This is yet another brilliant piece from the pen of La Markoe! I was actually getting queasy as I scrolled through the images you shared--my mother, divorced and cast aside by family and friends as "mentally ill" in the '60s (she was mostly just really angry after four kids and quashed teaching career), subscribed to LHJ, and I spent many a troubling hour with it during my formative years while mom chain-smoked in her bedroom. I also came late to Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique, not reading it until I was researching my memoir about my mother, Compromise Cake: Lessons Learned From My Mother's Recipe Box, in the teens of this young century. When I was in college in the early 70s, just as the feminist movement was heating up, I thought why bother reading it, all that stuff was taken care of back in the '60s, when the book came out. Yeah, right. And I was conditioned to the reality that I couldn't get a credit card at the time without a co-signer and that men were to be put first in one's limited, constrained life. I'll stop there, but must add: the suds photo is T-Shirt and coffee mug worthy. We want merch Ms. Markoe!
my favorite part of the kotex ad was Mopping Woman wearing white pants while using the product. Mopping Woman was brave. BTW - I loved True Confessions back in the day.
Didn’t we all( love True Cofessions). Truly rolling on floor laffing out loud. Roy Lichtenstein in print ! And I saw those white pants immediately too! Very gutsy… and so sneaky of Kotex and the ad agency
I still can’t get over the Lysol ad for douching. My mother subscribed to some of these magazines in the 60’s and 70’s. They never interested me at the time so thanks for writing this piece and showing what I have missed or er, escaped. A former male coworker long ago brought in his subscription copies of Ladies Home Journal to share at work. His mother had subscribed so he continued the tradition for himself. Hmmmm.
Don't forget Miltown, another tranquilizing drug I see referenced all the time in stories about the '50s and '60s.
I could tell that my mother, now 85, was always divided by the messages she saw in LHJ and Redbook. On the one hand, she was a bright, energetic woman who came to New York City in the early '60s and -- had it been 20 years later -- could probably have ended up an editor for a magazine or a publishing company. But there was also that idea that motherhood was a woman's highest calling (along with greeting your husband at the door with his pipe and slippers) and she really did want kids ... which meant that she quit her job as soon as I came along and my father became the sole breadwinner.
My mother had a fist full of journalism jobs before she did like your mother and quit to have kid and stay at home. And she was angry every day of her life until she went back to school in the 1980s.
My mom always blamed Mamie Eisenhower for the pervasive ideas about womanhood that inhabited the 50's and 60's. She especially blamed Mamie for the collapse in support of women's sports.
My mother emigrated from Scotland, alone, age 22 or so a few years after the end of WW2, married a Yank and had 7 kids (I was born in 1952). She & my father started out in what was then 'middle class' but would be considered almost poor by today's criteria, but ended up pretty well to do 50 years later. Much about American culture amused Mom. She read the 'women's magazines' in the 60's, but found them silly. When I was in high school I remember her also reading James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Antonia White and, of course, Betty Friedan.
Lysol! The ads were coy about it, but it was being marketed as a *contraceptive* douche. Advertisers described it "as a means of attaining personal 'protection'" and indicated "that Lysol offered 'comforting assurance' to women" (via Kristin Hall, "Selling Sexual Certainty," 2012). I wrote about Lysol's unsavory history in 2013: https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2013/05/lysol-and-healthing.html
Not only didn't it work as birth control, it often caused burns and scarring. Listerine positioned itself as the "gentler" alternative for "feminine hygiene.
Lysol had quite a lively ad campaign as a douche. Its really all beyond belief. I cant post in comment replies but if you google Lysol Douche Ads you will see a HUGE assortment of them. And they are melodramatic and very um entertaining.
My mother was an angry, thwarted, trapped housewife and unhappy mother of four. Her hatred of her husband was such that when I was in my 30s I dragged her, in her 50s, to therapy, the psychologist said, “I don’t think there’s any point to this; you’re not going to live long enough to get over everything you’re angry about even if you wanted to. Which it doesn’t seem that you do.”
Wow. That is an amazing remark from a therapist. I sometimes wonder if my mother would have been helped by anti-depressants...but I dont know if she would have taken them as she didnt believe in therapy. She used to say "How would a therapist know what is right for me? Am I not a separate unique human being?" which of course made no sense. But it put an end to a discussion.
I respected that therapist for recognizing in one session how historically resistant her client was to letting go of one iota of martyrdom.
I’m a certified professional coach (pro bono with tens of thousands of sessions) and I can tell in two minutes if someone is “unhelpable.” If every suggestion is met with a barrage of reasons why “that won’t work” and zero curiosity, I can tell them we’re not a match, so sorry.
John Mack Carter was a very well-known magazine editor in NYC, serving as editor in chief of 3 of what were then known as the 7 sisters. MCall’s, Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping were all children of his from 1961 to 1994.
