How far we have come...

[DanaC]

Because we live in the world and are surrounded by our cultures, the details and extent of social change can slip past unheeded. We look back on the world of our youth and we see that world has changed - but it is not always clear just how much and in what ways. We look at those times through the lens of our own age.

I know, looking back, and particularly through the ready availability of television from that era, that the world I grew up in - 70s and 80s Britain - was a good deal more sexist than the world I currently live in. Some of that is obvious - employment legislation to prevent overtly prejudiced hiring and firing practices - a much greater emphasis on women's own autonomy and a much greater understanding of women's rights as akin to men's.

Gendered expectations have changed - when I was a child, I had many friends whose homelives adhered to and underlined strict gender roles: girls helping with house work, washing up and cooking, whilst their brothers were not expected to do the same but were expected to help dad fix the car; and the tail-end of an education system that expected girls to take Domestic Science / Home Economics and Needlework and boys to take Woodwork/Metalwork and Technical Drawing.

On TV and in the media - women were routinely objectified in ways that, whilst there is now more overt sexualisation and nudity, was actually far more pervasive. Because along with the sexual objectification came a raft of assumptions of women as natural homemakers and unnatural workers. Women on television, even well trained actresses, often had to spend great chunks of their careers playing 'dumb' frivolity to lighten the mood and give the Dads something to leer at. Whole comedy sketches founded on how hysterically funny it for a man to drop a pencil down a woman's top and have to fish it out again from her heaving bosoms - whilst she either stays mute with a look of erotic surprise, or squeals and wriggles and flaps her hands.

Women (particularly if they were young and attractive - women could play powerful characters, as long as they were older) were usually expected to be intellectually unchallenging on television and those that displayed any tendency to outthink the men were undercut with expectations of femininity and patronising attitudes.


I was aware of some of this stuff growing up. But a lot of it passed me by at the time. But it clearly had an impact even if I wasn't quite sure what it was. As a youngster, I loved action adventure and sci-fi (still do). I read voraciously and watched a lot of tv. And I used to day dream - I'd spin fantasies in my head, fuelled by what I'd read and watched, with myself at the centre of the story. I imagined it as film, I saw it play out as if on the screen - but here's the thing: when I tried to visualise myself in heroic stance, I found it very difficult to do - I morphed into a male figure at such times - if I tried to visualise myself as female in heroic pose the image shattered - because I had absolutely no visual reference for women with heroic physicality. If I pictured myself as female my physicality became less heroic. The poses struck by female characters on tv, even when intended to convey strength, actually conveyed overt female sexuality and their movements were undercut by the need to remain resolutely feminine. Think of Wonder Woman, Supergirl, or any female character fighting on a 70's show.

The world has changed so much. I watch something like Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, or Person of Interest and see women inhabiting heroic and anti-heroic personas - with the physicality to match.

We understand now how psycholgically impactful it was for many black people growing up not to see any positive depictions of non-white characters on tv and in the wider media - that to be surrounded by a culture that never really shows people that look like them. I think, without really understanding, that the lack of a female presence in large swathes of our cultural product (detective and action shows, along with much serious drama, were almost all primarily masculine, with one or two female characters in support, relationship, or victim roles) and the distorted depictions of women as comedy props in many comedy shows (very few actual female comics at that time - this was another area that was almost entirely male), had an impact on me and other girls growing up in the 70s and 80s.


This has been a bit of a ramble. But what provoked it was watching this interview, with Helen Mirren, from 1975. The interviewer is Michael Parkinson - very much the top chat show host of his day. The whole interview isn't sexist - but yes, he genuinely asked if she thought her breasts might get in the way of being taken seriously as an actress.

And that question about posing in Playboy was asked of pretty much every good looking actress of the day - the two standard questions to ask of actresses: why did you pose nude in Playboy? and Why did you not pose nude in Playboy? Two of the best actors of the time - Helen Mirren and Diana Rigg - both asked why they didn't want to pose nude for a men's magazine.







The other programme that really brought the change home to me was the three part documentary It was alright in the 1970s. The episode that concentrated mostly on sexism was fascinating to me.

It showed a clip from a show I used to watch every week, The Professionals. I loved that show! In the clip we see Bodie and Doyle (the two leads) crouched behind a car in a stand off with a man who has taken a woman hostage ... She is at this point squealing - which we are told by Doyle (iirc) may be due to the man they're chasing having dropped a grenade down her bra.

