Being A Housewife Was My Profession Novel Download

'A Very Great Profession was conceived when I first saw the film of Brief Encounter on television' (the book begins). 'In it the heroine, Laura Jesson, goes into the local town every week to do a bit of shopping, have a cafe lunch, go to the cinema and change her library book. This is the highlight of her week. It was the glimpse of her newly-borrowed Kate O'Brien in her shopping basket that made me want to find out about the other novels the doctor's wife had been reading... I wanted, also, to learn something about Laura [who] lived uneventful days and was, like Katherine in Virginia Woolf's Night and Day (1919), "a member of a very great profession which has, as yet, no title and very little recognition... She lived at home."'

Historian Joanne Meyerowitz argues that many of the contemporary magazines and articles of the period did not place women solely in the home, as Friedan stated, but in fact supported the notions of full- or part-time jobs for women seeking to follow a career path rather than being a housewife.[35] These articles did, however, still emphasize the importance of maintaining the traditional image of femininity.[36]

DOWNLOAD 🔥 https://fancli.com/2y3IRm 🔥

The new welfare state gave rise to ideas of 'social citizenship' which with regard to females included earning a living when necessary, responsible housewifery and motherhood and social obligations. Official language referred to 'woman' without the divisions of class, but the latter were very real and crucial when it came to occupational choice. By examining in turn contemporary sociological and educational writing on school leavers' occupational choices (now rightly perceived as historical documents), the archives of the headmistresses' and the Assistant Mistresses' association and submissions made to the Central Advisory Council for Education for the Crowther Report 15-18 of 1959, Spencer is able to uncover tensions and dichotomies between general assumptions of the universal woman, and the notable distinctions between the few who went to grammar school (chiefly middle class), and the vast majority who attended secondary moderns. Historians have taken little notice of the latter and among those who have Gary McCulloch is one of the few to have recognised how secondary schools tried to socialise the working-class girl. Educational texts of the 1950s indicate the gendered vocational courses at secondary moderns, but generally contemporary educational and sociological material ignored or marginalised girls, a factor attributed by Spencer partly to the male dominance of sociology at the time. Reports from the women's teaching associations, on the other hand, crossed class lines and while accepting the need to prepare girls for likely domestic responsibilities, were acutely conscious of having also to educate girls for work at a time when there was increasing demand for female employment and for their rights and duties as citizens, which the teachers envisaged on far more equal terms than Beveridge had. They were somewhat uneasily aware too of girls' fear of being 'unfeminine' - a prime reason why so few entered occupations such as engineering - and the complexities of a situation where girls were marrying and bearing children earlier. Such considerations underpinned the Crowther Report, where the preoccupation with girls' domestic role led to recommendations for a gendered curriculum where girls would be educated for their 'natural' work. Spencer shows that such marginalisation might not fit changing employment needs of either employers or individual women.

Spencer thus demonstrates clearly how investigating old questions through a gendered lens uncovers new layers of meaning and leads to fresh interpretations. From chapter four she goes even further in using sources from this period previously little examined, if examined at all. In a fascinating examination of advice manuals and women's employment, she shows that, although the domestic role of women was always recognised, increasingly careers advice advocated choosing appropriate paid work which might be interrupted by a period at home rather than stopped altogether. Thus a woman's 'career' incorporated different periods of the time she could be in employment. Whether perusing advice from the youth Employment Bureau, manuals or the fortnightly Women's Employment, a female would learn that satisfying employment, as well as preparing her for being an ideal housewife and a lifelong display of feminine graces, was also part of her duties as a citizen. Well-chosen statistical tables (pp. 200-4) illustrate the gendered nature of occupational choice, showing that while an increasing number of women returned to the workforce once their children were older, many others continued at home. Much of the supposedly classless career advice was middle class in tone, for example paid work was assumed to be more fulfilling than domestic, but then, of course, middle-class women were more likely to have entry to skilled employment. The sociological literature acknowledged that women had a dual or combined role as worker, wife and mother - complementary strands of the web, says Spencer, which 'could be easily woven together into the web of adult identity' (p.86) as the individual's status changed. Work, indeed, should prepare girls for their responsibilities as home makers and citizens, even as a girl's status at work was affected by where she stood in the marriage market. Boys' choices were gendered too, however, their choices were interrupted by National Service and defined by the expectation of them being breadwinners.

