Tips to Look After Your Husband (1950s)

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105. You were born in 1957 -- by the time you were growing up

in the 60s -- esp. the late 60s -- things were starting to get better. MANY changes for women started happening in the 60s -- President Kennedy had a Women's Commission and that started the ball rolling in some ways.

Women were included in the Equal Employment legislation -- originally as a joke, but actually it was intended as a poison pill.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was founded in 1965 actually had teeth that made discrimination in employment actionable.

And N.O.W. was founded in 1968, I think. I didn't catch the wave until 6 or 8 years later. I was one of those poor uninformed fools who would say, "I'm not a feminist BUT ... but I believe in equal pay for equal work," and other such obviously right things women were asking for and demanding. (I finally got a chance to really find out what the Women's Movement was all about and realized I'd ALWAYS been a feminist.)

But I can assure you that this was the model of womanhood we were presented with prior to all this dramatic and revolutionary social change. Teen magazines were filled with it too -- how you had to let your date pick the movie all the time or whatever else you'd do on a date, let him do all the talking, ask him about his interests, etc. You were there just to reflect his glory in his eyes.