Woman's Weekly / 11th July 1969
I’m sure I remember PG Tips offering coupons towards children’s books a few years ago, but I’ve not seen anything like this for some time, because presumably it’s expensive to produce! Nice idea, although I hope that lad on the bottom right got a clip round the ear. Cheeky sod.
Tags: blatant sexism, Brooke Bond, tea
Woman's Weekly / 26th March 1965
Blimey Nora. Somehow, I don’t think there was an equivalent advert in Playboy questioning men’s fatherhood skills. Despite the wider range of men’s magazines available nowadays, there still aren’t, but women are still fed a good spoonful of guilt in adverts aimed at them. Why do we put up with it?
Tags: blatant sexism, emotional blackmail, health, motherhood
Woman's Weekly / 25th June 1965
Oh dear. Obviously, I hope things worked out for these two girls, but it makes your heart sink to see Mary come up trumps again with her judgmental language. What makes her think that either of these two girls will EVER put themselves in such a position again, given the trauma that they’re suffering? This is before the legalisation of abortion in Britain (excluding Northern Ireland), which happened in 1967, so if either of them were pregnant, their options were to bring up the child themselves (or have their parents go through the charade of pretending it was a sibling), have the child adopted, or to have a dangerous illegal abortion.
Of course, what Mary doesn’t mention is that the woeful lack of sex education until recently in the UK (and it’s hardly perfect now), meant that many young people were exposed to the adult world with no way of preparing themselves for it. Perhaps you could justify this ignorance when youngsters had close supervision from adults (although it no doubt caused unnecessary anxiety for young couples), but it was wholly inadequate for the 20th century, and is recklessly irresponsible in the 21st. Sadly, what should be a simple process of preparing children for the challenges of adult life is endlessly highjacked by those motivated by fear and bigotry, who appear to think that informing children of the inevitable features of adulthood means that they’ll want to try them all out! It’s a grave insult to those children to assume that they can’t make an informed decision. Luckily, wilful ignorance is no longer government policy (despite the efforts of this MP), and the internet means that there isn’t just one official source of information, with Dr Petra Boynton, a experienced sex educator, giving a good list here. Of course, there’s more than enough misinformation on the internet, but at last ‘ver kids’ at least have most teachers in this country on their side to help guide them through.
Tags: blatant sexism, Mary Marryat, pregnancy, problem page, teenagers
Woman's Weekly / 18th June 1965
Hmm. Read the first letter and see if you agree with me that there may be more to this than Mary realises. Everyone loses their temper occasionally, usually when they’re tired or have had a hard day, but regular bouts of extreme anger are different. It’s particularly concerning that the husband only displays this anger to his wife, so everyone else in their lives probably think that he’s an ideal man. Of course, domestic violence wasn’t really taken seriously until the 1980s; when my aunt left her abusive husband in the 1970s, the police were prepared to sit at a distance when he visited her, meaning it was only her quick closing of the door which prevented him from stabbing her with a knife he’d concealed.
What is also worrying is that we haven’t come all that far on this issue in 45 years. This editorial in the Guardian from 2008 states that more women worldwide between 19 and 44 die from domestic violence than any other cause, and the proposed changes in legal aid will make women more vulnerable. And being a victim of violence isn’t restricted to women in heterosexual relationships; anyone can be a victim, and convictions are even more difficult in these (rarer) cases. Mary’s eventual advice of marriage guidance isn’t wrong, but she’s obviously underestimated how frightened this woman is. After all, she’s finally picked up the courage after 30 years to write to a problem page, so getting her husband to undergo marriage guidance? Unlikely. I hope his temper just restricted itself to shouting, because I have a horrible feeling that this woman wouldn’t have got anywhere in dealing with his anger issues.
Tags: blatant sexism, domestic violence, Mary Marryat, problem page
Woman's Weekly / 25th June 1965
Here’s another advert insulting older women from Prom. This time, they’re suggesting that it’s even worth cancelling your holiday if you’re not happy with your hair. After all, you wouldn’t want to show your husband up, would you?
Tags: beauty, blatant sexism, emotional blackmail, perms, Prom
Woman's Weekly / 16th April 1965
A fascinating juxtaposition here; from free batter whisks to oil companies reaching out to new female customers. As long as they only venture into London for a day’s shopping, of course.
Tags: blatant sexism, driving, household
Woman's Weekly / 2nd May 1969
This is a profoundly misguided advert, and heaven help the poor women who decided to send off for the C.D. Indicator! I’ve got no idea what they mean by ‘mechanical’ or ‘chemical’ methods of contraception either, given that the only methods that I can think of are barrier or hormonal. I’d love to see what they thought was a ‘mechanical’ method though: the mind boggles!
Tags: blatant sexism, contraception, dodgy advice
Woman's Weekly / 26th March 1965
YES! Get yourself high and you too can fit in a nice dress! This article suggests that these pills were probably amphetamines, so presumably, if you didn’t have 20 shillings to spare once you came down, you put all the weight back on through eating normally, and, most likely, you put more on through comfort eating as well. The article linked to also gives details of modern diet pills, which don’t sound that pleasant either. As ever, eating sensibly and exercising regularly is the only proven long-term method of weight management, and you should talk to your doctor if you need support.
Tags: blatant sexism, diets, dodgy advice, health
Woman's Weekly / 6th June 1969
*emerges from bunker* Ah, peace at last. Anyway, I thought it was high time I treated you all to another Marryat. There’s a sweet letter about two youngsters in love, a woman who clearly wants backup from Mary to wave at her future son’s mum-in-law, but the most remarkable letter is tucked away, for some odd reason. Poor Joan is being threatened with eviction by her husband through no fault of her own, and although Mary tells her that she does have rights, as his wife, it’s strange to not have this as the lead letter. I hope Joan sorted out her life and got rid of her deadbeat husband, but it’s a telling sign that affairs and marriage breakup are nothing new.
Tags: blatant sexism, marriage, Mary Marryat, problem page
Woman's Weekly / 9th April 1965
Well, I fancied some Sunday sexism, so I thought I’d drag out another one of Mary’s pages. Nowadays, I’d hope that men taking women on dates would assume that their companions were able to string a sentence together to order their dinner, but in 1965, this was obviously considered to be taking too much of a chance. Pity the poor woman who wanted to leave after the coffees, but whose male companion was getting stuck into the whisky and leering at other women, eh?
We’ve also got some poor girl whose mother is clearly terrified of her daughter growing up (my mum practically had to crowbar me into a bra), and an even more unfortunate girl. I sincerely hope she didn’t need the help of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child, and that her parents put the religious dogma aside to help her.
Tags: blatant sexism, Mary Marryat, misplaced morality, pregnancy, problem page