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Author Topic: For the mastodonts from the 60s  (Read 7766 times)

32BT

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For the mastodonts from the 60s
« on: November 15, 2018, 07:46:53 am »

Not really sure about the reference to the male taste, but there are enough links to keep the nostalgic mind occupied for a while...

https://www.thelist.com/105405/surprising-things-men-found-attractive-50-years-ago/
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Rob C

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2018, 02:49:29 pm »

First to note is that this link is written from an American perspective. Mostly, they do it and see it differently over there.

It's also important to realise that the surprise expressed by the writer at the way women lived in the 50s and 60s is also an American take, and though I have no way of knowing (deep fake news, old photograph of gorgeous lady?), it strikes me she is not of first-hand familiarity with those decades, at least not as an adult woman.

I could give reams of first-hand home truths about all of this, but suffice to say that the world was not full of weeping, conflicted women desirous of spending their days in an office or on a factory floor (or an office one, come to think lf it), which the writer must imagine was the case.

Higher education has almost always been dependent on family financial possibilities, and I know people who scorned my wife's education as a waste of parental money because she'd just end up as somebody's wife etc. but fortunately for me, her parents thought otherwise, and so we met. Education is never wasted - up to a point - but it doesn't have to be the only thing in life for which to strive. Likewise work. There are all sorts of desires, ambitions and interest centres that people desire for themselves. For every female executive I am sure there is the perfectly content woman who simply wants to bring up her children and provide a comfortable family home. I see bugger all wrong with that. That's exactly the stability that has helped many people find the possibility of building up a business, and when the woman at home has the education that allows her to be perfectly confident when dealing with some of the jerks that the husband is pretty much forced to bring around for drinks or dinner, then her role is even more important.

As for forcing women onto companies via the "quotas" concept, people should be free to hire whoever the hell they want to hire. There are as many men who feel left out, disadvantaged, overlooked, unpopular etc. etc. as there are women who feel the same. The reality is that life has nothing to do with fairness, with something being your turn, or even your divine right; you have to accept that you don't rule the world and that almost everybody else thinks they should have your job if yours is better than theirs. Putting on a skirt does not mean you are putting on special privileges, though of course, I do think you should be able to expect respect as a person, exactly in the same manner as anybody else.

As I said, I could write a novel on this topic but have no such intentions, you'll all be pleased to realise.

:-)
« Last Edit: November 15, 2018, 02:55:07 pm by Rob C »
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Paulo Bizarro

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2018, 10:50:50 am »

First to note is that this link is written from an American perspective. Mostly, they do it and see it differently over there.


:-)

Indeed, here in Portugal in the 1960's, there were a lot of poor people, who were part of the huge emigration wave to France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. No time or money to pay attention to those other "issues". We were invaded by the Beatle mania though:)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2018, 11:05:24 am »

... it strikes me she is not of first-hand familiarity with those decades, at least not as an adult woman...

Someone coined a phrase "generational chauvinism" to describe the habit of applying today's norms to prior generations. In its extreme, the whole Western Civilization is then seen as just one giant racist, misogynistic, bigoted crime against humanity.

RSL

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2018, 11:08:29 am »

Well said, Slobodan. We used to look at the past through the lens of history. Current complainers haven't a clue what history means.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2018, 11:21:25 am »

As for education, I do not know the history of admission policies of American Universities, but I do know that Mileva Marić-Einstein, the Serbian wife of Albert Einstein, studied with him in Zurich, Switzerland, in the late 1890s. In those same years, Marie Curie, Polish-born, studied physics in Paris. Just like every generation thinks they invented sex, the latest one thinks they invented education for women too.

Telecaster

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2018, 05:37:15 pm »

My mom worked as a blueprint machine operator after she came to the US, which is how she met my dad. He was an engineer who needed frequent blueprints made of his design work.  :)  After they got married she quit her job, and was most happy to do so. But rather than become a typical housewife she set up her own business, as a seamstress, and ran it out of their house. After I came along mom continued her seamstress work, stopping only after she became too ill (leukemia) to continue. My dad, being an easy-going guy who believed people should be able to do what they enjoyed and were good at, was a-okay with this. He helped plenty with cooking & cleaning too…growing up in a single-parent home (his mother died of ovarian cancer at a fairly young age) he was used to that stuff. Even after my Aunt Anna came to live with us my dad carried his weight cooking- & cleaning-wise. I don't think he was even particularly aware of the expected gender roles of the time.