They shoot the guy I think, and one of the heroes runs over to the still squealing woman, rips open her top, and we see in great and slow detail his hands moving across her body and breasts (still in bra - primetime tv, no nipples allowed), retrieves the grenade, throws it away and then lies on top of her to protect her from the blast.

Watching it today it is soooo fucking outrageously done. The dialogue surrounding this action is so revoltingly sexist, including banter at the end about the hero half undressing the woman and lying on top of her.

In another clip, from a 'will they won't they', romantic sitcom, the slightly inept but lovable male lead, frustrated at being rebuffed by the female lead, stalks her as she shops in the market, talking to himself and getting more irate. The big laugh, punchline payoff for the scene is that, he gets so frustrated by the situation that he says in a loud voice, forgetting that he is surrounded by other shoppers "Urrrgh - I just want to rape her!" - cue slightly shocked looks from mothers putting their hands over children's sensitive ears, some ribald chuckling from male stall holders and a slightly disturbing amused leer from an older woman.

The whole documentary is fascinating - it looks both at the sexist portrayal of women in the media, and also at the media's treatment of 70s feminists. Across the three eps, they look at sexism, racism, homphobia and the wider society in which the media was operating.

I can't find clips or eps that would play outside the UK, but well worth checking it out if you can find it online. Not sure how much it croses over with the US experience - but it's a fun watch.

[Clodfobble]

In the 80s, my pop culture influences were pretty restricted and the only adult TV shows I can recall being allowed to watch were MASH and Murder, She Wrote. Obviously not much overt sexism in the latter. MASH of course had "Hot Lips" Houlihan, which you would think says it all right there in the name, but at least from what I remember it was actually pretty progressive at the time. She usually wore turtlenecks, was super smart, and it was the men who were portrayed as kind of idiotic for leering at her while she coolly brushed it off and showed them up by fixing their mistakes every time. This is the only clip I could find online, where they are making a big deal about how she's not necessarily like other women, so maybe they're still clinging to stereotypes by making her the exception-to-the-rule. But she was always a character I liked to watch.

[Griff]

Her character evolved over the length of the program. Its fascinating to watch. My sense was that feminism made ground faster in the US but outside of music my British cultural references were limited to Benny Hill and Monty Python...

[DanaC]

MASH was one of my favourite shows, and Hot Lips an awesome character.

There were little glimmers that broke through. There were some brilliant female characters on TV - but they were always kind of undercut by their novelty - they were the ones who were good at being a cop/medic/serious character, despite their womanhood. Hot Lips wasn't like the other women - she was almost like one of the guys - she wasn't hobbled by her sex.

I also recall that a lot of tv shows overtly tackled and referenced the changing gender roles. I remember being conscious of that - the storylines of women trying to make it in male fields - the novelty of their presence in those fields (whole sitcoms based on the premise of a woman doing a man's job or vice versa) the hilarity of Les Dawson's comic vision of a distopian future where women are in charge and men are enslaved.

Thinking about it, even just a decade or so ago the idea of a man staying home as homekeeper or being left to raise a baby was considered funny in and of itself.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Griff

Her character evolved over the length of the program. Its fascinating to watch. My sense was that feminism made ground faster in the US but outside of music my British cultural references were limited to Benny Hill and Monty Python...

In some ways it did - mainstream British culture was quite anti-feminist and stuff like Benny Hill (stalking and rape gags to oompa oompa music - good teattime fayre for the whole family :P) was deeply sexist.

But - I am also being a little unfair, because there was good stuff, and there were people changing things and not every old fashioned male comic was a sexist pig - there was engaging and interesting drama, and exciting unusual sitcoms, and there were good male and female characters - but they existed within a surrouding sea of sexist culture and a set of tv staples that reflected that culture.

But one of the reasons I was conscious of some of this, even as a young child, was that it was also a culture that was self-consciously and rather clumsily attempting to question and examine those attitudes.

[Lamplighter]

Dana, that is a fascinating discussion. Well done.

Being a young teen in the later 40's and early 50's when tv was new,
in b/w and only on for a few hours each evening, I grew up following
down the path cleared by the now-called "greatest generation... the WWII vets.

While there are so many government programs created to their benefit, we take them now for granted.
But for me they created a sense of resentment at some of the social norms.
I agree with so many of the images and examples you give above.
For example, in the 9th grade, I was the only boy/male in the "Typing 1" class.
I was there instead being in "Metal Shop 1", as were my friends.

