GROWING UP FEMALE IN THE BAD OLD '70S

A couple of years ago, my husband brought home an old bar association face book from 1978.  It featured photographs of all the attorneys in my state for that year.  As we flipped through, chuckling at the younger visages of many attorneys we know, my husband professed shock that virtually all the attorneys in our state that year were men, except for a very small handful of women.

I was shocked that he was shocked.  After all, he was eleven years old in 1978 so he should remember what it was like.  I was only 7 back then but I sure remember it. The near-total male domination of the public realm of our society back then was an awful black cloud over my childhood. 

As an only child of ambitious parents, I’d been brought up to aspire to great things.  My ambitions at various points included being a spy, a teacher, a trial lawyer, a research scientist, a writer, a detective, and President of the United States of America.  But I worried constantly, from very earliest childhood, whether my society or my circumstances would let me do what I wanted to do. 

Because the reality around me did not match up with the goals my parents encouraged.  All the women I knew were housewives.  Other than my great aunt, all the professionals I knew were men (at least until the early ‘80s).  There were no women professionals in my father’s organization.  We collectively referred to my father’s colleagues’ wives as “the wives.”  The wives cooked and cleaned during any social gatherings while the men lolled about and discussed Important Things. 

The boys did cool things like play soccer.  There were no sports available to me or my female peers until later, when I hit middle school, by which time we were pretty pathetic in terms of our skills. Our gym teachers (always women) seemed to actively despise the little girls -- one told us that we could never, ever, ever be better than the boys no matter how hard we tried, and another divided our class into competing groups with male leaders and female helpers.  The Boy Scouts went camping in the woods, while the Girl Scouts had campouts in someone’s backyard. In general, boys got yelled at more but they got Respect, while we girls had to be content with a pat on the head. 

Everything I read or saw confirmed what seemed an almost inevitable male dominance.  I searched history books for strong female figures and found them all too few and far between.  Major American events like Miss America and football, with its cheerleaders smiling inanely on the sidelines, were exercises in the degradation of women.  Other major events like Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981 also seemed to be reminders of our lowly status -- in that case we learned that any daughter she might have would automatically be second in line to the throne after any boys. To borrow from a popular schoolyard taunt, everywhere I looked the message I got was, “Men rule, women drool.” 

There was some feminist consciousness in our household-- enough that I embraced the word “feminist” very early on -- but for the most part everyone around me seemed frustratingly sanguine about the state of things.  Meanwhile, I fretted ALL the time about what all this would mean for me when I grew up.  What if I grew up and found myself married? (I never thought of marriage as something I would want to do; it seemed more like an inevitable adult situation.)  Would any man really be willing to follow me to all the places my career might take me overseas?  What if I had a child?  Who would take care of the child?  What if the man didn’t want to do any housework or childcare? (After all, I’d never seen a man who did.)  Also, wouldn’t employers be afraid to hire someone like me who might end up having a baby? And would employers want to hire me if their clients might think I would be inferior to the male employees?  And how could I command respect when women and girls didn’t seem to be respected in general?

I talked to my parents enough to see the issues but not enough to see any solutions.  The only responses I got were empty promises of, “You can do anything a boy can if you set your mind to it!”  and “Maggie Thatcher did it!” But secretly I thought it seemed hopeless at times -- and I came from a family that was about as supportive as it is possible to be in terms of female ambition. 

There were glimmers of hope, of course. I reveled in my discovery of Elizabeth I, whom I still adore.  I was vaguely aware of a few women politicians.  And in the ‘80s, there seemed to be more and more professional women and high profile female athletes, like my other heroine, Joan Benoit.  I hope things were better for the generation ten years younger than I.  I suspect, however, that girls still have long conversations in adolescence about how they will go about balancing motherhood and career, while boys just think career. 

Fortunately, things have turned out better for me than I could have hoped. I don’t believe that I have encountered any sexism in my professional life, and I have had a rewarding and successful career thus far. (Of course, not having a child could have a lot to do with it.)

But my experience growing up was vastly different than my husband’s.  Think of all the fears churning in my head while he was skipping along to Little League, proclaiming that he wanted to be an astronaut, and assuming all structures were in place to aid him in accomplishing that. Dealing with that early sense of doom in my childhood is what made me a feminist and remembering it keeps me one.     

Comments

[will]

"There were no sports available to me or my female peers until later, when I hit middle school, by which time we were pretty pathetic in terms of our skills."

Couldnt you have been a cheerleader?

Fortunately, those days are gone when the bar associations are all male. For close to twenty years, the law school classes have had almost as many or more women than men.

[The Happy Feminist]

Oh you're SO funny.

Yes, I've got no complaints about the make-up of the profession now. And I never felt this sense of doom when I was in college or law school or starting out professionally.

Of course, a lot more women drop out before making partner, becoming a judge etc. It's the baby factor again. But that's a whole 'nother can o' worms.