-Dave-
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OmerV

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2018, 07:50:18 pm »

As for education, I do not know the history of admission policies of American Universities, but I do know that Mileva Marić-Einstein, the Serbian wife of Albert Einstein, studied with him in Zurich, Switzerland, in the late 1890s. In those same years, Marie Curie, Polish-born, studied physics in Paris. Just like every generation thinks they invented sex, the latest one thinks they invented education for women too.

Brilliant scientists, yet neither was allowed to vote in their lifetime by laws written by men.


Robert Roaldi

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2018, 10:19:21 pm »

Someone coined a phrase "generational chauvinism" to describe the habit of applying today's norms to prior generations. In its extreme, the whole Western Civilization is then seen as just one giant racist, misogynistic, bigoted crime against humanity.


So, slavery was ok then?   ;)
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2018, 11:07:47 pm »

BJL

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #10 on: November 16, 2018, 11:41:07 pm »

As for education, I do not know the history of admission policies of American Universities, ...
Prestigious private universities like Columbia and Harvard were slow to fully admit women—apart from younger and more progressive Cornell (which admitted women almost from the start), the next Ivy League school to admit women was Harvard in 1977—too late for me, if I were an American woman! Harvard and Columbia did add smaller separate "women's auxiliaries" (Radcliffe and Barnard respectively) in the late 1800's and there were a number of private women-only undergraduate colleges, if your family had the money. On the other hand the public university where I work admitted women only from 1918 [and only white students till the late 1960s!].  Access for women to post-graduate studies was limited for longer—for example, one of my most talented professors, Cathleen Morawetz, winner of the National Medal of Science, was frustrated by being barred from various choices of graduate school in the mid 20th century due to their male-only admission policies.
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Rob C

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2018, 05:05:35 am »

There should be a distinction drawn between what pop culture proclaims the norm somewhere, and how people actually behave within their homes.

The pub culture that many think governs male (and, now apparently alas, also female) behaviour does not mean that the same idiotic mannerisms are also carried through at home. I'm sure some people are the same boors both in and out of the house, but I am as sure that much of it is bravado reflecting self-doubts. Maybe the time guys spend in pubs is a measure of how little they have at home?

Personally speaking, after spending a long day in the darkroom, my hands freezing from the wash tank, the last thing I wanted to do was go back out somewhere and drink myself stupid talking about football, somebody's car, imaginary women and conquests. How much more pleasant to sink into a comfortable chair, have a drink and some crisps and watch tv with the wife and kids until their bedtimes, then maybe put on some music and just chat about the first thing that came into our minds. Which sure wasn't photography, though it might have been business.

My wife had her individual life too; she drove her own car, and her days were a mixture of keeping the home going in top condition, visiting her mother and going out with her, going to swim or play tennis with her friends; her external life was what she cared to make it and she seemed as happy to be at home in the evenings with us as a group as was I. I suppose it would be rather perverse to marry but desire something other than a home life instead.

As for sharing chores in the kitchen: I never could cook, and most of the time she wanted me to keep the hell out of the way in there. It wasn't until we came out to live in Spain that she slowed down and let me run a secondary service in the kitchen, washing the utensils as she no longer needed them. Sometimes, another person isn't a help at all. I understand that now. When my family come to visit, they all offer to help with the few dishes (we lunch out every day) that remain in the kitchen from having tea or coffee or snacks, or whatever, but the realty is that I rather they just leave me alone to do it by myself because I have my own ways and know exactly where I want everything to go when it's dried. I even like the coffee mugs to sit in a definite, colour-coded manner on the shelf, any departure from which jars.

Real life is - or should - be run by the things that matter to you, the individual and immediate family, not those that the tribe pretends to want and prescribes as being correct.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2018, 06:40:36 am by Rob C »
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KLaban

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2018, 05:43:57 am »

KLaban

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2018, 08:01:09 am »

There should be a distinction drawn between what pop culture proclaims the norm somewhere, and how people actually behave within their homes.

The pub culture that many think governs male (and, now apparently alas, also female) behaviour does not mean that the same idiotic mannerisms are also carried through at home. I'm sure some people are the same boors both in and out of the house, but I am as sure that much of it is bravado reflecting self-doubts. Maybe the time guys spend in pubs is a measure of how little they have at home?

Personally speaking, after spending a long day in the darkroom, my hands freezing from the wash tank, the last thing I wanted to do was go back out somewhere and drink myself stupid talking about football, somebody's car, imaginary women and conquests. How much more pleasant to sink into a comfortable chair, have a drink and some crisps and watch tv with the wife and kids until their bedtimes, then maybe put on some music and just chat about the first thing that came into our minds. Which sure wasn't photography, though it might have been business.

