marriage/family

I found this collection of vintage ads at the Mail online:

When I was copying the website link, I noticed that this story was in the “Femail” section. There’s the homepage, of course, and then there’s “News,” “Sport,” “TV&Showbiz,” “Health,” “Science&Tech,” etc. etc., and then there’s “Femail,” the section targeted at women. It seems to be mostly fashion with some mother-daughter stories of various types. I wish sometime I’d see a magazine (or magazine section) aimed at women that didn’t see “women’s issues” and science/technology/news/sport/etc. as completely different topics.

I did like this story about elephants doing math, though.

Here’s another great one from Elizabeth over at Blog of Stench (image originally found at Ad*Access):

The text:

Send for a FREE BOOK telling about this grave womanly offense. Learn how no other type liquid antiseptic-germicide tested for the douche is so powerful yet harmless! Isn’t it a shame when a woman doesn’t realize how important it is to always put ZONITE in her fountain syringe? Failure to practice hygiene (internal cleanliness) often results in such needless tragedies–homes broken up, few social invitations, the feeling of being shunned without without knowing why. A modern woman realizes how important hygiene is to health, married happiness, after her periods, and to combat an offensive odor even greater than bad breath or body odor–an odor she herself may not detect but is so apparent to people around her. And isn’t it reassuring to know that NO OTHER TYPE LIQUID ANTISEPTIC-GERMICIDE TESTED FOR THE DOUCHE IS SO POWERFUL YET SAFE TO TISSUES AS ZONITE! Developed by a famous surgeon and scientist–the ZONITE principle was the first in the world to be so powerfully effective yet so harmless. ZONITE is positively non-poisonous, non-irritating, non-burning. Remember that ZONITE is SAFE! SAFE! SAFE! to the most delicate tissues. You can use ZONITE as directed as often as needed without the slightest risk of injury. ZONITE deoderizes by not ‘masking’–it actually destroys, dissolves and removes odor-causing waste substances. And ZONITE has such a soothing effect. It promptly relieves any itching or irritation if present. ZONITE gives BOTH internal and external protection, leaving one with such a refreshed, dainty feeling–so c-l-e-a-n! Complete douching directions come with every bottle. Buy ZONITE today! Get it at any drugstore.

So women who don’t douche face, as Elizabeth says, “sexless marriages, social ostracism and general disaster.” I like how horrified the woman in the ad looks now that she’s figured out the cause of all her problems. On a side note, I think this is the only instance I’ve ever seen of a man being referred to as “frigid.”

Here’s another Zonite ad that I found at the Museum of Menstruation (who knew such a thing existed?):

I’m too lazy to transcribe the full text, but it’s basically the same story–if only she’d known about Zonite, she wouldn’t have suffered such social humiliations (and notice the scowl on the woman’s face).

These will be great for illustrating the ways women were (and still are) told they need to douche regularly or they would smell bad, as well as to have a healthy vagina–although the douches themselves often destroyed normal, healthy vaginal bacteria, causing the problems they claimed to solve. I’m going to use these in my women’s studies course in conjunction with our discussion of Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s book The Body Project, which discusses the rise of the feminine hygiene industry and the increases pressure on women to keep more and more parts of their bodies under control, whether through sanitary pads, bras, or anti-acne products.

Thanks, Elizabeth!

In the comments, Abby says,

This also ties into lessons about contraceptive history.  Andrea Tone has written about how Lysol (yes, that Lysol) and Zonite were ostensibly marketed as douches for “freshness” but were understood to be useful for preventing pregnancy.  If I recall correctly the main era for this was the 1930s, when most contraceptives were illegal.  There is a double meaning when these ads say that women can “banish their fears” – not just odor, but also unwanted pregnancy. (Never mind that douching with these chemicals is NOT healthy!)

As an example, Holly Mac. sent in this ad for a Lysol douche:

Text:

A man maries a woman because he loves her. So instead of blaming him if married love begins to cool, she should question herself. Is she truly trying to keep her husband and herself eager, happy married lovers? On most effective way to safeguard her dainty feminine allure is by practicing complete feminine hygiene as provided by vaginal douches with a scientifically correct preparation like ‘Lysol.’ So easy a way to banish the misgivings that often keep married lovers apart.

