WWI and II spies

Spies were in every war. Espionage was how you got information about the next enemy attack and their strategy, as well as who was in charge of what and anything else that made a difference in the war.

Knitting Stitches were a way of sending coded messages.

When it came to WWI and II this meant hiring women to be 'code girls'. These women would go home and tell their folks they pushed pencils and were personal secretaries, when they were actually breaking codes for the military. WACs and WAAVs were hired to do this, though WAAVs got cooler uniforms and more perks.

This wasn't the only espionage that went into these wars. Men and women were both spies, through code-breaking and undercover work. Today I'm here to tell you all about them.

WWI

Mata Hari

Exotic dancer Mata Hari did strip teasing and was shot for spying for the Germans. She was Dutch, but claimed to be raised as an Indian temple dancer. She performed under the name Lady Gresha MacLeod, then took on the name Mata Hari. She had several affairs with military officers and wealthy aristocrats, as a matter of financial survival, before she was forced back to Holland. She was paid to become a German spy and had the name H 21 as a spy. She continued her affairs with the military men and politicians like before, but now the British had caught on to her. She was offered money to spy for France, and then switched sides. Because of this, they could track her codename to the German espionage and she was caught for being a German spy. She claimed not to have done anything for the Germans, but still got shot for it. Researchers say the case was flimsy against her, or that she was a great spy, or that she was a scapegoat to raise French moral. Either way, it is unclear if she actually spied for the Germans or just took the money and codename. Her accuser turned out to be a German spy.

The Statue of Edith Cavell
at St. Martin's Park

Edith Cavell, a matron at a hospital, helped 200 or more soldiers escape the Germans. She helped

soldiers from France, Belgium, and England get to safety. She also cared for anyone who needed help, no matter what side, out of religious conviction. There is a statue in her honor at St. Martin's Park with the epitaph 'Humanity, Fortitude, Devotion, Sacrifice' and what she told the priest before her death, "Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone". She was executed for harboring foreign soldiers on German soil.

WWII

Virginia Hall

There was once a woman spy with a wooden leg. I know that sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it was true. Virginia Hall, 'the limping lady', had a prosthetic she named Cuthbert because of a freak hunting accident. She was the first female resident agent in France. She radioed information and recruited resistance spies, as well as filing "news" stories with coded messages in them. She would signal pickup spots with potted plants. The Nazis eventually put her face on a wanted poster, but that didn't deter her. She just did her spy work from another place, after hot-footing it out of France. She planned sabotage missions that were credited with killing 150 Nazis and capturing 500 more. She retired from the CIA (a mandatory retirement) at age 60. She was the only woman to receive the distinguished service cross during WWII.

Juan Pujol Garcia

Some spies faked their deaths, this next one for 36 years, because they

could take on new identities. MI5's Juan Pujol Garcia did just that. He joined British forces against the Germans. To pad his resume after being rejected by the British, he posed as a Spanish Official and fed wrong information to Germans. He became a rogue double agent. After padding his resume enough, he tried again. This time they let him in. His double-agent status was never found out by Nazi forces.  He was a large part of the success of the D-Day invasion due to bringing false information to the Nazis. He faked his death in 1948 until 1980. A reporter looked into him around 1980 and suspected he was actually alive, as did Garcia's wife. He died for real in 1988. Some say he would have been okay to come out of hiding in 1960, but suspect he was ashamed for not making a war career in Venezuela and stayed in hiding because of that.

Invisible ink, now a gag gift or kids toy, was not a toy during wartime. In fact, Josephine Baker, a black singer and dancer, put invisible ink messages in her sheet music while working for the French Resistance, in order to get the messages into Portugal from France. Invisible ink was a way to get messages out that was used in more than one war. This is only one example of its' use, but even in the Civil War, it was used. Also used was knitting stitches, something that could easily hide a coded message in an innocent sweater. 

Invisible Ink being read

Spies and their techniques are fascinating to me, and if you share my enthusiasm, I'd suggest reading my sources and digging deeper. Women and men spies and Code Girls are easy research topics and you can find a lot of information, and not all of it can fit in one blog post. There are several movies on famous spies out there, too.

Pictures:

Atlas Obscura

BBC

Urban75

NPR

Art of Manliness

Sources:

https://www.history.com/news/female-allied-spy-world-war-2-wooden-leg

https://www.history.com/news/spy-double-agent-death-hoax-world-war-2

https://www.history.com/news/the-exotic-dancer-who-became-wwis-most-notorious-spy

https://www.thoughtco.com/female-spies-of-the-world-wars-3530435

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/knitting-spies-wwi-wwii

civil war women spies

The Civil War, two sides fighting each other over the issue of slavery. This war was filled with female spies. Who else could get closer to a general or an officer than a 'harmless' woman? There were dresses that held secrets in their underskirts and women wouldn't be frisked. It was genius!