[will]

You were a cheerleader, werent you??!?! Oh, you are so busted now!!

In my area, we have a nice mix of female to male judges in the juvenile and domestic relations courts. The circuit Courts are still underrepresented.

[The Happy Feminist]

For the record, let me clear that I was NOT a cheerleader.

Actually, I figured out in about fourth grade that it was too late to develop any kind of coordination but that I could do well in brute endurance. I practiced for the Presidential Physical Fitness Test and aced it (the boys' test, of course, because there is really no reason for a boy-girl distinction at that age) and I started long-distance running with my parents. My sports in high school were cross country and track, thank you very much.

A friend of mine and I also insisted on racing in the steeplechase, a previously male-only event. Of course, as it turns out, the steeplechase sucks. But we were pioneers.

[Chalicechick]

Maybe I have an optimistic memory, but I remember things as way better by the time I was growing up. I was born in 1978.

My girl scout troop camped out. (The leader was a stay-at-home mom. Her kids are grown, but now she's runs a girl scout camp.)

I've always been unathletic, so I don't remember much about gym class other than I didn't like it.

By the mid eighties, there was even He-Man for girls: Adam's sister, She-Ra.

I liked most of the same careers you did, although at one point I decided that Presidents work too hard and I wanted to be the first lady, which really upset my aunt. By the time I was 12, I'd decided that I wanted to be some kind of writer and I stuck with that through my early 20s.

Call it an 80's kid thing, but I was really worried about getting addicted to drugs. When the well-meaning twentysomethings who put on Anti-Drug plays in the schools would come to perform, they would talk about the unpopular kid who agrees to take drugs just to be cool. I remember being like seven and thinking "Yep, that's gonna be me." I was pretty sure I'd get pregnant, too. I didn't WANT those things to happen, mind you, but apparently that's what happens to unpopular kids and I was certianly one of those. So there you go.

My aunt was a major activist and she took me to peace marches. After she told me about wars and why we were marching one time, I recall saying

"OK, Aunt Jackie, why don't we tell President Reagan that we're the most powerful country in the world? Then he won't make any more wars?"

"But Miss Sue," (only Aunt Jackie is allowed to call me "Miss Sue," so don't even try it.) "We already ARE the most powerful country in the world."

That was one of those times I vowed I would never understand adults.

Oh, and one time I announced at the dinner table that I didn't like boys and I was never going to get married and when I grew up I was going to live with another woman like Aunt Jackie's friends Georgia and Kathy did.

A really unpleasant conversation ensued.

What? The boys were MEAN!

CC
who wasn't a cheerleader either. She was a spooky drama kid. But she never got addicted to drugs or got pregnant.

[alsis39]

Thanks for the memories. I'm just impressed that you and your other young pals discussed this stuff. I don't ever remember doing that with my friends, even though we were almost all big geeks who were proud of being serious, rather than silly, girls. (A whole feminist issue right there, but I'll save it for later.) I have a vivid memory when I was less than ten years old of promising myself that I'd never have children. Even then, I got the message that motherhood was a racket for everyone except mothers, including my own.

I think the saddest coda to my 1970s memories is that Marlo "Free To Be You And Me" Thomas has reportedly gotten so much Botox and/or facial surgery that she now resembles a mannequin in her speaking appearances.

Aparently, it's going to be a long time yet before women are free to enjoy the aging process without buying a bunch of bullshit disguises. >:

[The Happy Feminist]

CC, I think our 7 year age difference is probably pretty significant in this regard. I seem to remember that by the mid-80s, things seemed to be a lot better.

Alsis39, I didn't really talk that much about feminist stuff with my friends (except for the motherhood-and-career thing in my teen years). In grade school, I was in the habit of telling everyone who would listen that I was a feminist. One little girl in 4th grade said she would never want to be one of THOSE. Of course, I immediately told her her epidermis was showing, which made her cry. I wasn't as nice back then.

[alsis39]

HF wrote:

"...I wasn't as nice back then."

So I could still outgrow my mean stage, then ? CC, are you listening ? :D

I don't remember even discussing marriage-and-kids with my friends, unless we were talking about our mothers' shortcomings. You know, envying the great relationship each of us thought that the other mother-daughter pair had, compared to our own.

[mythago]

Wow, I hope your husband got that foot out of his mouth without help.

For close to twenty years, the law school classes have had almost as many or more women than men.

I was in law school about fifteen years ago, and it was a big deal because we were in the first year of any law school having more female than male 1Ls. (I'm not sure if this was my school in particular, or just the first year it had happened anywhere.)

[will]

HappyF:

I will just quote William S: The lady doth protest too much methinks.

mythago:

I graduated from law school in 1992. My class had more women than men. From what I can tell, the two classes in front of me were very similar.

I was also a swimmer so I swam with plenty of women who were tough and fast so I got used to getting my butt kicked by women.