In
my last post, “Up and Away,” I cited a United Air Lines (as it
was called then) advertisement from 1953 that promoted its “Chicago
Executive” flight--“A Club in the Sky.” But only half the
population could avail itself of the flight's amenities, because it
was “FOR MEN ONLY.” Women executives, I noted, would, therefore,
have to travel less executively on United's regular 5 PM New York to
Chicago flight.
I
discovered the advertisement in the New Yorker while
performing a systematic scrutiny of that magazine's post-WWII
issues (I do not know where else the ad appeared). Now, thinking back
on what I saw between the magazine's covers, I believe that I
was wrong about women executives and their flight plans, because—at
least on the evidence of that magazine's widely-acclaimed
cartoons—there were no women executives in the United States from
the middle 1940s through the middle 1950s.*
If
women were not executives, what were they?
1--They
were (literally) objects of men's pursuits, being chased around
offices or hospital rooms (senior nurse to man tackling another
nurse: “Mr. Comstock! That's not included in your Blue
Cross!”). What today is recognized as sexual harassment was then a laughing matter.
2—Or,
they were happy to be sexual playthings. Usually depicted as
showgirls or nightclub employees, they were gold diggers latching
onto sugar daddies. Even non-night-clubby types might be on the
lookout (two women are outside a travel agency with a sign in the
window:
Travel
Now
Pay
Later
One young woman to the other: “And of course the chances are you'll land
someone to take care of the installments for you”).
3—They
might work in department stores, often in the Information Booth or
Gift Counseling department. If they weren't exclaiming, “How should
I know?” in the former, in the latter they were usually steering
gentlemen to the jewelry counter (and in a fine merging with point 2,
we have: “All I can say is, if some gentleman were to give me a
nice sapphire brooch, he'd find me most appreciative”).
4—And
if they were not working in a store, they were its customers--overeager
(husband in bed to wife in nightgown with handbag pretending to
sleepwalk: “Macy's is closed!”); exasperating (woman—during
WWII--to salesman surrounded by at least 50 scattered shoes: “Now,
isn't that silly? I haven't a shoe stamp”); or all at sea (woman to
liquor store clerk: “What would you suggest for a small group of
ladies who meet every Tuesday to do needlepoint?”).
5—If
they were driving a car to the shops, then they were sure to smash a
fender or, worse, wrap the vehicle around a tree (woman driver to
passenger: “Now I mustn't forget to notify the Rent-It-Here,
Leave-It-There People”).
6—If
they survived their automotive misadventures, they aged into
amply-upholstered matrons, whose major activities, in addition to
bedeviling salesclerks, were attending committee meetings (matronly
woman with book in hand: “I shall now quote the passages which I
consider obscene”) and promoting culture (matronly woman in front
of theater curtain: “Enough of Prologue! Now let's have the play.
'The Pageant of Distinguished Bergen County Women' is under way'”).
7—And,
going back in time, there were the unfortunate cavewomen, who were
always being banged on the noggin by men with wooden weaponry and dragged by their trailing tresses to the caves of their captors.
Which
goes to show that throughout history women have been victimized by
men's clubs.
***
*As
additional evidence, consider that that was the prime period of the
ads for Lord Calvert booze featuring “Men of Distinction,”
overwhelmingly business execs with an actor thrown in here and
there—not “Persons of Distinction,” also including women execs with highball in hand.
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