In the Civil War women weren't equal to men, according to society, so women could get real, real close to diplomats, politicians, officers, and leaders in the community and pass on what they overheard to the side they actually supported. A little charm, some romance here and there, maybe some listening at doors, and you already have a lot of information at your fingertips.

As for messages being hidden, try hiding a message in your hair or underskirts. Most men are not going to frisk a young or aged woman. Women spies were caught, in some cases, but by then the other side had gotten quite a bit of information if the spy was smart. Some got messages out despite house arrest.

Famous Women Spies

Harriet Tubman

You have, most likely, already been taught about one of them. Harriet Tubman is considered a woman spy for helping slaves escape through the underground railroad. Spy work is no picnic, and if caught you could die for it, but that never stopped her from saving her fellow slaves. She even set up an espionage ring for the Union side of the war. She coordinated the sending of black men to the other side to get information. Because black people were considered less of a person, it got a wealth of information to the Union side of the war. She organized missions to destroy plantations and free slaves. She led a group to disrupt Confederate supply lines and freed 700 slaves in the process. This woman was more than an underground railroad conductor and freed slave. 

Belle Boyd

When it comes to beauty and brains, I'd say Belle Boyd had it. She supported the Confederate side of

the war and had southern loyalties. Despite shooting a drunk Union soldier, she got her share of military secrets to pass on to her side. She eavesdropped through holes and rode into enemy lines. She was caught a few times, but she survived the war. One officer, out of his love for her, helped her escape to London, then married her.

Elizabeth Van Lew

Loyal to the abolitionist movement, Elizabeth Van Lew, who brought help to prisoners in the form of basic needs, got information from guards and prisoners. She helped Union soldiers escape and smuggle out valuables and messages. She headed an espionage ring in Richmond. Using invisible ink and hollow vegetables, she got messages to union soldiers. She recruited a Libby Prison high ranking official to her ring. Unfortunately, her spy work left her in poverty, so a Union officer provided for her until her death in 1900.

Tactics and Techniques

How did they do it? Other than feminine wiles and a friendly smile, there were societal rules in their favor. For one, women were considered harmless and not equal to men. If they had been considered equals this would never have worked. This is the only situation that women being unequal was an advantage. For another, they were being intelligent about it. Using people to get what they wanted was a smart move here. It may have saved their lives and the lives of others. We know it saved and freed slaves. 

The women above used their care-giving and support roles to hide messages and smuggle messages and valuables out of prisons and camps. All those undergarments and good looks, as well as hairstyles, came in handy for the use of espionage. Who would question a woman giving aid to the men in the prisons? 

The clothing of the time for women made great hiding spots for weaponry, clothing, supplies, you name it! For the sake of modesty, strip-searching was not something a woman would likely experience. Men? Yes, but women? Not often. Fans that came with clothing could also be used for morse code. With the care-giving role came cooking pistol parts into bread and hiding supplies using domestic arts. Messages could hide anywhere- eggs, hair-dos, bread, false-bottomed baskets. 

Towards the end of the war, however, the men learned and women had to be more and more careful how they smuggled information in. Men started searching women more aggressively and women started getting caught. Hoop skirts could be torn off in an effort to find hidden weapons, and sometimes they were found out that way. It got harder as the war continued.

Pictures:
National Women's History Museum
The Herald Dispatch
Pinterest
Military History Now



Sources:
https://www.history.com/news/secret-agents-in-hoop-skirts-women-spies-of-the-civil-war
http://www.clarabartonmuseum.org/spies/

propaganda toward men Part 2

In a previous blog post, I talked about propaganda toward women. Today is propaganda directed toward men. Propaganda is political, biased information put out to influence the public through any media source possible, sometimes subtle in nature and other times extremely obvious.

The Disney Cartoon Private Snafu  - WWII era propaganda from Warner Brothers

I'm starting from the Civil war and ending on today's propaganda, because believe me, propaganda is still out there. It just isn't as obvious as the 1950s carpooling posters and offensive appliance ads. I'd encourage all of you out there to analyze the messages in your daily dose of media to see what comes up over and over again. You might be surprised.

Civil War

proslavery propaganda

The civil war, as most know, was within one country over the issue of slavery. Most of the propaganda was in the form of songs, songs that sang that real men went off to fight. Some propaganda toward men was in the newspapers, like the cartoon of black men taking white men's' places in a ballroom while the white men watched. That example was clearly for slavery, given that it played on the fears of what could happen when slaves were free. Others showed slavery to be despicable and showed a slave mother sold separate from her children, among other things. They also showed slaves being whipped.

