50's womanhood: its all so Frankly Feminine
A weighty hardback tome, once white in colour, it sat on a shelf beside the two elephants holding a gong, the Neil Diamond LPs and the massive flat turntable system, while we were growing up. It sits there still. Everything is the same, apart from the stereo which moved with the times, as Dad slowly accepted the LP empire crumbling rise of the Compact Disc. It will never catch on he scoffed, while we watched amazed as Tomorrow's World smeared jam over a blameless small shiny disc. Nowadays of course he plays his Don Williams CDs on his PC while emailing his pals and booking flights online. He signed up for broadband before I did. Cost effective you see. But I digress.
Frankly Feminine too, marks the passing of another, earlier, era. It dispenses advice to young women on oh just about everything. About life and love and etiquette. How to deport oneself in public. About clothes and makeup and most importantly MEN and marriage.
I've searched for a copy of this book online, but alas it is out of print. But I've got the Family copy and I'll be giving you extracts from it in later posts. However, in the meantime, here's a pretty good idea of the advice and the times it conveys. For anyone who didn't see it already last week, you have to read this, so you'll know where you've been going wrong all these years when you greeted/ didn't bother greeting your man when he returned from a day's toil. Just see how happy you could make him. Just look at the 50's man in the picture. Look at the jaunty angle of his hat, look how happily he swings his briefcase, look at his Gene Kelly-esque dapper suit. Oh you can almost see the white picket fence and see the smile of his freshly lipsticked wife, with his apres work glass of scotch in her hand waiting, smiling, beside the door. Oh ain't life swell!
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And have a look while you're at it, what we thought of it all last week.
Let us know your thoughts men and women alike!