Mary M. of Cooking with the Junior League sent me a link to amalah.com, where you will find images from a 1962 textbook titled When You Marry (you can find the full text of the 1953 edition without photos here, and Larry found a full pdf of the 1962 edition here):

The book covers many aspects of dating and marriage and provides some fascinating insights into gender roles and social assumptions of the time. Here are some useful facts about social classes and families that you might like to know:

Working class people go to work sooner? Wow. Weird. But at least they have fewer troubles than the middle class. There are so many irritations you have to face when you aren’t poor, but at least you “weather” them well.

I may use this as an example of pointless graphs:

Here we have a list of some factors that are favorable, unfavorable, or unimportant for marital success; I’ve circled some of the more noteworthy items in red:

Text I highlighted:

[favorable]

Happiness of parents’ marriage —both (Not true for Negro couples)

[unfavorable]

Combinations where man feels inferior and woman does not

Prone to argue points–wife

Determination to get own way–wife

Wife’s cultural background higher than husband’s

Residence in the city during childhood

So you’re sure to have marital problems if the wife won’t give in on things and instead keeps being all argumentative and wanting her own way. I’m not sure what defines a cultural background as “higher” than others, but we see here the same pattern as we do with social class (which I presume is related to cultural background): it’s ok for men to “marry down,” but women aren’t supposed to.

The textbook provides a pretty grim depiction of sex for a newly-married couple:

I found this little gem in on a page from the section on how ideals of marital life often don’t fit with reality:

It’s so widespread to think of marketing and advertising as manipulative today (even among those who like at least some ads or don’t see a real problem with them) that it’s striking to see such a sincerely  positive portrayal of it as a helpful, even “kind” industry.

It is noteworthy that the textbook, used during the height of the “Leave it to Beaver” “traditional” family era, depicts the male-breadwinner/female-homemaker family form as a recent creation, as wives became “expensive luxuries”:

This section describing which women should work doesn’t seem to speak highly of women overall, since just a “few” of us have “special talents and skills.” However, it does make the point (in #5) that “a woman is not unemployed because she is not paid for her work,” an effort to bring attention to the value of women’s unpaid labor (in this instance, community/volunteer work):

And then there is a helpful discussion of eugenics and good breeding :

There’s a lot to ponder there. I think it’s fascinating the way that it illustrates some of our stereotypes about the 1950s/60s (women are supposed to be mothers, sex outside of marriage is bad, etc.) but contradicts others (the male-breadwinner family isn’t a long-standing “traditional” family but rather one they can clearly trace to the recent past, and which even then seemed like it might not last).

UDPATE: Larry looked through the pdf version of the whole book and found this nice cartoon:

Jessica H. S. sent in this photo:

Not that there is anything wrong with any of these games or careers, per se. It’s just the constant reinforcement of these gendered ideas of appropriate roles/careers/interests that is disheartening. Many of these games focus on roles that emphasize appearances, whether of people or homes; otherwise, you can care for children.

Though I will say, Peggle is awesome. I eventually had to delete it from my laptop for the sake of ever accomplishing anything again.

Larry Harnisch of The Daily Mirror sent in this ad, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times on September 5, 1969:

Text from the top of the ad:

Does S&A really stand for Sex Appeal?

…and how! Our shoes are so sexy we only allow mature thinking adults to buy them…or young adults accompanied by a parent. When you wear S&A shoes, people will stare at your legs who were never never aware that you had any before.

It’s a great example of how quickly fashion standards can change. Today I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of these shoes would be considered old-fashioned and wouldn’t be marketed as sexy. Our ideas of what constitutes a “sexy” woman’s shoe today includes a higher, thinner heel, meaning they’re also in general less stable, harder to walk in, and worse for your feet than shoes with a chunky heel like these.

Hermes sent in a link to a feature in The Morning News titled “Men at Their Most Masculine,” in which men were asked about what made them feel masculine and photographed in situations that reflect their masculine identities. Some quotes from men included in the project:

“I feel masculine when I am home, I can take care of myself. I often feel emasculated when I leave my apartment though, with everyone asking me if I need help. I don’t need any help.”

“To be masculine is to dominate in one’s field of study.”

“I want to show that, despite stereotypes, gay men can be masculine too.”

“I feel most masculine when I am lying in bed naked.”

“I am strong emotionally, have always stood up for myself, and fear nothing. I happen to be physically strong but that isn’t where I derive my masculinity.”

“I am masculine because I abandon women after taking their love. Because when you study Freud, you don’t let him study you. Because I study philosophy, not literature.”

