The Gender Thread, vive la difference!

[Fading Fast]

Another good example of "softening up" a popular cultre woman in the postwar era was what happened to Lois Lane. In the comics, Siegel and Shuster had conceived her as a two-fisted, snappy-talking Glenda Farrell type of "girl reporter" who asked no quarter and gave none in dealing with male colleagues or adversaries. She was portrayed consistent with that original vision until the early 1950s, when she was reworked into a rather pathetic figure who spent most of her time mooning over why Superman wouldn't marry her and scheming to discover his secret identity. This, not the hard-charging Lois of the late thirties, is the Lois boomers grew up with in the pages of "Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane," a comic I always considered a weak sister, even though it was supposed to appeal to girls.

Lois went thru a similar gelding in other media. The radio Lois of the 1940s was a crisp, no-nonsense Rosalind Russell-like figure, and when the TV series began in 1951 under the supervision of the same producer who had handled the radio show, she was portrayed in the same style by film-noir veteran Phyllis Coates. But Coates left the series after the first season, and was replaced by Noel Neill, whose Lois was less assertive by far and more dependent on Superman to come to her rescue. Even as a kid watching these shows in reruns it was obvious to me that Neill was not playing the same character Coates had played, even though she was still called "Lois Lane," and I far preferred the original version.

Over the years, I've learned the history you relay above, but at the time (the early '70s, or there about, when I was watching them as a kid), and without any historical context, it was still clear TV '50s Lois was a weak and boring character.

As a kid, the timelines are all squirrelly to you, but Alice Kramden dope-slapping Ralph when she had to, Katheryn Hepburn swatting Spencer Tracey around when she had, Batgirl kicking butt (literally) in that campy world and Miss Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) outsmarting and out fighting many men stood in start contrast to Lois' annoying cattiness toward Clark Kent and mooning weakness toward Superman - she felt less real to the kid me than any of those other women.

And I love watching Rosalind Russell out speed-talk and out-think Cary Grant, for the most part, in "His Gal Friday." Even when they manipulated a code-acceptable ending to movies like that, you saw through the flimsy construct and got the real story.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

For some reason I have noticed that whenever a kid has an emotional outburst or throws a major tantrum in public such as at a shop or restaurant, it's more often than not a boy.

 

[scotrace]

My mother used to get angry and carry on so much when I was a kid and left the seat up that I never, ever do so. It makes me instantly angry to find a seat up in a public can (men in public restrooms are the weirdest SOB's. If you knew half the weird stuff men do as part of their whizzing ritual... And not 1 quarter of them wash after).

My solution, and I don't care what you think, is when at home, I always sit. There's always something to fix here at the Lounge or something to read anyway. Standing feels like wasted time.
Every woman with whom I've had a relationship has thanked my mother--out loud-- though she's been gone more than 20 years.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I lower the toilet seat because my wife wants me to, and purposely not doing so only makes me an a-hole. I try not to be an a-hole.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

Maybe because I was the only girl where I grew up, and in order to have playmates had to play things like "army" or sports, but I never understood in the 60s and 70s why females in TV and movies never tried to save themselves. While the male characters were trying to protect them by fighting or whatever, the females were usually cowering and crying off in the corner. These females seemed silly and weak to me, definitely not like the women in my family. When someone tried to "hoo-do" (as my dad used to say) anyone in my family, they'd be facing the ire of everyone in the family, including the females. We were all southern belles, but only up to a point.

 

[Fading Fast]

Thinking about several of the above posts and the way women were presented on TV in the '60s, which, as I noted above, was far from one way (Emma Peel, Batgirl, Honey West didn't need no man to save them), you had both types of women on one show in "The Big Valley."

The matriarch, Barbara Stanwyck, could hold her own and more (and did many times) with any cowboy or badman out West. She could out argue, fight (with willpower, not force - she's tiny), strategize and shoot most of them. Her character's backstory was one of a pioneering woman who lived a hard life right alongside the men. However, her daughter, played by Linda Evans was (in most cases, there were a few exceptions where she showed some gumption) a "save me strong man" girl.