When it came to tv... I resented, and still do, the "dumb daddy" programs
that were the alternative comic themes to the "I Love Lucy" gendre.

I can't write about all that in the way you have above.
So sometime I would really like to see you take on a discussion
of your views of the male stereotypes during that same time period.

[Undertoad]

My understanding of 70s British TV and sexism:

No women vets on All Creatures Great and Small - no women farmers either. But to be fair it depicted the 1930s

No women in the Goodies or Python (Carol Cleveland not a full member) AND they played the women parts themselves (although it was the best ever)

Felicity Kendal, despite being a studied actress who went on to work with Tom Stoppard, could not have become beloved without being cute as a goddamn button

Mrs Slocumbe not really a sympathetic character. Although to be fair she does run a department

[DanaC]

I started this as an examination of where we've come from and how far we have come - but whilst in some respects the world has changed greatly, in some ways we haven't come so far at all.

We now have a western media culture that is able to show strong and heroic female characters - serious and respected female scientists (though the gender ratio of 'experts' called on for comment by news media is overwhelmingly male) - female characters who have deep and flawed internal lives that don't necessarily revolve around the impossble task of balancing being female with having a job - female comics and female leads - shows and movies that feature female characters as the centre of their tale (again the male to female ratio on these things is still not balanced) and so on.

But - in both the US and the UK, we still can't seem to cope with the idea of a female, late night talk show host. An odd one maybe - usually for short runs (I think the US has had 2 or 3 at most - one being Joan Rivers in the 80s, for one series). Women host daytime talk shows - because that's when women, as mothers and home makers are a bigger demographic - and there is an inherent assumption, not just that women want to listen to other women, but that the people who want to listen to women...are other women.

There's also still an assumption that women are second fiddle as comedians. Go to a youtube vid of a male comic and you might find comments about him being great or him being shit - but you won't find anyone saying 'See, men just can't be funny'. But that does get levelled at women. I've seen serious comments from people saying they just don't like female comedians - they just don't find them funny.

Late night talk shows - led by male comedians. Daytime talk shows - led by women (sometimes comedians). Comedy panel shows in the UK - overwhelmingly male. To the point that the BBC recently made a rule that panel shows had to include at least one female guest - because so oftenn it was just two teams of three men, with a male host. Very occasionally there might be a woman on one o fthe teams. Having more than one woman on a panel show is very rare. Panel shows are a huge part of the tv landscape in the UK.

We have come a very long way. But there are still some quirks and survivals that make no sense.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Dana, that is a fascinating discussion. Well done.

Being a young teen in the later 40's and early 50's when tv was new,
in b/w and only on for a few hours each evening, I grew up following
down the path cleared by the now-called "greatest generation... the WWII vets.

While there are so many government programs created to their benefit, we take them now for granted.
But for me they created a sense of resentment at some of the social norms.
I agree with so many of the images and examples you give above.
For example, in the 9th grade, I was the only boy/male in the "Typing 1" class.
I was there instead being in "Metal Shop 1", as were my friends.

When it came to tv... I resented, and still do, the "dumb daddy" programs
that were the alternative comic themes to the "I Love Lucy" gendre.

I can't write about all that in the way you have above.
So sometime I would really like to see you take on a discussion
of your views of the male stereotypes during that same time period.

An excellent point. I have talked a little before about the sexist portrayal of men in sitcoms and advertising in particular. The dumb dad image winds me up no end. Positive portrayals of husbands and fathers in advertising were all but absent for much of my life. Dad's were either: slightly inept mini-tyrants against whom the mum and kids collaborated, big kids, with whom the wives were infuriated, or fools to be tricked and cajoled by domineering wives and daughters.

Mainly because, I think, anything that was being sold as a product for the home and family was assumed to be selling to women - and this kind of 'Men huh!' eyerolling was assumed to appeal to wives and mothers.

i love it when I see a really good portrayal of fatherhood in adverts. My favourite recently was the Colman's Shepherd's Pie advert:

[Clodfobble]

To me, comedy is a whole different issue from how women are portrayed in general on TV. I honestly don't think that by the numbers it's any different from other careers women typically haven't had a large foothold in, like computer programming, it's just that comedy is one of the few places that people still feel free to openly declare women aren't as good at it or don't belong.

