tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post6208404499816858209..comments2023-10-25T05:30:54.507-04:00Comments on Oh Get A Grip!: The Stealth 70sAshe Barkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03390519279886657608noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-69325010640030013552015-07-19T21:07:13.925-04:002015-07-19T21:07:13.925-04:00Feminism always seemed to me to be so obviously es...Feminism always seemed to me to be so obviously essential that when The Feminine Mystique came out and Betty Friedan spoke at my women's college (Mount Holyoke), my reaction was the equivalent of, "Well, duh! Of course!" We had role models in the current and past women who were professors there, including the Professor Emeritus who had been a major figure in chemistry when very few women were in the sciences at all. She lived near my dorm, and hired two of us to shovel snow for her since she'd recently (in her eighties) decided it was getting to be too much for her. Over Christmas vacation, she had to hire a local young man who charged more to do it, and when we came back she gave us a big raise in pay, because she'd "be damned if I'd pay a man more than a woman!"Sacchi Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10801164916418570059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-65865815538356057622015-07-16T06:28:04.828-04:002015-07-16T06:28:04.828-04:00I think it would be hard to set a story in "t...I think it would be hard to set a story in "the seventies" because so much happened during that decade. We went from the Jefferson Airplane to Saturday Night Fever, from tie-dyed cotton to the slinky blouses Fiona has invoked. <br /><br />Vietnam. Nixon's demise. Anti-nuclear protests. <br /><br />Finally, easy and safe birth control. <br /><br />For me: anorexia, homelessness (or nearly), college, grad school, first real love, first experience with BDSM....<br /><br />Indeed, I had a hard time figuring out what to focus on for this topic. <br /><br />I like your excerpt, btw. You're such a tease, the way you give us bits and pieces.<br />Lisabet Saraihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05162514190572269660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-38035126616054589362015-07-15T12:34:56.345-04:002015-07-15T12:34:56.345-04:00And that "dividing the movement" critici...And that "dividing the movement" criticism is not gone...Annabeth Leonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07455191827664110878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-50822759655987627882015-07-15T12:33:13.805-04:002015-07-15T12:33:13.805-04:00 I heartily agree! I already had that snippet copi... I heartily agree! I already had that snippet copied onto my clipboard so I could give it a thumbs up!Annabeth Leonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07455191827664110878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-85809768625191911642015-07-15T01:38:19.546-04:002015-07-15T01:38:19.546-04:00Sacchi, how interesting that you thought your obje...Sacchi, how interesting that you thought your objection to the casual misogyny of the time would be a casual footnote, but it turned out to be something more. Good for you for speaking up. It took courage in those days to point out the obvious (to women), when we could always be criticized for "whining" and "dividing the movement."Jean Robertahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08805088081675965859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-58867924617568325682015-07-14T13:14:23.318-04:002015-07-14T13:14:23.318-04:00I was the class "brain", which means I g...I was the class "brain", which means I got called names like "curve-buster", since the teachers could grade on a curve back then, but when I got 100% on everything, they couldn't justify dropping an A down to 80% or lower, even though that's where the rest of the class might be. I was universally hated for years until high school. Then when my hormones started raging, I'd have fucked anyone who asked, but no one from my school did. So I had to look elsewhere.<br /><br />Years later, when I was in college, I got invited to a party at someone's house. I'd never, all through school, been invited to any of my peers' get-togethers. So I went. A couple of guys started hitting on me, and I walked out to smoke and yak with one, who confessed to me that he and "all the other guys" really wanted to fuck me in high school, but were afraid of me. Sheesh! I told him it was their loss, since I'd spent most of my weekend nights watching TV and dreaming about a time when I'd be getting laid anytime I wanted, which happened when I went away to college. I told him he'd missed his chance and I left the party.