Sex and the College Girl - 1957

[carebear]

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/195711/sex-college

Ever since Gertrude Stein made her remark about the Lost Generation, every decade has wanted to find a tag, a concise explanation of its own behavior. In our complicated world, any simplification of the events around us is welcome and, in fact, almost necessary. We need to feel our place in history; it helps in our constant search for self-identity. But while the Beatniks travel about the country on the backs of trucks, the rest of us are going to college and then plunging—with puzzling eagerness—into marriage and parenthood. While the Beatniks are avoiding any signs of culture or intellect, we are struggling to adapt what we have to the essentially nonintellectual function of early parenthood. We are deadly serious in our pursuits and, I am afraid, non-adventurous in our actions. We have a compulsion to plan our lives, to take into account all possible adversities and to guard against them. We prefer not to consider the fact that human destinies are subject to amazingly ephemeral influences and that often our most rewarding experiences come about by pure chance. This sort of thinking seems risky to us, and we are not a generation to take risks. Perhaps history will prove that we are a buffer generation, standing by silently while our children, brought up by demand-feeding and demand-everything, kick over the traces and do startling things, with none of our predilection for playing it safe. (continues)

 

[Miss Brill]

jeez, too much reading.

 

[Foofoogal]

Women may change roles all they wish, skittering about in a frantic effort to fulfill themselves, but the male ego has not changed a twig for centuries.

Nothing new under the sun. Excellent reading especially considering that was a very good year. Thanks. Hilarious really. :eusa_clap

 

[Flivver]

That's an interesting piece written about the "sandwich" generation born roughly between 1935-1945. Sometimes called the "Quiet Generation", these people were caught between the more traditional values of the Depression Generation and the "new" values of the Baby Boomers.

These people followed the old fashioned practice of early marriage and kids. One of my friends who is a member of this generation tells me that it was quite common for kids at that time to get married just after high school graduation.

So they took on adult responsibilities early, then when they were in their 30s, watched the "free love" Boomers doing their thing and often felt trapped in their marriages. This led to divorce rates soaring into the 50% range for this generation!

Kind of a sad state of affairs, really.

 

[Samsa]

"To each his own" is a good maxim.

 

[Paisley]

My parents got married young and had several kids in their teens and early 20s. Without going into detail, I think waiting to have more money and more maturity might have helped them. My brother said the same thing about his own situation: he wouldn't have gotten married so young. My aunt, however, got married at 15 or 16 and did well, but it was her choice.

Whether you're young or not so young, if you're going to start a family or buy a house, it's best to have a lot of cash salted away for those inevitable emergencies.

 

[Miss Crisplock]

There are biological facts here ladies and gentlemen. Ones that do not change with social customs or with economic considerations. Female fecundity is not an everlasting option, as a generation has come to learn, despite being told that late childbearing was an option.

Facts can be found at any reputable gynocologist that will stop this discussion in a lunar cycle.:eusa_doh:

 

[Miss Neecerie]

No arguing there....but that doesn't mean one can -afford- to procreate...and doing so irresponsibly just because -my- clock is ticking...is a FAR worse offense to society then to simply refrain from doing so because its in the best interests of all.

 

[Paisley]

What I read in the article is that it was really easy for a young woman to get into a marital rut. Ol' Steady Joe was probably fine with going to work, coming home, seeing the kids for five minutes, having dinner and watching TV. But what about Susie? She could end up a bored housewife, or frantically trying to do everything possible.

Another thing I think the author was trying to say was that her generation wasn't allowing much room for serendipity. "We prefer not to consider the fact that human destinies are subject to amazingly ephemeral influences and that often our most rewarding experiences come about by pure chance."

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I just read most of this article and find it to be full of gross generalizations, self-absorbed musings the author has confused with insight about female human nature and really, an inability to make any sort of useful argument for or against anything. [huh]

 

[Martinis at 8]

What I read in the article is that it was really easy for a young woman to get into a marital rut. Ol' Steady Joe was probably fine with going to work, coming home, seeing the kids for five minutes, having dinner and watching TV. But what about Susie? She could end up a bored housewife, or frantically trying to do everything possible.

Another thing I think the author was trying to say was that her generation wasn't allowing much room for serendipity. "We prefer not to consider the fact that human destinies are subject to amazingly ephemeral influences and that often our most rewarding experiences come about by pure chance."

That I do agree with. Specifically, your description of the author's intent.

However, I think she conjures up some of the imaginary. I base this on (1) she is a graduate of the then elite Smith (2) her references seem to favor male Ivy League graduates and fraternities, and (3) she appears to be advocating promiscuity for the college bound girls. In other words, I think she comes from the elite and is writing for the elite. Muffy is bored, so is Doris Duke. And because she is from the elite, she feels bored at not having had the "exciting" experiences of life which she imagines to be found in the writings of Jack Kerouac and sorts.

I believe she (the author) mixes the concept of "excitement" with "risk". We are only talking 12 years out from the end of WW2. So that generation was probably just hitting 40 and probably coming into their own. I do not think that a non-elite status woman who worked during the war, had kids soon after (during or before), probably displaced from her rural origin, would think she had not taken "risk", simply because she fell into the "non-intellectual" endeavor of parenting, and did so while she was young.

Cheers,

M8

 

[PrettySquareGal]

The author states: "The fact is that, lacking a solid background of Christian ethics, most girls have only a couple of vague rules of thumb to go by, which they cling to beyond all sense and reason."

An absurd statement, whether it's 1957 or 2007.

 

[scotrace]

Zohar has cleaned up this thread and deleted the parallel conversation. We'll have no more of that, thanks.

 

[Samsa]

Excellent, glad the bartenders cleaned things up. Sorry for my own (now deleted) contributions to the mess. I was going to add my own two cents on the article, but PrettySquareGal said it better than I could:

I just read most of this article and find it to be full of gross generalizations, self-absorbed musings the author has confused with insight about female human nature and really, an inability to make any sort of useful argument for or against anything. [huh]