Union Recruiting poster

As you'd expect, men were called into the fighting, but what ended up happening to the women back home was near or actual starvation. They were begged to come home, but the propaganda continued to draw them into the war. It was unpatriotic not to be fighting. The vast majority of the propaganda, however, occurred before the fighting and was a tug-of-war between pro-abolitionist and anti-abolitionist views.

World War I

1917 recruiting poster

Here we have a beacon towards the fighting, yet again. This is the theme in every war, except the cold war, which we will get to later. This was the years of visual posters and Uncle Sam urging you toward war, a poster that was reused in WWII later on. People were into isolationism and didn't want to enter the war, so they were being encouraged into it by the emotional appeals of the posters showing what could happen if the enemy came to them. Fear tactics and pride in your country was used big time. 

Images of women and Uncle Sam drew countless men into the conflict. A woman in a loose Navy outfit declared how if she were a man she'd join the Navy. Vivid images of the enemy as a mad brute holding a victimized woman (much like King Kong) declared that women and children were in trouble and men had to step up and defeat that enemy. If you were a pacifist, you were harassed by your own neighborhood, in some cases. All roads pointed to the war effort, and fighting was the goal if you were a man. It was that simple. 

World War II

After the first world war poster went so well, it was used again. Uncle Sam was urging men to fight once again. It was basically a repeat of the first, in many ways, except that it was a different war. Add Hollywood into the mix and we have even more propaganda power behind the recruitment messages. No surprise here, those directors went on to be more famous than those who didn't get in on the war. 

The war propaganda films were all about patriotism, recruitment, and

Der Fuehrer's Face

portraying the enemy badly, much like the posters. Newsreels can even be considered propaganda, in my opinion, especially during the wars. It portrays the US as heroic and the enemy as barbaric. Walt Disney threw himself into war cartoons during this war, which is part of the reason that Disney is probably big now, given the war films saved him from bankruptcy. His war cartoons included Der Fuehrer's Face, starring Donald Duck, as well as Donald Gets Drafted, Commando Duck, and Adolf Hitler Goes to Hell. Plus, Disney put out war training films for the troops.

The Cold War

An ad for a tie

Living in this era was restricting for women, yes, but was it restricting for men? I doubt that. The 1950s was a time where men went to work, came home, and sat down to a good meal, then (if I may be so bold) knew their wife and could boast of a large family while leaving household childrearing to the wife. Does that sound hard? I didn't think so. Unless you were ADHD or unconventional (couldn't sit still and didn't fit in) or homosexual (manhood and dominance were a definite thing), men were holding the stick while women got the short end of the stick. Some men were even, figuratively, dragging the women behind the stick. 

 coffee ad

Watch the sitcoms Father Knows Best, I dream of Genie, or Bewitched and you will immediately notice who the head of the family is, even if there are no children. The women serve the men. There is even an ad in a magazine that says "show her it's a man's world". Men weren't active fathers, though, so if you were more domestically involved as a father you were the exception to the rule, because domestic tasks were womens' work at that time. It was also acceptable to criticize women for their looks and homemaking abilities, so if a husband was mad at his wife for doing anything wrong it was almost acceptable to punish the wife for it, as shown by this ad for coffee. Like I said, men were holding the stick and women got the short end of it. 

Today

Propaganda today is a little more subtle, especially now that social media, film, art, and false news can be spread like wildfire across the internet. With all the ideas floating around our political climate, politics is everywhere. You can no longer ignore it like you could before. When it comes to messages about manhood from society I'd say that war recruitment still goes, but it is not as urgently pressing as before. It also includes women, so it is no longer just men. On top of changing politics, men have more freedom to be in the domestic sphere, even to the point of being a stay-at-home dad. LGBTQ is also not taboo, according to most society, so homosexual men are not trapped in the 1950s role of playing happy family. Manhood has definitely changed, but the 1950s ideal still stuck some places and in some families, so it sometimes depends on how men were raised when it comes to manhood standards. 

I'll end this with a warning, and some advice to avoid being herded into a society standard like sheep. Check out all your facts and find the truth. Think about who gets the short end of the stick, no matter what perks you get. Gender continues to work toward equality, but men still, to some degree and in some places, have more power. Yes, women are no longer trapped into the 1950 standard, but some spheres have some old traditions that tend to keep women out. Some old traditions keep men who don't fit the mold out, too, so my basic advice is this; be intelligent and consider who could be potentially dragged behind the stick. We may not live in the 1950s, but there are minority groups who lose out. Find out facts for yourself and you can't go wrong. 