<br /><br />I went to my 10-year reunion as a newlywed, and it was freeing to realize that I didn't have to care about the opinions of any of the folks there anymore. I used to, since I went to the same school district with the same kids, from kindergarten to graduating, which I did half-way through my senior year. I'd never been asked to any dances, so I knew prom would be just another Saturday night at home for me, so I wanted to get out of my house and that situation ASAP. I went from being a social leper to discovering that while men have to work at getting laid, all a woman has to do is signal she's willing, and there's always someone who will volunteer to pleasure her. Those good times totally made up for my boring high school career.<br /><br />I went to my 20th, and was amused by the way that everyone fell naturally back into the roles they'd played in high school. The jocks sat together, the burn-outs did also, and I was expected to sit with the other nerds. Weird, since we were all close to 40. Soon after that, facebook became a big thing, and I'm on a list for graduates, that tells me when they have their yearly get-together at a local Dave and Busters in December. My husband refuses to go, since he's not good making small talk even when he knows the people. That means I'd have to go by myself. I don't want to put myself into any situation where I might drink too much and forget I'm a happily-married woman, so I don't go.<br /><br />I did go to college, but got an English degree, which is worthless in the work world. And I weigh a bit more than in high school when I was a size 6. After 4 kids I'll never be that thin again, and that's alright with me. I like to indulge in physical pleasures of all kinds.Fiona McGierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13495707848048468428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-25624913518782811502015-07-14T11:58:48.743-04:002015-07-14T11:58:48.743-04:00I've gone to about half of my every-five-years...I've gone to about half of my every-five-years reunions. Always found it rewarding. Especially since I was from the wrong side of the tracks, didn't go to college and did as well as anybody. And didn't get fat either :>)Daddy Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927663248424944119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-24875264539614755292015-07-13T18:49:21.122-04:002015-07-13T18:49:21.122-04:00I entered high school in 1971, graduated in 1975 (...I entered high school in 1971, graduated in 1975 (40-year reunion this year! Should I go? Husband will attend, grudgingly, if he must.) Graduated from college in 1979. <br /><br />Loved: birth control, "free love", casual sex, the bra-less look (which I still try to rock, but my adult kids upbraid me for, since "the girls" are considerably larger than they were back then) blues, rock and roll, and living on my own.<br /><br />Hated: disco, disco bars where there would be only 1 or 2 men who knew how to dance, and lots of women sitting around wanting to dance, but not with each other; silkie shirts meant to be worn sans bra which invited groping, "the moral majority" which was neither. and the beginning of the pendulum swing back to conservatism, which I've raged against for many, many years. <br /><br />Never got a chance to live in a commune. Kind of jealous of those who did.Fiona McGierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13495707848048468428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-41174525112380688652015-07-13T18:29:02.180-04:002015-07-13T18:29:02.180-04:00Your bit about the hippie commune in Alaska is the...Your bit about the hippie commune in Alaska is the thrust of T. Coraghassen Boyle's 'Drop City'. About a 70's commune that leaves Northern California to set up in Alaska, where they find an entirely new take on reality and what it means to go "back to the land". Good book!Daddy Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927663248424944119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-40014900672805965672015-07-13T14:06:40.022-04:002015-07-13T14:06:40.022-04:00Right Sacchi - the 70's was definitely a defin...Right Sacchi - the 70's was definitely a defining decade when so many lives and opinions were changed forever - some for the better. Probably why I've got my satellite radio stuck on 70's music!JPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10305127219838784688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-82918132933255460872015-07-13T07:48:19.082-04:002015-07-13T07:48:19.082-04:00I got so fed up with the casual misogyny of the mo...<i>I got so fed up with the casual misogyny of the movement—“We have to educate the common housewife yada yada yada”—that I wrote a nasty piece about the tendency to regard women in the home as about on the level of the common housefly, posted it on the office bulletin board, and was startled when the editor ran it as the lead story in the next issue and thanked me for it.</i><br /><br />You ROCK!! Forget the Stones and the Airplane—<i>you</i> were what was rockin' in 1970!Jeremy Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01980177431018869829noreply@blogger.com