I had always wanted to work in magazines but never a woman’s magazine.
And here’s why:
From John Mack Carter’s Wikipedia bio:
In March 1970, more than 100 feminists led by Susan Brownmiller stormed Carter's office at the Ladies' Home Journal and held an eleven-hour sit-in, demanding that he resign.[1][5][6][7][8] He declined but, after that, strove to become more responsive to the concerns of women.[1] He published essays by some of the protesters in a later issue about divorce, childbirth, and other feminist issues.[1] Upon later reflection, he described the sit-in event as a turning point in his thinking. After that, he was more willing to publish stories about job discrimination and sexual harassment and work to advance causes related to women.[1][5]
When I finally went to work at a women’s magazine it was known as the first post feminist women’s magazine. The editor in chief was an amazing woman and an amazing
e-i-c. She published articles and columns by the most interesting women of the time period, including Merrill Markoe.
As I have already written Merrill is —should she should you!! so desire - well on her way to a PH.D. In journalism, media studies, women’s studies, popular culture. You’ve already done so much of the work. Thank you thank you! 🙏🏻
Betty Friedan absolutely nailed in the 1960s, but so did Virginia Woolf 's 1920's essay "A Room of One's Own:
“To begin with, always to be doing work that one did not wish to do, and to do it like a slave, flattering and fawning, not always necessarily perhaps, but it seemed necessary and the stakes were too great to run risks; and then the thought of that one gift which it was death to hide—a small one but dear to the possessor—perishing and with it myself, my soul… all this became like a rust eating away the bloom of the spring, destroying the tree at its heart.”
Thank you so much for this eye-opener, much of which I was already aware, but it helped me put together a lot of what must have plagued my own mother, who was at least able to channel her artistic talent and narcissism into being more of a bohemian freer spirit (but still suffered from the limitations she was subject to)
But that Palmolive soap lady- that is not an expression of joy and ecstasy, that telltale sliver of white visible over her irises is clearly a sign of insanity. Time to lock up the sharp kitchen objects.
This is yet another brilliant piece from the pen of La Markoe! I was actually getting queasy as I scrolled through the images you shared--my mother, divorced and cast aside by family and friends as "mentally ill" in the '60s (she was mostly just really angry after four kids and quashed teaching career), subscribed to LHJ, and I spent many a troubling hour with it during my formative years while mom chain-smoked in her bedroom. I also came late to Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique, not reading it until I was researching my memoir about my mother, Compromise Cake: Lessons Learned From My Mother's Recipe Box, in the teens of this young century. When I was in college in the early 70s, just as the feminist movement was heating up, I thought why bother reading it, all that stuff was taken care of back in the '60s, when the book came out. Yeah, right. And I was conditioned to the reality that I couldn't get a credit card at the time without a co-signer and that men were to be put first in one's limited, constrained life. I'll stop there, but must add: the suds photo is T-Shirt and coffee mug worthy. We want merch Ms. Markoe!
I've just learned that I'm a 'so-and-so'. Never knew any of these these magazines excisted until now. Thanks Merrill!
my favorite part of the kotex ad was Mopping Woman wearing white pants while using the product. Mopping Woman was brave. BTW - I loved True Confessions back in the day.
Didn’t we all( love True Cofessions). Truly rolling on floor laffing out loud. Roy Lichtenstein in print ! And I saw those white pants immediately too! Very gutsy… and so sneaky of Kotex and the ad agency
I still can’t get over the Lysol ad for douching. My mother subscribed to some of these magazines in the 60’s and 70’s. They never interested me at the time so thanks for writing this piece and showing what I have missed or er, escaped. A former male coworker long ago brought in his subscription copies of Ladies Home Journal to share at work. His mother had subscribed so he continued the tradition for himself. Hmmmm.
I automatically clenched at that ad, like a steel trap.
Don't forget Miltown, another tranquilizing drug I see referenced all the time in stories about the '50s and '60s.
I could tell that my mother, now 85, was always divided by the messages she saw in LHJ and Redbook. On the one hand, she was a bright, energetic woman who came to New York City in the early '60s and -- had it been 20 years later -- could probably have ended up an editor for a magazine or a publishing company. But there was also that idea that motherhood was a woman's highest calling (along with greeting your husband at the door with his pipe and slippers) and she really did want kids ... which meant that she quit her job as soon as I came along and my father became the sole breadwinner.
I don't envy the women of that era.
My mother had a fist full of journalism jobs before she did like your mother and quit to have kid and stay at home. And she was angry every day of her life until she went back to school in the 1980s.
My mom always blamed Mamie Eisenhower for the pervasive ideas about womanhood that inhabited the 50's and 60's. She especially blamed Mamie for the collapse in support of women's sports.
Yeah. Mamie was not a lot of help .