My wife had her individual life too; she drove her own car, and her days were a mixture of keeping the home going in top condition, visiting her mother and going out with her, going to swim or play tennis with her friends; her external life was what she cared to make it and she seemed as happy to be at home in the evenings with us as a group as was I. I suppose it would be rather perverse to marry but desire something other than a home life instead.

As for sharing chores in the kitchen: I never could cook, and most of the time she wanted me to keep the hell out of the way in there. It wasn't until we came out to live in Spain that she slowed down and let me run a secondary service in the kitchen, washing the utensils as she no longer needed them. Sometimes, another person isn't a help at all. I understand that now. When my family come to visit, they all offer to help with the few dishes (we lunch out every day) that remain in the kitchen from having tea or coffee or snacks, or whatever, but the realty is that I rather they just leave me alone to do it by myself because I have my own ways and know exactly where I want everything to go when it's dried. I even like the coffee mugs to sit in a definite, colour-coded manner on the shelf, any departure from which jars.

Real life is - or should - be run by the things that matter to you, the individual and immediate family, not those that the tribe pretends to want and prescribes as being correct.

Perhaps your stereotypes relate to certain periods within your life and in certain locations but I don't recognise them. You seem to want to categorise people, their interests and the places they frequent in much the same way as you do with images: put into neat little packages.

My family on my father's side were folk from the East End of London, the men and women had to work and were proud to do so. My family on my mothers side were reasonably well-to-do Londoners, the men and women chose to work and chose their work. My wife's family, men and women, had to work, many in service.

Both my father and I escaped from our backgrounds to become artists, he thanks to a inborn, unexplainable talent and I thanks to a more explainable talent and education. My wife's mother similarly escaped from her background thanks to education to become an optician and my wife thanks to education and talent to become an art therapist. All the above escapees had fulfilling and rewarding careers by choice.

I've always admired strong, independent women. That said, thankfully we are all different, what a desperately dull world it would be if we were not.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2018, 09:33:21 am by KLaban »
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Rob C

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2018, 11:24:25 am »

1. Perhaps your stereotypes relate to certain periods within your life and in certain locations but I don't recognise them. You seem to want to categorise people, their interests and the places they frequent in much the same way as you do with images: put into neat little packages.

2. I've always admired strong, independent women. That said, thankfully we are all different, what a desperately dull world it would be if we were not.

1. Absolutely; I've come to realize over the years that everybody has their personality comfort niche, and can't really move into another with a great deal of success. I guess like wine, maybe we don't travel well in that sense. We are what we are.

2. I have had no other type in my family but strong. Being strong does not have to imply a desire to beaver away in a factory, in an office or anywhere else as a wage-slave. People get their kicks from all sorts of interests. The strength to hold together a family, year after year, coaching kids with their homework, putting meals together to suit timetables outwith family control, is no mean feat and certainly no easy option. Not that anyone here seems to be claming that it is, of course.

Strikes me that any idea that running a home is an easy way out is perhaps a certain type of feminists's credo that permits some women a kind of superiority status - in their own mind - at the expense of women with an entirely different set of needs and desires. My wife took the urge to return to laboratory work after the kids were old enough to survive school lunches and/or I was able to come home to feed them something, simply because she reached the point where she wondered whether or not she could still hack it out there. So she did find that job. She realised that she still had the mind, but that the costs of doing it was just too great for the family good. Yep, the extra bread came in useful, but on balance, and especially after we cloosed the rented studio and built our own alongside the house, it was fantastic, and we had so much quality time together. Flat days with no work were excuses for living a life. How nice no longer to have to go off to a cold studio! An extra mug of tea never tasted so good as when returning home from dropping off the kids at school.

I still have lots of mugs of tea; now it tastes like shit.

Just by accident* today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjF7SD3S-tE

Rob

*Maybe no accident: maybe Big Brother Google has us all taped, even though no self-inflicted Alexa-type babe at home to spy on me.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2018, 11:32:02 am by Rob C »
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KLaban

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #15 on: November 17, 2018, 12:04:41 pm »

As for education, I do not know the history of admission policies of American Universities, but I do know that Mileva Marić-Einstein, the Serbian wife of Albert Einstein, studied with him in Zurich, Switzerland, in the late 1890s. In those same years, Marie Curie, Polish-born, studied physics in Paris. Just like every generation thinks they invented sex, the latest one thinks they invented education for women too.

True.

That said, the contraceptive pill empowered women and did wonders for a 17 year old male school leaver about to start a four year course at art college which happily just happened to coincide with "The Summer of Love". Sex was in the air. Oral sex, came from under the table to, well, anyone, anywhere.

