The following quotes are excerpted from an article that appeared in Good Housekeeping on 11 January, 2017:
The homework assignment, titled $5.00 Date, required students, in this case girls, to go on a date with a male classmate. Below the assignment's description was a list of suggestions for girls from the boys, which encouraged girls to "dress appropriately," "be feminine and lady-like" and "if you think you're too fat, keep it to yourself."
The student showed her mother the assignment - all on a pink page and directed at 16/17-year-old girls:
"My 11th grade AP Honors student's homework: 'Go on a date!' with a boy. And follow his suggestions — don't correct his personal habits, don't waste his money and show him respect," she wrote. "Thanks for educating our kids, Utah Department of Education. We really appreciate your evidence-based misogyny."
This isn't completely one-sided, however. There's 6sheet for the boys as well. It icluded such time-tested $5 dinner date advice as this:
"At a restaurant, say what you're going to order so she will have a guide in ordering..."
20 comments
Yeah, great guide there.
Ladies: You don't matter. Look pretty, do nothing to make him think you're not pretty.
Men: Assert dominance. Bitch is worth what you tell her and eats what you tell her. Don't let her think otherwise.
Moreover the guide for the girls is noted to be suggestions from the boys while the guide for the boys... is from other boys.
"While most of the country is in 2017, it looks like Utah is still in 1817."
That makes me think of a one-panel gag from the Norwegian comic book Nemi.
It's Nemi and her friend Cyan.
Cyan (reads a newspaper): "According to the Chinese Calendar, China is in 1915!"
Nemi (excited): "Let's go to China and invent the television! WE'LL BE RICH!!"
The only thing I can partially agree with is the "if you think you're too fat, keep it to yourself" thing, but that applies to every self-image issue for everyone. If they've agreed to a date with you then they either disagree with your self-assessment or don't consider it a significant factor. Especially on a date (particularly a first or early date), repeatedly bringing the topic of conversation to your flaws, real or merely perceived, is only going to contribute to possibly driving a potential partner away. Mind you that I'm talking about repeatedly bringing such issues up during a romantic outing or some other, similarly inappropriate setting. There's a time and a place for everything, as they say, and such image issues do warrant discussion. And one little throw-away comment about this or that concern shouldn't be an issue.
@Psycho Tits
For everyone who ever said that it is the fault of women for not aspiring any further than a husband and kids, THIS shit is what we were told at every turn during our youth. How to "play nice", "keep clean", "act like a lady" because otherwise no boy would be interested in us. How to "never let a boy know that you're smarter than he is". How to "pretend to be interested in his interests". Seriously! It sounds laughable now, but that is what the 1950's were like - and that is why any action to expand the role of women in the world was considered revolutionary at that time.
Things have changed, but not enough. I majored in a field that was considered "man's work", and worked where there were four females (except for secretaries), two hundred males. By the time I left, twenty years later, the balance of lab chemists was approximately half and half. My daughter went to two schools that wouldn't have admitted a female back in my college days.
If you're of a younger generation, it may be hard to believe ....but that societal gender separation still exists today. When my young grandson went with his mother to buy a birthday present that a neighbor girl would like, he rolled his eyes and said "Oh, the PINK aisle". We've come a long way, but we still have "the pink aisle" to shop in.
@SpukiKitty
Good Housekeeping should have articles on small appliance repair, basic woodworking, and how to rodent-proof your attic.
@ Kanna:
Oh no, I believe it and, as a student of history, one of my hobbies is to collect etiquette manuals from the 19th Century.
Most of them weren't nearly as hokey as the 1950s housewife piece discussed in the Snopes article.
This kind of assignment, however, is far closer in tone to the real deal...and I'm willing to bet that it was constructed by a woman.
@Kanna
Good Housekeeping should have articles on small appliance repair, basic woodworking, and how to rodent-proof your attic.
That too....ESPECIALLY THAT!
image
Rosie the Riveter fucked that up way before then.
And even after then:
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Chuck Yeager was glad of it.
His test pilot compatriot Jacqueline Cochran probably bought him a few beers.
Gender? Matters not, when you have The Right Stuff.
In our City of Culture, Hull's own Amy Johnson certainly had that quality.
@Kanna
Your plight covers the old movie scenario of women going to college to 'snag a husband' too. If a girls smart she may need college crowds to find intellectual equals, back in the fifties you may still be committed to house and home but it would be nice to have an upper class home that a college degree could provide. Of course getting your own degree wouldn't hurt. In the end too, being not too bright is helped with a good income in the household.
Despite common beliefs, men don't want wives that are dumber or hopeless it's just we'll settle for that, for that matter so do many women.
As to the article it does look like it was lifted from the Sixties at latest. A recent study however showed that women eat less in the presence of men. Some things, like the pink, just hang in there.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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