On a slightly strange note, I found the perfect way to either show off a sarcastic sense of humor or be single for eternity. See the picture below. Show this off in your bathroom and never be bothered by women again!

This is a shower curtain. I don't know why it was made, but here it is. 

Pictures:
New York Historical Society
Vintagraph
Disney Film Project
The Society Pages
Tribupedia
Fine Art America

sources:
https://ideologicalart.com/war/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/posters-sold-world-war-i-american-public-180952179/
https://allthatsinteresting.com/world-war-1-propaganda-posters
https://www.history.com/news/world-war-1-propaganda-woodrow-wilson-fake-news
https://www.sagu.edu/thoughthub/the-power-of-propaganda-in-world-war-ii
https://hazlitt.net/feature/hollywood-and-wwii-kings-propaganda
https://insidethemagic.net/2017/01/influencing-america-through-animation-wwii-propaganda-cartoons-part-three-walt-disney/
https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/cold-war-propaganda/

propaganda toward women part one

Every war came with propaganda, and most wars told men and women different messages. Today's post is all about what women were told from the civil war up until now. Next week is going to be what men were told up until now.

WWII propaganda for carpooling and saving gas

What is propaganda? Propaganda is promoting a political point of view through the use of posters, movies, and any other media source possible. It is usually biased and probably not reliable information. Now that we all know what propaganda is, let's dive in.

Civil War

The civil war was one country fighting itself over the issue of slavery. There were two sides, Confederate and Union (South vs. North). The South was for slavery and the North was not. It divided families and brothers fought brothers. 

We think about propaganda for WWI and WWII, but why not dig into propaganda during this war? Every war had it and used it to rally support for their side. In this case, it began long before the fighting did. The newspapers were the source, and given that brother was fighting brother, you can probably guess that both sides were putting out their propaganda competitively. War broke out, obviously, and the posters and patriotic songs became more common. "Join us!" Mail envelopes being the only communication, they were used for this purpose, too. 

In this case, women played an active role by singing about how men were real men if they enlisted. Women also wrote songs and poetry here. Visually, women are portrayed as weeping over graves, praying, and generally being the domestic that they were before, only in distress. You may imagine Gone With the Wind in this case, but that may not be entirely accurate, depending on social class. What women were encouraged to do was support both the home and the troops. As the war got worse, this meant working jobs out of necessity. Nursing, politics, factories, store clerks, even becoming spies were common. Some women wrote to their men saying to come home or they would starve. The ones that did this were facing possible starvation, so they questioned why the men had to fight and were considered unpatriotic. Women suffered, and sometimes ended up feeding families with prostitution money, when men went to war. The south was in the worst shape when it came to this due to the slaves deserting. With all this happening, women were told to support the home and still keep men's morale up.

WWI

World War I was a war the US didn't enter until around 1917. The common medium for this propaganda was posters, lots of posters. 

Women were depicted as victims of war, to play on men's need to protect their women. In this same era, they were also shown as seducers, war bystanders, or supporting the troops. "Supporting the troops" posters were on the homefront, to encourage women to be active in support and soldier morale. Being bystanders or normal people on posters was to set an example for a social standard. As for the seductresses on the posters, they were telling men not to sleep with loose women or prostitutes in an attempt to cut down VD and illegitimate children. The army didn't want to deal with soldiers procreating on their off time (and if they did, the army had already told them to protect themselves).

We know how they were depicted, so let's move on to what they told

women directly. The most direct was the red cross posters that told women to "hold up their end". Support the war and give the men your support. Women were also shown on these posters what germans did to women, so fear tactics were being used. The only strong images of women were women nursing men back to health and women working factories. They were called to work, but after the war, called back to the home. During the war they were called to Victory Garden, for the sake of canning. Saving food for times fo famine was also a message sent.

WWII

World War II was a call to take men's places in the workforce. They even let women into the armed forces, but not at soldiers. Some were code girls (but couldn't talk about it), WAACs, and WAVEs. The ones at home were told to buy war bonds, get a victory job, and save resources for the men at war. Fear tactics told the general public "loose lips sink ships" and showed badly depicted enemies thanking them for the wasted resources. They were called to recycle and carpool, as well. Even baseball wanted women to take the place of men to keep the league going. An example of a carpooling poster is the first image on the blog.

The Cold War

After the war, however, we find propaganda that is anticommunist and resulted in the 1950s lifestyle that was so constricting and suffocating to womenkind. The Cold War was a war no one fought, but everyone felt. You stayed in line to avoid being labeled a communist, and thus if you were different you stuck out like you were neon. The propaganda toward women at this time was through household cleaner and appliance ads. Add the sitcoms like I Dream of Genie or Bewitched and you have an excellent picture of what propaganda was out there.