Sex wasn't invented in the 60s but it sure was a blast and altered attitudes for a lifetime. Hehe.

;-)
« Last Edit: November 17, 2018, 12:08:53 pm by KLaban »
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KLaban

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2018, 12:06:21 pm »

1. Absolutely; I've come to realize over the years that everybody has their personality comfort niche, and can't really move into another with a great deal of success. I guess like wine, maybe we don't travel well in that sense. We are what we are.

2. I have had no other type in my family but strong. Being strong does not have to imply a desire to beaver away in a factory, in an office or anywhere else as a wage-slave. People get their kicks from all sorts of interests. The strength to hold together a family, year after year, coaching kids with their homework, putting meals together to suit timetables outwith family control, is no mean feat and certainly no easy option. Not that anyone here seems to be claming that it is, of course.

Strikes me that any idea that running a home is an easy way out is perhaps a certain type of feminists's credo that permits some women a kind of superiority status - in their own mind - at the expense of women with an entirely different set of needs and desires. My wife took the urge to return to laboratory work after the kids were old enough to survive school lunches and/or I was able to come home to feed them something, simply because she reached the point where she wondered whether or not she could still hack it out there. So she did find that job. She realised that she still had the mind, but that the costs of doing it was just too great for the family good. Yep, the extra bread came in useful, but on balance, and especially after we cloosed the rented studio and built our own alongside the house, it was fantastic, and we had so much quality time together. Flat days with no work were excuses for living a life. How nice no longer to have to go off to a cold studio! An extra mug of tea never tasted so good as when returning home from dropping off the kids at school.

I still have lots of mugs of tea; now it tastes like shit.

Just by accident* today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjF7SD3S-tE

Rob

*Maybe no accident: maybe Big Brother Google has us all taped, even though no self-inflicted Alexa-type babe at home to spy on me.

I certainly didn't imply anything of the sort.

Rob C

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #17 on: November 17, 2018, 12:18:49 pm »

I certainly didn't imply anything of the sort.

As I mentioned three sentences later, at the end of the paragraph.

KLaban

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #18 on: November 17, 2018, 12:30:25 pm »

1. Absolutely; I've come to realize over the years that everybody has their personality comfort niche, and can't really move into another with a great deal of success. I guess like wine, maybe we don't travel well in that sense. We are what we are.

2. I have had no other type in my family but strong. Being strong does not have to imply a desire to beaver away in a factory, in an office or anywhere else as a wage-slave. People get their kicks from all sorts of interests. The strength to hold together a family, year after year, coaching kids with their homework, putting meals together to suit timetables outwith family control, is no mean feat and certainly no easy option. Not that anyone here seems to be claming that it is, of course.

Strikes me that any idea that running a home is an easy way out is perhaps a certain type of feminists's credo that permits some women a kind of superiority status - in their own mind - at the expense of women with an entirely different set of needs and desires. My wife took the urge to return to laboratory work after the kids were old enough to survive school lunches and/or I was able to come home to feed them something, simply because she reached the point where she wondered whether or not she could still hack it out there. So she did find that job. She realised that she still had the mind, but that the costs of doing it was just too great for the family good. Yep, the extra bread came in useful, but on balance, and especially after we cloosed the rented studio and built our own alongside the house, it was fantastic, and we had so much quality time together. Flat days with no work were excuses for living a life. How nice no longer to have to go off to a cold studio! An extra mug of tea never tasted so good as when returning home from dropping off the kids at school.

I still have lots of mugs of tea; now it tastes like shit.

Just by accident* today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjF7SD3S-tE

Rob

*Maybe no accident: maybe Big Brother Google has us all taped, even though no self-inflicted Alexa-type babe at home to spy on me.

I thought that applied to The strength to hold together a family, year after year, coaching kids with their homework, putting meals together to suit timetables outwith family control, is no mean feat and certainly no easy option. rather than Being strong does not have to imply a desire to beaver away in a factory, in an office or anywhere else as a wage-slave.

;-)

Rob C

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Re: For the mastodonts from the 60s
« Reply #19 on: November 17, 2018, 12:43:42 pm »

I thought that applied to The strength to hold together a family, year after year, coaching kids with their homework, putting meals together to suit timetables outwith family control, is no mean feat and certainly no easy option. rather than Being strong does not have to imply a desire to beaver away in a factory, in an office or anywhere else as a wage-slave.

;-)


As it does, and to the entire paragraph - I hope. It's all one sentiment and concept.
 
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