 

Germs destroyed swiftly

 

‘Lysol’ has amazing, proved power to kill germ-life on contact . . . truly cleanses the vaginal canal even in the presence of mucous matter. Thus ‘Lysol’ acts in a way that makeshifts like soap, salt or soda never can.

 

Appealing daintines is assured, because the very source of objectional odors is eliminated.

Use whenever needed!

 

Yet gentle, non-caustic ‘Lysol’ will not harm delicate tissue. Simple directions give correct douching solution. Many doctors advise their patients to douche regularly with ‘Lysol’ brand disinfectant, just to insure feminine daintiness alone, and to use it as often as necessary. No greasy aftereffect.

 

For feminine hygiene, three times more women use ‘Lysol’ than any other liquid preparation. No other is more reliable. You, too, can rely on ‘Lysol’ to help protect your married happiness . . . keep you desirable!

Notice the way in which “feminine allure” is described as “fragile.” I guess just a few years ago that relentless male sex drive was believed to be easily interrupted!

Also note the threat of divorce (and likely economic ruin) and the use of “science” to sell this product.

Ben O. sent in a link to several ads for douches and feminine deodorants (all at Found in Mom’s Basement). This douche ad makes it clear that douching is about pleasing your male partner:

Notice this feminine deodorant is called Pristeen; it promises to help make “girls” attractive:

From the text:

The real problem, as you very well know, is how to keep the most girl part of you–the vaginal area–fresh and free of any worry-making odors…Whatever starts those those troublesome vaginal odors, Pristeen stops them–effectively. And nicely…Why take chances? Starting today, why not make Pristeen as much a part of your daily life as your bath or shower. It’s just as essential to your cleanliness. And to your peace of mind about being a girl. An attractive, nice-to-be-with girl.

Bidette Towelettes promise to give women “all-day daintiness”:

Thanks, Ben!

Kim D. sent us in another example, found at the Museum of Menstruation:

NEW! Taylor D. sent in a link to eleven more vintage Lysol douche ads, including this one:

My friend at Trucker Bomb alerted me to this clip from the 1956 film “Indestructible Man.” I’m saving it until one of my students waxes nostalgic about the “good old days” in which gender roles were clearer, and people didn’t have to be so confused all of the time about, say, whether it’s okay to open a door for a “lady”. This sort of comment often comes up when we discuss the difference between courtesy (which can apply to everyone) and chivalry (which is predicated on the notion that women are weaker than men). It could also be useful in discussions about gender as it relates to marriage, careers, or golly, just about anything!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgGFzUS4tkg[/youtube]

Man, the good old days were awesome, in a pause-while-laughing-to-barf-a-little kind of way.

Susanne T. sent us this image of an ad at a busy stop at the University of Bremen, Germany (comments after the image).  Susanne translates the ad to read:

Kids are only well when mothers are well.  Her project ‘wellcome’ helps families to order the everyday chaos.  Strong women, strong country.

Feminist theorists note that there are two ways to integrate women into a society as equals to men: as citizen-workers (who perform the same tasks as men, namely breadwinning) or as citizen-mothers (who perform different tasks than men, namely parenting). If, and this is a big if, we truly valued parenting as much as we valued breadwinning, then the latter is a perfectly viable strategy with which to bring about a gender egalitarian society.

In the U.S., we conflate the idea of equality with gender sameness, assuming that any difference between men and women is a sign of oppression.  So, to many Americans, the fact that this ad makes fathers invisible and holds women alone responsible for parenting is problematic (as Susanne noted).  But different isn’t necessarily unequal and Germany (as well as France) has a tradition of supporting women as mothers.  By “supporting” I mean generous social policy that rewards women in concrete ways for reproducing the nation.

I’m not sure to what extent Germany still supports mothers with pro-natal policies.  Susanne’s critique may very well be more accurate than my comments about different ways of integrating women into the state.  However, I think it’s useful to problematize our assumptions about what equality would look like.  If women were truly valued for their unique contributions, that would be okay.  The problem in the U.S. is that we hold women responsible for childcare and also devalue that work. 