Sobering
My mother emigrated from Scotland, alone, age 22 or so a few years after the end of WW2, married a Yank and had 7 kids (I was born in 1952). She & my father started out in what was then 'middle class' but would be considered almost poor by today's criteria, but ended up pretty well to do 50 years later. Much about American culture amused Mom. She read the 'women's magazines' in the 60's, but found them silly. When I was in high school I remember her also reading James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Antonia White and, of course, Betty Friedan.
Lysol! The ads were coy about it, but it was being marketed as a *contraceptive* douche. Advertisers described it "as a means of attaining personal 'protection'" and indicated "that Lysol offered 'comforting assurance' to women" (via Kristin Hall, "Selling Sexual Certainty," 2012). I wrote about Lysol's unsavory history in 2013: https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2013/05/lysol-and-healthing.html
Not only didn't it work as birth control, it often caused burns and scarring. Listerine positioned itself as the "gentler" alternative for "feminine hygiene.
And then there were the tampon ads that assured "unmarried girls" -- i.e., virgins -- that yes, their hymens were perfectly safe. https://medium.com/better-marketing/the-virginity-myth-a-hurdle-in-tampon-marketing-4d1fb7deba1d
Lysol had quite a lively ad campaign as a douche. Its really all beyond belief. I cant post in comment replies but if you google Lysol Douche Ads you will see a HUGE assortment of them. And they are melodramatic and very um entertaining.
My mother was an angry, thwarted, trapped housewife and unhappy mother of four. Her hatred of her husband was such that when I was in my 30s I dragged her, in her 50s, to therapy, the psychologist said, “I don’t think there’s any point to this; you’re not going to live long enough to get over everything you’re angry about even if you wanted to. Which it doesn’t seem that you do.”
Wow. That is an amazing remark from a therapist. I sometimes wonder if my mother would have been helped by anti-depressants...but I dont know if she would have taken them as she didnt believe in therapy. She used to say "How would a therapist know what is right for me? Am I not a separate unique human being?" which of course made no sense. But it put an end to a discussion.
I respected that therapist for recognizing in one session how historically resistant her client was to letting go of one iota of martyrdom.
I’m a certified professional coach (pro bono with tens of thousands of sessions) and I can tell in two minutes if someone is “unhelpable.” If every suggestion is met with a barrage of reasons why “that won’t work” and zero curiosity, I can tell them we’re not a match, so sorry.
John Mack Carter was a very well-known magazine editor in NYC, serving as editor in chief of 3 of what were then known as the 7 sisters. MCall’s, Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping were all children of his from 1961 to 1994.
I had always wanted to work in magazines but never a woman’s magazine.
And here’s why:
From John Mack Carter’s Wikipedia bio:
In March 1970, more than 100 feminists led by Susan Brownmiller stormed Carter's office at the Ladies' Home Journal and held an eleven-hour sit-in, demanding that he resign.[1][5][6][7][8] He declined but, after that, strove to become more responsive to the concerns of women.[1] He published essays by some of the protesters in a later issue about divorce, childbirth, and other feminist issues.[1] Upon later reflection, he described the sit-in event as a turning point in his thinking. After that, he was more willing to publish stories about job discrimination and sexual harassment and work to advance causes related to women.[1][5]
When I finally went to work at a women’s magazine it was known as the first post feminist women’s magazine. The editor in chief was an amazing woman and an amazing
e-i-c. She published articles and columns by the most interesting women of the time period, including Merrill Markoe.
As I have already written Merrill is —should she should you!! so desire - well on her way to a PH.D. In journalism, media studies, women’s studies, popular culture. You’ve already done so much of the work. Thank you thank you! 🙏🏻
Haaa. I havent actually bought my school clothes yet.
You have time.
Another knockout 👊
You’re making me re-examine my entire upbringing and the culture into which I was born. “Enlightening” is too weak a word. Thank you.
Betty Friedan absolutely nailed in the 1960s, but so did Virginia Woolf 's 1920's essay "A Room of One's Own:
“To begin with, always to be doing work that one did not wish to do, and to do it like a slave, flattering and fawning, not always necessarily perhaps, but it seemed necessary and the stakes were too great to run risks; and then the thought of that one gift which it was death to hide—a small one but dear to the possessor—perishing and with it myself, my soul… all this became like a rust eating away the bloom of the spring, destroying the tree at its heart.”
Thank you so much for this eye-opener, much of which I was already aware, but it helped me put together a lot of what must have plagued my own mother, who was at least able to channel her artistic talent and narcissism into being more of a bohemian freer spirit (but still suffered from the limitations she was subject to)
But that Palmolive soap lady- that is not an expression of joy and ecstasy, that telltale sliver of white visible over her irises is clearly a sign of insanity. Time to lock up the sharp kitchen objects.
That sounds exactly like my mother!
thank god my wife had a subscription to Cracked
I am reasonably sure that the first sentence of this posting (What the Ladies....) has never before been written by humanity. ;)