How to live without a woman

Alexander Wright's 1937 book, How To Live Without A Woman, was a celebration of bachelorhood. But it seems that Wright's strategy for life without a woman was to get his female friends to feel sorry for him and do his housework for him.



Doesn't really seem like he was living without a woman if he was still getting women to do all his work. And you have to wonder how long he managed to keep any female friends before they figured out what was going on.

Pittsburgh Press - Sep 18, 1938

Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 31, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Gender, Men, Women, Books, 1930s

The Better Sex

Surely this could be rebooted for 2023 in our absolutely carefree and non-contentious cultural atmosphere.

The Wikipedia page.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jan 03, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Games, Rivalries, Feuds and Grudges, Television, Men, Women

Follies of the Madmen #551

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 29, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Robots, Women, Twentieth Century

Follies of the Madmen #546

Many more images in this campaign here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 09, 2022 - Comments (3)
Category: Stereotypes and Cliches, Advertising, Women, Twentieth Century

Betty Furness for Westinghouse

The weirdest thing about this commercial is the incredibly tiny waist of almost 40-year-old Betty Furness. I can't take my eyes off it.

NOTE: the first video runs slow, at least for me. Best to let it download entirely before hitting play.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 06, 2022 - Comments (5)
Category: Body, Domestic, Television, Advertising, 1950s, Women, Natural Wonders

Girl Gang Dodge Ads

This campaign was kinda genius, because they never explained what brought these three or four or five or six "wild & crazy" women together. Were they a troupe of actresses? Bank robbers? Insane asylum escapees? Rogue fashion models? You could stare at the ads all day in wonderment.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 14, 2022 - Comments (3)
Category: Unsolved Mysteries, Advertising, Women, Cars

Follies of the Madmen #541

Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 06, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Advertising, Women, Weapons, Motorcycles

Does college turn young women into communists?

Back in the 1930s families were concerned about whether they should send their young daughters off to college, fearing they might come home infected with communism. So in 1934, psychologist Stephen M. Corey set out to determine whether such fears were justified.

Corey administered the Thurstone Attitude Scale to 234 female freshmen at the University of Wisconsin, examining their attitudes with respect to six topics: Reality of God, War, Patriotism, Communism, Evolution, and Church. A year later he retested 100 of these students when they were sophomores.

Godless communists?

When he presented his findings at the Midwestern Psychological Association convention in May 1940, he assured everyone that it was safe to send young women to college, saying, "There was no great difference in the girls' attitudes. The average co-ed apparently would rather mix with stag lines than picket lines."

He also emphasized that the young women lost none of their feminine habits at college. A United Press reporter paraphrased his words:


However, if you look at his 1940 article in the Journal of Social Psychology*, in which he published the results of his study, you find somewhat different information. There he revealed that after a year at college the attitudes of the young women did change slightly, but consistently, in the direction of liberalism — which is to say that they showed less sympathy for god, war, patriotism, and the church, and more sympathy for communism and evolution.



Corey wrote in that article, "The opinions of the students appeared to have undergone at least a degree of liberalization during their one year of attendance at a University."

I guess he wasn't actually lying to the folks at the Midwestern Psychological Association. It's all how you choose to spin the data.

San Bernardino County Sun - May 5, 1940

* Corey, S.M. (1940). "Changes in the opinions of female students after one year at university." The Journal of Social Psychology, 11: 341-351.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Aug 17, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Psychology, 1930s, Women, Universities, Colleges, Private Schools and Academia

Panko:  The Suffragette Card Game

See more cards and history here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Apr 24, 2022 - Comments ()
Category: Games, Politics, 1910s, Women

Wiggle Room

Must have been a slow news day at the Newport Daily News (Newport, Rhode Island)
for 26 Jan 1966, Wed Page 22.



I assume everyone can picture Ann-Margret, Marlo Thomas and Ursula Andress. But for your benefit, here is wiggler Diane Cilento, Mrs. Sean Connery.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 22, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Medicine, Sexuality, Studies, Reports, White Papers, Investigations, 1960s, Women