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My maternal grandmother's grandparents came to this country from Ireland just after their marriage in 1868. He was twenty-eight; she was fourteen. Having little education themselves they quickly saw the value of it and determined to do better for their children. They worked hard towars that end and managed to own a small business. They were able to send their youngest child, my grandmother, to college. She graduated in 1892, the first person of either sex in her family to do so.. She and my grandfather had five children, three of whom became college graduates. One of my aunts who didn't attend later became an executive with AT&T. My one uncle became a mechanical engineer. The others did well. My eldest aunt was widowed when she was thirty-eight but worked into her mid-eighties. She worked in an office but did some investing as well, leaving a very decent estate upon her death. My mother's degree was in English but she loved business effectively running the operations of a constructtion company. She stopped working when I was born but wrote several company and union news letters under contract.
My father was the first in his family to graduate from college. He became an electrical engineer.
My parents considered themselves middle class. They were Irish Catholic but were of the 25% of that group to vote for Richard Nixon rather than Kennedy in 1960. Education was paramount in my family for both boys and girls; I don't mean high school.
I worked for a diaper service as a salesman for two summers in college. Everyone was amused because they knew I detested children. But I was dealing with expectant mothers. I sold from a list of potential customers and found plenty of customers, indeed a majority, who were blue collar. I saw the depths of poverty, the people who wouldn't rise. I did make a good bit of money during those two summers but saw men three times my age performing the same job who would never do more.
I never heard of any family with whom I was acquainted trying to convince a girl that she shouldn't go to college. My wife and I met in school as did millions of othe couples.
Truly, there are two different worlds. I'm glad I've lived in mine.
I never heard of any family with whom I was acquainted trying to convince a girl that she shouldn't go to college. My wife and I met in school as did millions of othe couples.
That depends upon the environment in which one grew up. Most of the girls in my high school graduation classe did not go to college. They married young and had babies for the most part. A friend of mine who I met as an adult told me her father was happy to put her brothers through college but told her she was destined to work and then marry even thought she was much more intelligent than her siblings.
She did get to go though, through her mother's insistance.
We all have different experiences of course. But I remember that in general, when I was in college, many people had the opinion that girls only went to college for their MRS degree.
Interesting thread - I'm only up to page 7 at the moment, but did want to respond to this before I forget. I did skim through to make sure nobody else had posted links.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I still don't see a white-male category for employment ads, or even a single ad specifying "white male" in the 1968 listing. Until I do, I still say Bunk! Typical white-male bashing. Where is the white-male category? I do see two ads for white females. Are these not just as discriminatory against men as against non-whites?
I also grew up in an extremely dysfunctional alcoholic home, with other issues that I won't go into here . . .
This is the elephant in the room, which may explain a lot of the posts in this thread. Also, there is another elephant here -- social class. My original post, which seems to have prompted a lot of righteous indignation from feminists, was limited to experiences of people who were "at least lower-middle class." Those who fell below that threshold have always had a hard time (both men and women), and probably always will.
You mean back to the time when I went to the theater, and got ringworm in my scalp? This was the time before medicine has any anti-fungals to take care of something like that, and I had to wear a sailor's cap pulled down over my head as a boy in third grade? Doctors couldn't do anything about it and I lost sections of hair on my scalp, until we put some stuff on it for cows and it caused a massive skin infection that they could treat and which eventually killed the ringworm?
No I don't think I wish to go back to those dark days... in third grade.
Wow!!! That very same thing happened to my brothers..and I mean right down to the sailors caps...When their hair started to fall out my Dad gave them buzz cuts then threw the clippers away. We have pictures of my brothers and they won't even look at them. Thank God this all happened during the summer and we lived in the country...otherwise they would have been treated like lepers in our small town.
For future reference tho if you treat ringworm with a mixture of 1/20 bleach and water it kills it right dead. This is good for animals and humans.
This is the elephant in the room, which may explain a lot of the posts in this thread. Also, there is another elephant here -- social class. My original post, which seems to have prompted a lot of righteous indignation from feminists, was limited to experiences of people who were "at least lower-middle class." Those who fell below that threshold have always had a hard time (both men and women), and probably always will.
I'm not sure that alcoholism is a big "elephant" in this room. Yes, it was a problem in many families, but there was plenty of dysfunction going around that didn't involve alcohol.
As for social class--what ever happened to being "working class"? I think that term has been deprecated partly because it has a slight perjorative ring about it, but mainly because is smacks of socialism.
My mother was definiitely middle-class, and not lower. My father was what you would call working class, although newly-so--he grew up on a farm and worked at a trade. In the 50's, people were upwardly mobile, and the economy was good, at least where I grew up.
This is the elephant in the room, which may explain a lot of the posts in this thread. Also, there is another elephant here -- social class. My original post, which seems to have prompted a lot of righteous indignation from feminists, was limited to experiences of people who were "at least lower-middle class." Those who fell below that threshold have always had a hard time (both men and women), and probably always will.
My goodness, just because some of women pointed out they would not want to repeat the inequities they experienced during those times makes make them "Feminists"?
All classes of women were subject to the discrimination described if they tried to live any other way than what was proscribed for them.
Since Mr. Forbish seems to feel that only feminist propagandists, or women from poor families feel as we do, perhaps he should speak to women of his own class and quality that he knows in real life, whose opinion he respects, if there are such women. It might enlighten him to hear their opinion of the treatment of women in the 50's and 60's.
Since Mr. Forbish seems to feel that only feminist propagandists, or women from poor families feel as we do, perhaps he should speak to women of his own class and quality that he knows in real life, whose opinion he respects, if there are such women. It might enlighten him to hear their opinion of the treatment of women in the 50's and 60's.
"Enlighten" is the operative word. Back in the day, men who did not want to see women be treated fairly used the old "Women's Libbers or Feminist" appellations to dismiss them as some kind of militant derivations of the status quo. In reality, this part of our Society effected all women in various ways.
I think Mr. Forbish needs to come into the 21st Century.
All classes of women were subject to . . . discrimination . . . if they tried to live any other way than what was proscribed for them.
As were all people, of all classes and both sexes, of all times.
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