Pyrex Ad 1950

Women in the US were compared to unattractive, working Soviet Union women. Women in the US were portrayed as happy, perfect, domestic women with modern appliances. On top of this, single meant "sex-hungry" in this time and you were "a danger to men" according to society. Along with the pressure to be a perfect mother came the pressure to have a bomb shelter well stocked and prepared for a nuclear attack. Were these women happy in their lifestyle? Most weren't fulfilled at all. Why go along with it? You had nowhere else to go and your opportunity to be independent was not as present as when men were at war. In that way, the Cold War was far worse for women than WWI or WWII.

Today

Today's wars have propaganda, alright, but it is far more subtle. The news, TV shows, movies, and social media are where we get our propaganda today. We don't have a million posters of violent germans wearing swasticas in this day and age, but we do have memes and social media sources. What do these modern sources say about women? One, feminism is very much alive, and two, women have far more voice than ever before. We can join the military at any time now. We work jobs and have a lot of choices in our lives. 

All the same, when you look at your TV shows, movies, and social media sources check your history and your facts. Pay attention to details and trends. Don't fall for some of the overly ridiculous propaganda that is out there. Subtle trends that seem to be everywhere may be propaganda. Be intelligent about what you believe. If you Captain Picard face-palmed at any of this, I did, too. Learn from history and be safe out there.

Pictures:

cbs news

the riverdale press

hennepin county library
giphy
twitter

sources:

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/american-civil-war/propaganda-civil-war.html

https://medium.com/@AcunMustafa/propaganda-instruments-in-the-civil-war-poems-songs-pictures-and-cartoons-20fe0d6d3f57

https://www.nps.gov/articles/women-amidst-war.htm

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/women-in-wwi/war-posters

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003232927500500404
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-09-18-op-3106-story.html

men's expectations- a brief timeline of men's lives

Men have expectations put on them, just like women do. Today I'm going to break down what was expected of them from the 1800s to now. (If you want to see what was expected of women, read my previous post.)

Men have gone to war, gone to work, enforced the law, and done the dirty work in society (by dirty work I mean manual labor) for centuries. Unlike women, they were generally expected to be out making the money and fighting wars for most of their lives. Without further ado, let's go into the specifics of what was expected when.

What's Expected and When

1800s -  No surprise here, they were the breadwinners. To be a breadwinner here means to be working a trade or factory job, being a pastor, or being a civic leader in the community. They were responsible for their families. When it came time to fight the elements or the civil war, you fought for your family and their survival. This was a tough time to be anyone, but especially so if you were male and had to protect your household. 

WWI propaganda poster

1900s - Wartime, World War I, was in swing, so men were sent off to war while women took their place on the assembly line. Strangely, men were considered less moral than women. Even though men dominated ministry positions, that didn't make a dent in the idea men were less moral. Given the women's suffrage movement was beginning, the new movement was probably the cause for that. 

1920s/1930s -  After the wars passed, the family home settled into what it had been, which was men leading the family and general patriarchy. They came home to the families that missed them. Factories were in full bloom. Men were on the production lines working again. With cars being affordable this opened up men's love of cars, no matter your place in society. It was highly encouraged to work hard and be at the top of the ladder. They cared about their looks and were not obese by any means. Masculinity? It was an idea started here, for sure. Maybe even toxic masculinity. 

Great depression breadline in 1932

 However, 1930 was The Great Depression, and thus, men lost jobs and could provide less for their families. Some could provide nothing. Some of the women were taking jobs so the family could get by. Some men deserted their families out of frustration, which is called abandonment in legal terms and then called "poor man's divorce" in slang. Marriages were breaking because the family life and financial hardship were becoming too much. A couple couldn't afford a divorce, in many cases. Men's suicide rate went up because they couldn't provide.

Unless, of course, you worked a farm. Then not much changed. You probably hadn't had much to begin with and didn't need that many groceries. You had your meat, veggies, fruits all provided without the need to go shopping. Less time at the movies, perhaps, but the average farm family didn't suffer as much as those in the city who needed to buy their food. These farm folks were already selling eggs before the depression hit, anyway.

1940s/1950s - World War II was now happening. Men went to fight and women took their place in the workforce while managing the home. Some men found the changes in women, as more than a homemaker, to be a threat to manhood. The ideal man was a soldier, so civilian (nonmilitary) men were not as "manly". If you weren't for the war, well, you weren't popular at all. Men who didn't want to be soldiers were not treated well. 