Adding freedom to that equality, of course, means state support for both citizen-workers and citizen-parents (of both sexes) and equally valuing both contributions.

Also see this post on equating motherhood and military service in the Third Reich.

One thing I do in my classes is show my students evidence that things that seem very individualistic and unique are often influenced by social patterns to a much higher degree than they’d think. I often bring up the example of baby names. On one level, it’s an extremely personal and individual-(family)-level decision: people pick names they like and that are meaningful to them, and many would deny that larger social influences had anything to do with what they named their child. And yet names come into and out of fashion quite abruptly among lots of people at the same time, indicating that either a whole lot of people somehow independently make the same decision or that there’s a social aspect to baby naming–so naming your baby “Isabel” might not be the totally unique, personal decision you thought.

Well, now I can quantify this. It turns out the Social Security Administration has this nifty little website where you can put in any year since 1880 and find out the most popular names (from the top 20 up to the top 1000) boys’ and girls’ names for that year, including percentages of babies born that year given each name.

Here are the top 10 names for boys and girls in 1916 and 2016.

From 1916:

From 2016:

Only 1 name (William) that was most popular in 1916 was still in the top 10 in 2016. There was also a lot more concentration in 1916 than in 2016. For boys, the top name in 1916 made up 5.4% of names, while in 2016 the most popular name was only 0.9% of all names. For girls it went from 5.7% to 1.0% (I rounded all percentages to the nearest tenth of a percent). Also, in the past there was more clumping in boys’ names than girls’ names, though this is no longer the case. So in addition to just pointing out that preference for names has changed over time, it might be interesting to discuss the increasing emphasis in our culture on trying to have a “unique” name for kids that express their personality, so that there is more diversity in kids’ names today than in the past, and why until recently this was more true for girls than boys.

Jay L. provided a link to this neato site where you can type in any name and get an immediate graphic of its frequency per million babies. Totally addicting!

NEW: Abby sent in a link to Freakonomics Watch with the following explanation:

The other day a friend of mine said he was reading Freakonomics and there is a chapter on baby naming…the chapter presents a theory for how baby names become popular. People of higher education and socioeconomic status tend to seek out unusual names for their babies, which are then increasingly adopted by the masses.  Once the names become popular, cultural elites seek out a new batch of unusual names, and so on.  Based on this theory, the book gives a list of names that they predict will be popular by 2015.

You can find a table tracking the popularity of the Freakonomics predictions here. Abby was embarrassed to see that her 3-month-old son’s name is on the list.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Muriel Minnie Mae sent in this video, a cartoon that presents a lot of the “men are like THIS, but women are like THIS!” stereotypes. The “female” is a circle and the “male” is a square (a very common type of imagery–things depicting masculinity are often angular, while those evoking femininity are often round or curvy).

Notice that the woman can’t go on a business trip because she’s (literally) tied to the house. Also, both men and women have the same image of the “ideal partner”–someone who cooks, cleans, and cares for the kids, though of course the man who wants this is a jerk and the woman who wants this is, presumably, dreaming.

At the very end of the video it says “stereotypes?” I don’t know what the intention of the makers of the video is–to parody stereotypes, or if they actually accept them, but it doesn’t really matter, as far as I can tell, because the video is useful either way.

Good for providing a quick, funny overview of lots of stereotypes and the way our gender myths lead us to believe that men and women literally do everything differently. Also, you can pick up a little Italian.

NEW! In an example of the “men and women are totally different!” trope, Rachael H. let us know about Maxim’s helpful flow charts showing how men and women argue:

Oh, crazy illogical women and their poor put-upon male partners!

NEW! (May ’10): Juniper, Corina C., and Dana G. sent in another example of this genre, this time videos by members of Harvard’s sailing teams:

A while back, Captain Crab sent me a link to Baby Couture Magazine (“We put the ‘coo’ in couture”):

It is, as far as I can tell, a magazine dedicated to how to raise a kid very stylishly. The magazine features fashion spreads of kids with information on where to get the clothes, just like women’s magazines such as Vogue or Glamour. There’s a section where you can send in pictures of your kids to see if the magazine might want to use them as a model or just “…show off your children (and their outfits!)…”

In the caption of a photo of Salma Hayek currently up on the site (posted on June 20, 2008), we learn about her daughter, “Valentina’s father, Francois-Henri Pinault, is reportedly the 3rd richest man in France, and owns and runs PPR (subisidiaries of which include Gucci, YSL, Balenciaga, etc).”