By the late 1950s manpower shortages helped attitudes which were already changing towards women's work and a realignment of gender roles in the workplace was being encouraged. To achieve this, however, girls needed to be encouraged to stay on at school and to take extra qualifications. Spencer's analysis of the brief heyday of a source little known to most historians - the career novel for girls aged 14 to 16 (older if they were at grammar school) - gives a revealing insight into contemporary views on women and work. These fictional tales could be dismissed as merely the wishful thinking of their middle-class editors, writers and publishers, but their extraordinary popularity in the years before greater educational and employment opportunities for girls and women increased, is testimony to their appeal, even if this was partly owing to the romantic twist whereby the loyal, plucky girl who chose her job wisely always got her man. The deliberate policy in these books of stimulating girls to train for those skilled jobs 'suitable' for women and future homemakers who might well return to work was illustrated by both the detailed correspondence which went into their making and the collaboration on themes between the main publishers, Bodley Head and Chatto and Windus. Spencer offers a fascinating glimpse into these popular books (usefully listed at the end of the chapter), middle-class in tone yet read eagerly by many working-class girls. Like the contemporary radio soap The Archers, they conveyed didactic messages in an engaging form, their lessons also teaching how girls and women should behave at work. Through work indeed, heroines 'grow up' (pp. 115-16), a point made by woman reformers in the 19th century, although, of course, still girls first experience of it might be quite short. Ironically, however, although many of the heroines intend to carry on working after their great triumph of marriage or return to it after childbearing, none of their mothers work. Role models have to be established professional women, often sympathetic aunts. How these idealised stories were partly based on, yet also conflicted with, reality is shown by Spencer's reflections of the career of one of the authors, Evelyn Forbes.

A major preoccupation of the career novels was having the 'correct' appearance. This was also a major focus of recreational literature aimed at girls and women. Using the magazines Housewife and Woman and the comic Girl aimed at 12 to 16 year olds (although I certainly read it when younger and gave it up before I was a teenager), Spencer shows how females were educated into how to be 'feminine', how to be a 'woman' in the post-war, consumer society, a model which was constructed as white, middle-class, heterosexual and married or most likely to be. The unstated focus was really on the needs of the male breadwinner. Physical appearance and crafted images were a priority and to be maintained both at home and in the growing variety of jobs, some increasingly adventurous, promoted in these publications. The latter all actively sought to unite readers around the job of being a woman, participation by readers being encouraged in readers' clubs and correspondence, although the latter, particularly in advice given on the problems pages, actually revealed how hard it was for many to conform to prevailing values. Weavers of webs, after all, are not passive creatures. Spencer herself stresses that those who edited and wrote such publications were largely women who did not conform to the roles endorsed. On the other hand, she presents a world in which women were creating the very role model which constrained the autonomy of career choice.

I was at a dinner with eight highly successful professional women recently, ranging in age from 35 to 74. Their stories were typical of research I have been conducting on dual-career couples. One had just been given a huge promotion opportunity in another country, but had struggled for several months to get her spouse to agree to join her. Another had decided that to save her marriage, she would take a yearlong sabbatical and go back to school, giving the family some balance and a breather from two high-powered jobs. A third had tried to work part-time for her law firm but quickly realized she was being professionally sidelined. She opted for a doctorate instead. Her husband continued his career.

The art of being a housewife is actually hard work and requires much skill. We balance budgets, we multi-task, we crisis manage, we support people emotionally, we have time to volunteer and reach out to our communities. We make sacrifices that count. 2351a5e196