But even then, I don't honestly know if those numbers are so far off from, say, the open hostility a woman carpenter would receive if she showed up on a construction site. It's just that our stereotypes of lug-headed socially-conservative blue collar men make it easier to write off the sexism in those kinds of careers as to be expected, while we want to believe that savvy media figures are more progressive simply by the nature of their jobs, so the betrayal hurts more when they say stupid things.

If Joe the Plumber says something offensive, well, he's a fucking plumber what do I care? But when a creative professional says something offensive, we instantly look back on the things that person has created that we liked, and feel dirty by association in a way that doesn't happen when all we did was pay the guy to fix our pipes. It's the fact that we tend to self-identify with the things that bring us joy, and can't just see a media personality as another guy doing a job for money, that makes it harder to hear "women don't belong in comedy" than "women don't belong in a steel mill."

[Griff]

Originally Posted by DanaC

An excellent point. I have talked a little before about the sexist portrayal of men in sitcoms and advertising in particular. The dumb dad image winds me up no end. Positive portrayals of husbands and fathers in advertising were all but absent for much of my life. Dad's were either: slightly inept mini-tyrants against whom the mum and kids collaborated, big kids, with whom the wives were infuriated, or fools to be tricked and cajoled by domineering wives and daughters.

Mainly because, I think, anything that was being sold as a product for the home and family was assumed to be selling to women - and this kind of 'Men huh!' eyerolling was assumed to appeal to wives and mothers.

i love it when I see a really good portrayal of fatherhood in adverts. My favourite recently was the Colman's Shepherd's Pie advert:

As an early adopter of the stay at home Dad role, I tended to notice this stuff. I wasn't really offended though. Pete was offended enough for both of us. I think because she was raised to be a feminist and suddenly this idiot male stereotype asserted itself while she was making career progress in a guy field, while I was making it possible at home.

[Undertoad]

I understand that, due to recent medical developments, women only outlive men by five years on average, and not seven as it has been for the last century.

[DanaC]

That was always the payoff :p

Whilst of marriagable age, women lived under the coverture of their husbands, and in their dotage as elderly widows, having outlived their husbands, they were free to conduct their own affairs :P

[Undertoad]

I'm just being contrarian here, I'm with you - on the other hand, the 16-to-22 year old version of me laughed pretty hard at Benny Hill, and doesn't want to apologize for that.

Would I laugh today, no, it seems like it had its own context even for its day; and it felt like the context was culturally twisted; like, it feels very sexist now, but back then, it was pushing a certain boundary to a certain limit, which was actually freeing to its audience in a comic setting.

some of that is: there is a partly naked woman and many people like to see that, but it is not permitted, unless it is in a comedy universe where the rules are different

but there may be some other aspects of it that everyone interprets differently. really that is what drama and comedy should do. so i should defend it even if i disagree with it

Without that context, we are lost in trying to interpret why anyone would take so much time as to set up a bit, where a pretty woman stands at a counter and appears to have enormous naked breasts, until she walks away and it turns out to be two bald men face down in front her at the counter with cherries in front of them.

But the 1980 version of me found that to be a riot.

[DanaC]

I laughed at Benny Hill as a kid. I was only partially aware of this stuff at the time, and most of that awareness was due to it being discussed overtly on television.

I don't think we should be ashamed of it - I don't think, on the whole, that the people and cultural products of the 1970s should be judged according to the values of 2015. There were odd examples of programme makers who should by then have known better, in which the values on show were behind the times and which were almost defiantly anti-progress - a good example being the Black and White Minstrel Show , which, at a time when most people were aware that blacking up minstrel style and making 'where am dat water melon' jokes was racist, were still peddling that schtick well into the 70s. But for the most part, it should be seen in the context of its day.

I should also point out that 'sexist' jokes and situations aren't all necessarily cruel and damaging. At an intellectual level, I understand that 'mother-in-law' jokes, which were a staple of 1970s club comics, play on a very particular set of stereotypes about women, and in particular the undesirable, battleaxe figure of middle-aged womanhood. That said - I listen to a set by Les Dawson, and it's full of mother in law jokes, most of which I still find funny, because it's cleverly written - and because the persona he played on stage was that of a middle aged man, beset on all sides by domineering women - and the characters on his wife and MiL were regular features of his jokes and monologues. It never felt like he was talking about all mothers in law - or all wives - like some of them did with the throwaway jokes. He was building a persona and a series of ongoing characters.

Some of his stuff doesn't work now - and the cultural assumptions underpinning them have shifted, but it was funny at the time.



And again - one of the few comedians who can do the 'my wife's so fat' schtick and have me laughing