Visit at photographer Chad States’s website. He apparently found all of the featured men via craigslist.

The photos and quotes illustrate some interesting contradictions in definitions of masculinity. Several of the men define masculinity in fairly traditional terms, using words like “dominate” or expressing masculinity as the ability to use women and then leave them. There is also an emphasis on being independent and not needing help from anyone else.

In other cases, the men redefine masculinity to at least some extent, such as the gay man who reclaims masculinity for gays, the guy who focuses on being emotionally strong, and the man shown posed in a way we’re more used to seeing with women.

It’s an interesting look at some of the ways men define masculinity at a time when we expect men to be more emotionally available and involved in family life (as opposed to the 1950s emotionally closed-off model) but provide mixed signals by also still judging men harshly if they seem too emotional or don’t meet ideals of what “real” men should be like.

We’ve collected many images of the gendering and sexualization of food, where foods are turned into sexy female bodies or are shown alongside sexy women. Miriam sent us a link to Brick House Tavern & Tap, which markets itself as a Hooters-lite for-the-guys restaurant. The menu includes some sexualized elements, and is based on a clear gendering of items. Clearly it’s objectifying women (check out the website), but what interests me is the message we get about masculinity.

There are salads for men and women; the male version includes two types of meat and boiled egg:

Men are supposed to control things; foods are described as dominant or submissive. I presume the “man-cave” dish would fall into the dominant category:

Men’s foods are unhealthy. Steamed, rather than fried, options? Those are for the ladies:

Real manliness is associated with guns:

UPDATE: Reader Lisa says,

I thought the “gun show” reference was to biceps – e.g. men have muscles and women don’t. (e.g. Do you have your tickets to the gun show? har har har)

That makes total sense. I’ve had the good luck to never have heard that particular joke until now.

There’s also a class element:

And desserts are “the happy ending,” with “double d” cupcakes and “sweet, innocent” (girl)-next-door apple crumble:

It’s a common theme (see Lisa’s post on frozen dinners): real men need big meals with lots of meat. They don’t worry about health–they want you to deep-fry everything, dammit! Trying to eat a healthy, low-fat diet is for women. And foods are depicted as parts of women’s bodies (“double d”) or associated with sex (“the happy ending”).

See also Campbell’s ad saying beef soup is for men only.

Ryan A. sent in this image of a letter (found at Letters of Note) sent to the Postmaster General in 1934, in which men ask for women to be fired so that men can have jobs:

Notice that work is depicted as an oppressive burden for women (“…in place of making slaves of them let them be ladies”). Men, on the other hand, are entitled to take employment from women if they are in need of it to avoid being “bums” (and apparently it’s ok to make slaves of them).

Now, don’t get me wrong: I actually have sympathy for the psychological distress these and other men must have felt at the time. When manhood is highly associated with the ability to support a family on your income alone, job loss and poverty is not just embarrassing, it is a threat to your very identity as a man. The plea for jobs to help young men “make a name for themselves” is partly a call to let them become responsible adult men in good social standing, rather than bums (a term loaded with moral judgment).

So I have sympathy for the men struggling with the feeling of failure that came with joblessness. But it’s still noteworthy that the letter indicates a sense of entitlement to women’s jobs (much like veterans returning from World War II felt toward women who had taken jobs outside the home). Women, presumably, had a husband to support them and it was his duty to not be a bum so that she wouldn’t need to take a job from another man.

From statehealthfacts.org using data from 2006:

At the website you can scroll over each state to see the exact number. The overall rate for the U.S. is 10.2 per 100,000. The high is in the District of Columbia, at 20.6; the high among states was 19.3 in Louisiana. The lowest rate is in Hawaii–2.5 per 100,000.

I don’t know what’s going on in the U.S. Virgin Islands–the table has a rate of 43.2 per 100,000. Perhaps that’s statistical noise in the estimate due to the fact that the territory has a total population of only about 110,000, which might distort rates given per 100,000 population.

I am also embarrassed to admit that until this very moment I thought the Virgin Islands were somewhere in the Pacific, probably near Tahiti. Turns out it’s in the Caribbean. Huh.

Lindsay H. sent in a Kingsford Charcoal ad, in which we learn the proper cooking roles for men and women–men cook outside, women cook inside:

It’s just like how men are supposed to do their cleaning outside by mowing the lawn! Glad we cleared all that up, and also instructed women how to avoid embarrassing their male partners in front of their guy friends.