1950s Family

1950 rolled around and we have more of the post-war "let's create a normal society" game. We all know this is the era of playing house, and as you'd expect, men did not get the short end of the stick on this one. Patriarchy was restored. Men returned from war with the GI bill, which paid for men's education. Men pursued careers and were able to marry almost immediately without the financial burden of paying for schooling. They could support large families. Men returned to the workforce and women were sent home. 

Even with all this, some men were threatened by women who still wanted to remain in the workforce. After women got the pill, the men lost some of the control over the family that they had because women could now control their number of offspring. It leveled the gender playing field because men had less choice of how many kids they raised. The patriarchy was not so secure after that. On top of this, they were taught to only show emotions related to anger. That still applies some places today.

The Brady Bunch TV Show 1970

1960s/1970s -   Vietnam had happened by now. Men were still feeling threatened by women in the workforce and divorce was more common. Men were involved in activism, like Martin Luther King Jr. . The social conventions of the previous era were gone because the next generation had rejected them. If one was into cohabitation before marriage, it started here. 

1970 ushered in egalitarian marriage, that is, men and women iboth the public and domestic sphere together. You see that today. Men were now helping their wives raise their children and being active fathers. Divorce was still common. Men were now competing with women even more for jobs that men traditionally held.

1980s/1990s -  At this point, social changes in gender don't dramatically change. The egalitarian marriage stuck and divorces were still happening. Both genders are working and raising children together. 

Crocodile Dundee II  Movie

The ideal image of a man had changed, though. Movies in the 80s portray independent, attractive, and non-virgin men. With that comes the idea of someone who can take care of himself and has experience under his belt. The average man is kind of left in the dust, but that isn't unusual when it comes to Hollywood. The ideal man in the films was rough around the edges, not clean cut.

Gay men being more accepted in society and the "don't ask don't tell" rule came into play around the 1990s. Also, no gay marriage was legal here. At this point we also have stepfamilies going on, that is, blended family. Remarrying to a spouse with children from a previous marriage was considered okay. For example, The Brady Bunch is a blended family.

2000 to now -  Nowadays we are almost all egalitarian when it comes to marriages, gay marriage is legal, divorce is still going on, women are in the workforce, and it is acceptable for men to stay home with the kids. We are not dealing with the previous years of strict gender roles. If you want to stay with the kids, you can, but if you want to work you can do that, too.

Men have more permission to be sensitive and emotional, though the "man box" still exists to this day. Toxic masculinity is still out there in some places, and if you want to know more I have a blog on that topic. In short, toxic masculinity is the idea that men can't express their emotion and must be dominant and aggressive to be a man. Yes, the world is changing, but I wouldn't say that this type of masculinity is extinct. It is the cause of most PTSD, so let's make that type of masculinity extinct and let men be healthy human beings who can express their emotions.

*Warning, while my source for 1920s manhood was a good mental picture of their expectations, it was not an article that has clean language, or positive opinions on men today.*

Sources:

https://oureverydaylife.com/mens-roles-1800s-8698379.html

https://oureverydaylife.com/were-roles-men-women-1900s-8623722.html

https://www.hiddendominion.com/masculine-men-of-1920s/

https://www.history.com/news/life-for-the-average-family-during-the-great-depression

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/gender-home-front

https://www.theclassroom.com/gender-roles-of-men-in-the-1950s-12083408.html

http://themaneffect.com/thejourney/what-the-60s-taught-us-about-manhood

https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/WIC/Historical-Essays/Changing-Guard/Identity/

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-07-24-8801170540-story.html
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/culture-magazines/1990s-lifestyles-and-social-trends-topics-news

pictures:
right sidebar - must gaze video
mental floss
Iowa Department of Culture
cosmoprof
TV Series Finale
gone with the twins

What was expected of women - a brief overview

Women today have a choice of what to wear. We aren't expected to be housewives all our lives, be stay at home moms for life, or focus solely on finding a husband. We can now be single, working women. We can be married working women, too, thanks to the changing times and the freedom we have acquired in today's era. If you so desire you can be a stay-at-home mom, but it's a choice you can make for yourself. The point? We have a choice.

1950s ad for a mixer 

I'm going to give you a brief overview of every era up to now. Coming up next week is the men's side of expectations up until now. 

The Overview

 1800s-  Your status, in this case, matters. Middle and upper-class white women had the expectation of educating the kids. Either way, you stayed home and raised the kids. Being in the public sphere wasn't a woman's place, according to that society. There were white women writing, usually under a different, male, name. While some did that, others used their actual names.

women sewing in factories in 1800

African descent meant being slaves, most of the time. African American descent had a role in their tribal public spheres, but not white public spheres. White society overlooked Native American
society often. 

