of the stereotypes they were attempting to address. On the other hand, it was a reality that the vast majority of the women these men would be dealing with were, in fact, like this.

[DanaC]

working-class women had pretty much always worked though. The stereotype was a stereotype - true for some, not true for some. Femininity, which included things like housekeeping (fucking hard work for most at the time) was like a swan on the water - it looked graceful and easy, because you couldn't see the legs working. That notice was written by someone who couldn't see the legs - it assumes a level of fragility that wouldn't have applied for a lot of women.

Deferrence to men and assumptions that men would generally know more and take a leadership role was pretty ingrained for most people though. As was a degree of dependence for women - the idea of the man as essentially the adult with an understanding of the world and a paternal authority and women as more childlike an so on. I think much of that would have been absorbed and accepted as natural. My comment about making the workplace welcoming in similar tones to making a place suited for children was not really about them patronising women, so much as it was an observation of how the tone of the advice demonstrates the way men and women were separated hierachically and culturally in similar ways to the separation between adults and children. The idea of women as sitting somewhere between children and adult males is a pretty old one.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Working class women? What is that? I always figured it was women living in the section of society where all the neighbors worked at mostly manual labor jobs, although some were more skilled than others. That included the wives/daughters of the men that had those jobs, but were students or housewives. Not the same as working women who may be part of the working class neighborhood.

When the big war push came, the working women still had jobs, although they may have changed jobs for new horizons, or more likely more money... if the government felt the job they wanted to leave wasn't on the essential list. The women moving into the jobs vacated by men going into the service, or created by big increases in production, were mostly fresh out of school or housewives. They had numerous motives for seeking jobs but they didn't have experience in a corporate environment, or skills.

Not only was production ramped up, but efficiency was aggressively pursued, not just to save money, but increase output. In that environment, training new people only to have them quit or get injured was a major obstacle for both goals. With those goals in mind, instead of just letting capitalism work as it always had, this list was created as a proactive attempt to tackle the reasons new hires washed out.

Yes, it seems clumsy. But like Clodfobble said, the men in management had the view of the times, and so did the women then. Little changed from the view of their parents and grandparents. The frailty and emotionality of women was accepted as a truth by both sexes... sometimes as a handicap sometimes as a weapon.

My brother and I were surprised to find out my mother smoked when she met my father, then immediately quit because he didn't. When questioned about it she replied, "Everybody did". Before TV and Internet, not being part of the social life in the neighborhood was not a happy prospect. There were no wife homemakers, no husband child carers, you were what was acceptable or be excluded. Any woman that tried to be a mechanic or machinist was looked at as peculiar, even if sometimes secretly envied.

[Sundae]

Both my grandmothers were financially subservient to my grandfathers.
My Nanny - the one I knew and spent a lot of time with - was a very difficult woman (possible mental health issues) married to a very gentle man.
My other grandmother, who died when I was a baby, was married to a very difficult man who did not support her or the family. They stayed married, of course, but the amount of money he handed over for "housekeeping" barely fed them. And he then complained about the meals.
It is such a familiar story of the time - books and plays mention it all the time, whether it's a feature of the plot or just an incidental detail.

Great Aunt Alice stayed a spinster (awful word) to further her career and then look after her parents. She had to make a choice.

Mum handed over the family's finances to Dad, with pretty poor consequences. He was - and is - an impulse spender. Something I either learned or inherited. They are comfortable now, although Grandad's small inheritance and Auntie Alice's certainly helped. But it's more from Mum's pensions, which she did not tell Dad about, and felt she didn't need to as they were taken directly from her pay-packet.

So this is one and two generations ago. Women - strong women - still being financially dependent on men. Not sharing the costs.

Life has changed. Or should have changed. I grew up sharing the costs. I'm poor. I explain this at the outset of any evening out - I'm willing pay my way or I don't go. Men and women have been kind enough to pay for me, but I do not expect it or think it's rude if they don't.

The rich don't count. They've always had different rules.
And maybe the middle class did too.
But where I came from, no woman was seen as frail - unless she was actually ill.
She just had to hand her life over to her man. And if she worked all day and still came home and cooked and cleaned and blacked the stove, she'd better make sure she cleaned the steps, or her neighbours would stop by to find out why not.

FTR, all of the above is simply anecdotal and not really meant to be a rebuttal.
Y'all know I'm not really anti-male.
I'm just sharing.

[Lamplighter]

...Great Aunt Alice stayed a spinster (awful word) to further her career
and then look after her parents. She had to make a choice....

My family has one of those on both sides of my family tree.
On each side, it was the the youngest girl.

And even as a kid it bothered me.
Why should the youngest girl be the one who did not leave home
to have her own family, or go to college, or have a career of some sort ?

Now, all my G-parents, aunts, and uncles have passed, except the one on my Dad's side,
and she is 91 living alone in the family home ... even her aged dog has passed.

And it still bothers me - what might have been ...

.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Sundae

It is such a familiar story of the time - books and plays mention it all the time, whether it's a feature of the plot or just an incidental detail.

Showing up in books and plays is a pretty good indication is was common, or at least common enough, to lend reality to the story.

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

And it still bothers me - what might have been ...

Ours was Aunt Dot, but I don't feel bad for her, she did it her way and a damn good job of it I think.