more on this

some highlights I remember....this one cracked me up. An article written by a woman lawyer, hm....women keeping women down, deja vu anyone? Anyhow, this lawyer wrote "In Defense of Chastity" saying girls should not give into men's advances because men will think they're sluts and not want to marry them then if they get pregnant they'd "really be in a pickle." Crazy huh? This is how people lived. In Feminine Mystique, Friedan quoted this male professor saying something like, girls need to ask themselves, "Should I willingly prepare myself for a lifelong celibate career?" And this was in college, including the prestigious seven sisters like Smith where both Plath and Friedan went. My mother tells me back then....something like you'd have to worry about preganancy like you do, say, HIV now, and that "everyone would think you were a slut" and you would be sent away. Your classmates would be told a lie like that you are visiting your sick aunt. Abortions were of course illegal and clandestine. The pro-choice movement was originally a radical one. It was certainly beyond shocking for a woman to get up in public and speak about it; much like Margaret Sanger and birth control at the turn of the century. I read in Margaret Atwood something like, it took three phone calls back in the day. I read a quote somewhere where a woman said something like, "All this talk about AIDS now, but back in the fifties pregnancy was the kiss of death." And went on to say what my mother told me. Truthfully, it was common for women to "have" to marry then. Simple, and not. Now our problems are different but extremely complicated....we're supposed to live up to these impossible standards of the Superwoman. Really, a child takes everything out of you. Pushing a bowling ball out of yourself; it's not hard to imagine why women suffer PTSD, or post partum depression. Of course.....my mother said the screams in a ward are horrible and so is the pain; she said it sounds like a torture chamber. My mother was tied to the bed: going to the doctor was a way of going to be tortured. My mother tells gruesome stories of what she and her brothers went to going to the dentist. Plus the didn't have the same health standards so people had worse dental problems. Shock therapy is horrible and it's now known totally unnecessary, as is vivisection. ADD was not understood; kids were punished for that, or schizophrenia. THose suffering these illnesses are among the brightest to, according to....Kay something, author of a book on bipolar, have to look that up. Oh, An Unquiet Mind. THe deaths are unnecessary as well. What happened to Plath naturally could have been avoided. I suppose she was bipolar or suffered ADD which are treatable now. I know many people who have it. More later on this....Oh a bell jar is a vaccuum? like a tube, used in TV and film? ?????


Oh yes, another highlight of the book is where she describes this African American waiter serving string beans and baked beans together, and has him saying "Mah! Mah!" I think she or one of the others kicks the plate because two beans are not supposed to be served together. That stands out as well, having been served hospital food myself. That part has been running through my mind.


My next book is In Cold Blood. Another fifties book. That era did produce some great work and interesting people, I'll say, for all the repression. The film Capote, which I saw with my mother, sister and SOnny, is one of the best I've seen. I'd say if you were living back then and NOT having a nervous breakdown, especially after being served articles like "In Defense of Chastity" that's when you know you're REALLY screwed up! I mean, did anyone really take that seriously?