  Some women went into higher education and founded schools. The abolition movement was getting started at this point. There were limitations to speaking in public life, however, and that led them to fight for more voice. Work, mostly sewing, was being introduced with the invention of the sewing machine, and many women did work, especially if they were widowed. 

1900 working women

1900s -  Still, it was assumed women were domestic. If you were upper class, you found a husband and raised a family. Women were being more educated at this point. The direct result was exercising rights and contributing to the economy, as well speaking on their own behalf politically. Some were absorbed as workers in Mills. However, after World War I ended, the women who worked in place of men were sent back to the domestic sphere, just like another era I'm going to talk about. 

 1920/1930-  Flappers began around 1920, and this is the year of prohibition, the failed movement that caused more drinking than ever before. Attitudes towards women were changing. The right to vote was extended to women, so women had a political voice now(Though some remained convinced women were purely domestic, and this is coming from women and men). The political reforms for prisons and child labor were the fruit of women in the political sphere. 

College was not an expectation for women, like it is now, but when they did get educations it was for nursing or teaching. Women were not welcomed in with open arms, as a general rule, when it came to higher education, yet women were getting into colleges with more frequency. 

Women working wasn't the trend at this point, either, given that 15 percent of white and 30 percent of black women held down jobs. The popular opinion was that if the husband worked, the woman didn't. Young unmarried women were getting jobs more often. Think secretaries and retail, with young women. It was acceptable to live outside of home if you worked. By 1930 one in four women held a paying job. However, majority worked only until marriage. 

four flappers drinking-1920

Cigarettes among women became popular, as well, for sophistication and fashion. The flapper was
freedom for women, representing less restrictive rules for clothes and behavior. Women were now in the public sphere and more independent, along with more freedom from society rules. 

1940/1950 -   In 1940, the wartime call to join the army meant fewer jobs filled, and women filled those roles, though they were expected to return to the home afterward. Women, too, were being accepted into military roles, including intelligence operations that dealt with codes (though it was kept hush-hush to the point that it is barely known about). To replace the boys playing baseball, girls took their place at the call of Wrigley at Wrigley Field. Women were on top when the men were away. 

propaganda 1950 

1950 brought a national agenda for the return of normal, family-centered, life. This was also the cold war era, so there was general uneasiness. Women were highly encouraged to be purely domestic, in contrast to the propaganda that showed communists as just the opposite. It discouraged women from working because communist women worked miserably and put their kids in a cold daycare center. 

We went from Rosy the Riveter to "go back to the kitchen". 

You might be familiar with MRS degrees, that is, getting married out of high school or college, and probably not finishing your degree. Basically, you go to college to find a man. Though employment rose, media urged women to be domestic. Most had large families right away. Stay-at-home mothers were highly encouraged and women working when they were financially okay beforehand were considered selfish. 

While singleness was a bad sign then, single and pregnant was worse. They were sent away to homes for wayward women and shunned by society. Thus birth control was more of a need, either that or you obeyed society and only had sex in marriage. Sex was for marriage and considered a key part of a happy marriage. Without birth control, this meant having a lot of kids. When the pill came out there was much joy. 

1960

1960/1970 -     The sixties was yet another changing time. The birth control pill was a new invention, called Enovid. Women entered the workforce more, now able to control how many kids they had. They were being challenged to follow their dreams by Betty Friedan's book. The work world was adjusting work regulations. Women took on political roles once again. TV shows stuck with the 1950 dream, but movies were moving to women who didn't fit that mold. Women weren't held back as much anymore. Political roles grew as women's rights movements became bigger. Women were gaining government roles as they fought for more rights. 

1980/1990 -  The war on drugs was now in full swing, and the first lady Nancy Reagan started the "just say no" campaign. College was now becoming more and more common for women, mostly for library science, home economics, nursing, teaching, and social services. These weren't decision making jobs. Pay still wasn't equal. "Ms." was now a term used, and you can't tell marriage status from that. It was for privacy and lack of focus on marriage status. 

With movies, women had more leading roles. These were more mature roles, less sex symbols. We all know Hollywood still uses women for sex symbols, but there was less of that going on in 1980. 

From the movie Pretty Woman

1990 brought online work, with the internet, so women could work from home. Some still do, to this
day, and make good money. It also brought more sex symbols in movies back, and women's dependence on men. Men were more leading roles. 

College was even more popular here. Feminism was still alive here. Women were going for decision making jobs at this point in time.

