I was in the hair salon last evening, letting my hairdresser do her magic and erase years from me simply by eliminating the tell tale gray that has begun to take a stronghold on my head, when the discussion turned to the new hit TV show, Mad Men. (http://blogs.amctv.com/mad_men)
There was a very evenly distributed age dynamic last night in the salon, anywhere from early 20's to early 70's, and it seemed that every one of the women was captivated by Mad Men. Even DVR-ing it as not to miss an episode. What surprised me was that many of the younger women thought the show was very well written, but definitely the way women were portrayed had to be totally fictional. Not so much. Way back in the day (60's) if a woman was married and worked outside of the home, it was considered a negative, in fact most people would place blame on the husband for not being able to support his wife and family. I knew fathers who would work 2 jobs so that their wives could stay home.
I think what the 20 year olds at the salon didn't really know was the amount of jobs that were not available for women, no matter if they were qualified or not. In the 60's there were no women on the police force, fire departments or employed by any utility. If you worked for the phone company, the only open position was operator. All managers, for the most part, were men. There were no women managers in retail, only sales girls and maybe you could aspire to being a surpervisor. Within the medical field, women doctors were a rarity, most women were encouraged to become nurses. Lawyers were always men. Butchers, Bakers for that matter candlestick makers were always men. Women were not allowed to hold those positons. The armed forces had women as nurses, but not much else. It took women advocating for equal rights in order for Businesses, our Government and Universities to begin not to view professions by gender. When I graduated from college and landed my first teaching job, my male counterpart was paid 1/4 more in salary than I. When I questioned why, I was told that he was expected to be able to provide for a family. And because I was engaged, chances are I would not be teaching long, as I probably would want to start a family. You could not teach and be pregnant. The overall mindset was that women would only play at being teachers and would stop teaching once they had a family, while on the other hand, men were viewed as committed to the profession, therefore should be paid more and given more respect.
When I relayed all of this to the women in the salon, some were astounded, some found it hard to believe and some, like me, (now holding a position in management in a traditionally all-male industry) can only be glad that we pushed the envelop, and insisted on equal pay for equal work, and pushed for the opportunity to be anything a woman wanted to be. In the 60's and before, women truly were considered to be the weaker sex, and needed to be taken care of. When I hear of people longing for the good old days, I think to myself, NOT ME! I like being married, I like being a mother and I like having a profession of my choosing. It's fun getting wrapped up in a well written TV show, and Mad Men is just that, but I prefer this century over last.
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