Here’s a playset highlighted in the Spring 2008 issue that costs $21,850 (image at Jezebel.com):

About the Nurtured by Nature line, we learn,

…it is a fabulous baby shower gift as well (you know, when they open your present at the shower and other parents look at you like that “momma who just knows her thang”). Anyway, they are not mass-produced so they may be on the pricey side (it says on their site that a Nature’s Dream gift set is $200.30).

Yes, that might be just a tad on the pricey side for most people. I went to the company’s website and found onesies running from $22 to $99. I’m all for non-mass-produced items made from local materials (in this case, New Zealand-grown merino wool), but…$200??? For a baby gift set??? I bought some of my friends’ babies’ presents at resale shops.

This could be interesting for several different kinds of class discussions–the class element is obvious, not just in terms of how much things cost or who the audience is, but also ideas of parenting and how they differ by social class (for instance, as far as I know my friends and family members aren’t offended if I buy nice used baby clothes at resale/consignment shops, but I suspect that if you gave such a gift to the type of women who read Baby Couture, you would be a permanent outcast–something to keep in mind if you’re trying to extract yourself from such a social network).

You could also discuss changes in parenting overall, though, not just among the wealthy. In the book Parenting, Inc: How We Are Sold on $800 Strollers, Fetal Education, Baby Sign Language, Sleeping Coaches, Toddler Couture, and Diaper Wipe Warmers–And What It Means for Our Children, Pamela Paul discusses how parents confront more and more products they are told any good parent must buy for their child (such as “educational” products that have no shown positive effects on learning), so that book might provide some interesting analysis about why we think we need these things. The whole topic brings up a number of interesting questions about parenting in general: what does this mean about how parents who can’t (or won’t) afford all these things are judged? Why do new parents increasingly look to the marketplace to tell them what they need–and how–to raise a child? How does middle-class fear of “falling behind” play into this whole trend? Why have we become so convinced that raising children requires huge amounts of “expert” advice and purchased products?

NOTE: Well, I have to say, I didn’t actually believe there were such things as $800 strollers–that just seemed exaggerated–but for fun I did a quick search before I posted this and behold:

The Boy Meets Girl Pink & Blue Limited Edition Valco Twin Trimode, for $825 (though there are several hundred dollars’ worth of upgrades available on top of that). Of course, it’s also good that it’s color-coded so you know which side to put the boy and girl in. Also, it’s described as an “all-terrain” stroller. All-terrain stroller??? Where exactly are people taking their kids these days? There are a lot more similarly bizarre products at Let’s Go Strolling.

So I learned something today: No matter how much the upper limit is that I can imagine for a baby product, I need to add many, many hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to it. And upper-middle-class parenting has become very, very strange.

And I owe it all to Captain Crab!

Pro- and anti-natal policies are those that encourage and discourage childbearing respectively.  There’s an excellent article in the New York Times today about pro-natal efforts in Europe.  The population is falling there due to a low birth rate.

One of the things they mentioned in the article was the Third Reich “Mother’s Cross” (I found this one here).  Women who had four children were awarded a bronze medal, women who had six a silver, and women who had eight a gold. (This was a eugenic strategy, of course; an effort to increase the birthrate for pure, white people.) 

I think one of the most fascinating things about this medal is not so much the pro-natal, or even eugenic story, but the explicit linking of military service with motherhood.  There are plenty of good arguments to make that being a mother is a service to the nation just like military service.  After all, as is recognized in Europe, if women stop having babies, eventually there will be no nation at all.  Also, being a mother involves sacrificing yourself, taking time out of the labor force and, indeed, risking your life and health.  (Ann Crittenden makes this argument in The Price of Motherhood.)  Of course, in the U.S. we don’t value motherhood the way we value military service.   And, sigh, we are awarded no medals for bringing new human beings into existence.  We do, however, have pro-natalist policy.  The fact that we get a tax write-off for every child we have is a direct economic incentive to reproduce.