Present day (2000s)

Today we don't have strict rules for female roles, from 2000 on. To be egalitarian in view means equal opportunity (and in marriage, equal partnership). That is now the majority in this present time. The time for strict roles is gone. You can do, more or less, what you want. 

Given that, there are still some limitations in some careers. Careers that are still dominated by men include truck driving, carpentry, construction, and automotive. The heavy lifting and hands-on dirty work are not presented as options for women most times, because we are either small human beings (I am at least, I'm short.) or we are pushed into college education. While there are exceptions to that rule, as always, most females aren't running towards the labor-intensive jobs because they are presented as men's work by ads, and when night work comes into the picture some worry for their safety as a woman. That doesn't mean you can't do these jobs if you are female. All that means is that you are one of the few if you do.

This has been an overview of women in society and what is expected of us. Next week tune in for the men's side of things. Merry Christmas! God bless us, every one!

Pictures:
the classroom
misadventures magazine
all that's interesting

makinghistoryatmacquarie-wordpress
medium
the study
Hollywood Reporter

fueloyal

Sources:

https://www.thoughtco.com/women-in-1800s-4141147

https://www.aresearchguide.com/lifestyle-middle-class-young-american-women-early-nineteenth-century.html

https://www.ncpedia.org/history/20th-Century/1920s-women

http://americanhistory1940-50.blogspot.com/p/role-of-women-during-1940s.html

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-mrs-america-womens-roles-1950s/

https://www.historycentral.com/sixty/Americans/WOMEN.html

https://sites.google.com/site/exploringtheseventies/home/politics/the-role-of-women-in-the-70-s

http://www.infobarrel.com/American_History_of_Women_in_the_1980s

http://www.infobarrel.com/American_History_of_Women_in_the_1990s

https://uiwomenscenter.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/women-throughout-the-decades/
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/success/women-male-dominated-occupations/index.html

chivalry - what is it really?

Chivalry, some of us think it is holding the door open for women and that is all. We'd be wrong, then. Chivalry code has to do with integrity as a knight, love, and battle. Yes, it does say treating women well is good, but it also has the guidelines to a fair fight.

Chivalry is the honor code of a knight. In Medieval times this was understood by all. It was a part of their society.  A knight was aggressive in battle, but honorable at home. There was etiquette when it came to women. Think King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and you have the romanticized example.

The Code

According to The Song of Roland, this was the code knights adhered to. 

1. serve God/maintain Church  2. serve Liege Lord in valour/faith  3. protect the weak/defenseless

4. give aid (succour) to widows/orphans  5. refrain from offending  6. live by honor for glory 

7. despise being paid for reward  8. fight for welfare of all  9. obey authority  

10. guard fellow knights' honor 11. avoid unfairness/meanness/deceit  12. keep faith 

 13. speak truth  14. persevere to the end/finish tasks  15. respect/honor women  

The romanticized Chivalry

16. never refuse challenge from an equal   17. never turn back to foe

As you can see, only one of these is honor to women and the rest have to do with faith, public duty, and battle. Saving the damsel in distress does fall into the code as number three, protecting the weak and defenseless, but is also number fifteen. Knights were honorable people, if they followed this code. There were plenty that didn't.

Why it was created

The rise of knights meant a lot of hired thugs were around wearing armor and riding horses, while also wearing swords. They were prone to violence and sometimes rewarded with someone's blessing to plunder the land, raping, looting, and burning along the way. The code was a way to protect the elite's reputation, as well as protect the people below them, supposedly. 

The code was not always followed, and the fourth crusade, where the Pope told them not to sack Constantinople, and they did, was one of those times. The noble class got most of the respect, in the case of this code, because knights were into women of status and the code was to cover the elite's hind ends. The poor were not so lucky, in that way. Ordinary women weren't as respected. Only a few texts that referenced chivalry warned against burning towns and raping women, so the reality of chivalry was not as romantic as King Arthur led us to believe.

Chivalry today

Today our idea of Chivalry came from the romantic stories of knights romancing women. I'd say it can be summed up in one word; integrity and putting women on a pedestal. That is one code I can live with. 

After what I just learned about actual knights, I'd say that Knight's Tale is actually more accurate when it comes to the code and how knights actually acted. Is it overly accurate? Probably not, but my point is this; the way those knights acted was far more real than the romantic stories written about them. The character of Count Adhemar was an elite and treated William like dirt, and he went after only noble women, which is a better example of how it actually worked back then. 

Count Adhemar beside Jocelyn

Pictures:
pinterest
reddit
vulture


sources:
http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-knights/code-of-chivalry.htm
https://www.history.com/news/chivalry-knights-middle-ages