A Woman's Childhood Journey in Finding a Role in America

I watched the movie, Snow White and the Huntsman, yesterday and found myself wondering where were all the kick asa princesses when I was young? Obviously they were not around in the nineteen sixties! No the princesses I grew up with depended on men to save them from the wicked queen. Yes a handsome prince would ride in on his white stallion, deliver the evil queen her death blow, and ride off into the sunset with the princess in his arms to live together in holy matrimony. They had a wonderful life together with no more problems or heartaches! Yep! That is what I grew up with. It wasn't just in Disney Fairy Tales either. The reality is this is what was portrayed to the young girls of the middle decades of the twentieth century in every bit of media that was available to us. From television shows to movies to books to magazines and even in music, girls were subjected to the inculcation of the female role in America. This was in contrast to what was perceived during World War II when women were needed to take over positions that men had held traditionally in order to promote the war effort. Yes, during the war years women built the machines of war, packed ammunition, and flew fighters and bombers to their destinations in England. Women were taxi drivers, baseball players, managers, bankers, police officers, firefighters, steel workers, farmers, and factory workrrs; as well as, the normal female jobs of nurses, secretaries, teachers, wives, and mothers. The American Woman showed how versatile she was by doing all of these traditional male roles. Then it changed and the baby boomer generation of pliable young minds was indoctrinated with the image of the ideal female as being passive, unable to do anything do to lack of intelligence, and needing a male to save them from evil doers and themselves. Yes, we were spoon fed this ideology from birth. It filled our minds every moment of the day from the television shows we watched to the books we read and even in the music we listened to. Television shows like "Bonanza", "Gunsmoke", "Father Knows Best", and "The Brady Bunch" taught us well on where women should be in society. In Bonanza they weren't even a part of the main characters! "Gunsmoke was filled with all males except for Miss Kitty who owned the saloon, was a prostitute/madams, rich, and had to be rescued by Marshall Dillon all the time! "Father Knows Best" told us immediately where women stood and it wasn't with knowledge! Nope, only good old dad had the brains. Then came "The Brady Bunch", yep, mom stayed at home and had a live in maid who did the cooking and the cleaning while the "lady of the house " went to parties and charity organization. Dad was the provided all the money and got cool working vacations to Hawaii! How come my dad didn't do that for me is whet was heard from us! Or how about why couldn't we have a live in maid who was as cool as Alice was on the show? Lets face it we were normal families who dealt with reality! But then again to Ann Romney this is what we are suppose to be! Somewhere or other I got thecshaft cause I have never known anyone like the women in those shows. So this leads us to our books we read! Remember our readers? Sally wore a dress and helped mom cook while Jack (or whatever his name was) ran, jumped, and had a lot of fun! How about our history and social studies books? The only women mentioned in them were Pocahontas, Sacajawea, and Betsy Ross. Two of them were Native Americans who helped white males and the former was a white female who sewed the American with great care! If any other women were mentioned I must have forgotten them since we didn't talk about them much! Story books? "Stone Soup" a favorite had three male soldiers teaching a town compassion and sharing. "Tom Sawyer", another favorite, male characters who had a lot of fun. We girls did have Becky who gave us a bit of hope! "Brave New World? Whatca laugh. Male oriented, women given some authority over their bodies and reproduction, but on the whole another tale of a woman who is considered a whore for not taking care of herself with birth control and winds up pregnant and ostracized from society! The males are ridiculed as well for being different. The same old story, just a different time period. How about music? The same. From "My boyfriend's back" and "These boots are made for walking" women are seen as either needing rescue to being a whore and bitch! Yep these were the images I grew up with! What's scathe is this is what some in America want us to be! God help us from these Medieval people! Women still have a long way to go but ag least now we Canberra who we were meant to be and our daughters can find themselves looking at images of real women who have exceeded the limitations the media and society tried to force on us: the baby boomers!