Stanwyck character was a role model of leadership to both men and women or boys and girls. She was a smart strategist who intelligently balanced taking action with patience as the best leaders will and she was a master psychologist who knew how to motivate her allies and enemies. My girlfriend gives me a hard time, but I can and do draw an analogy from many situations we face in life to "The Big Valley" as, while the plots and stories were a bit Hallmark, Stanwyck brought some real brains and gravitas to it.*

* I have no doubt that there are times, in the wee hours of the night, when when my girlfriend can't sleep that she questions her choice in a mate.

 

[Frunobulax]

The toilet seat thing never made any bloody sense to me. First, put it down! Who wants to have an open sewer in their house?

But the logic of "If it's dark, I might fall in," escapes me. Turn on the light. If I stagger in at 3:00 AM, don't look and relieve myself on the closed seat, I'm not getting any sympathy. Why should a woman? [emoji6]


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

 

[Angus Forbes]

We were all southern belles, but only up to a point.

I know a lot of old-school Southern Belles. Most of them can host a debutant party one night, and hunt Yankees with a bayonette the next.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The toilet seat thing never made any bloody sense to me. First, put it down! Who wants to have an open sewer in their house?

But the logic of "If it's dark, I might fall in," escapes me. Turn on the light. If I stagger in at 3:00 AM, don't look and relieve myself on the closed seat, I'm not getting any sympathy. Why should a woman? [emoji6]


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

Not always that easy. In my bathroom the only light is a bare bulb wall-mounted over the sink, and there is no wall switch -- it's a little twist-switch on the bottom of the socket, and you have to fumble around in the dark to find it. If you're getting up in the night to go to the can, the last thing you want to do is frig around trying to find a switch.

Fortunately, I live alone so the question is purely academic. My problem is remembering to lift the seat once in a while to clean under it.

 

[sheeplady]

The toilet seat thing never made any bloody sense to me. First, put it down! Who wants to have an open sewer in their house?

But the logic of "If it's dark, I might fall in," escapes me. Turn on the light. If I stagger in at 3:00 AM, don't look and relieve myself on the closed seat, I'm not getting any sympathy. Why should a woman? [emoji6]


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

I, without my glasses on, have the vision level of someone who is legally blind (generously). I can still be corrected 20/20, but with my glasses off I experience what it is like.

When I get up in the middle of the night, I do not put my glasses on. The rule in our house is that nothing is left in pathways or anything is left in a condition that I need to see to be able to use. Honestly, with my glasses off I can't tell if the seat is up. I also can't tell if there's shoes in the hall or toys in the kitchen. All I see are huge blurs. After falling once over some shoes many years ago, this became a rule in our house.

 

[HudsonHawk]

My mother used to get angry and carry on so much when I was a kid and left the seat up that I never, ever do so. It makes me instantly angry to find a seat up in a public can (men in public restrooms are the weirdest SOB's. If you knew half the weird stuff men do as part of their whizzing ritual... And not 1 quarter of them wash after).

My solution, and I don't care what you think, is when at home, I always sit. There's always something to fix here at the Lounge or something to read anyway. Standing feels like wasted time.
Every woman with whom I've had a relationship has thanked my mother--out loud-- though she's been gone more than 20 years.

My solution is I go outside any chance I get. Not only is it one of the perks of being a man, but it alleviates any issues with seats and aim. And I suspect if you ask women what issue irritates them more, it's the latter.

 

[scottyrocks]

My solution, and I don't care what you think, is when at home, I always sit.

I was going to say this earlier, but neglected to. I sit about 95% of the time.

This practice began for me, however, when I was in my teens. The reason is probably not a great discussion topic for this forum, but I will say that it became necessity in the first morning evac of the day.

Now that I'm older, and can't go more than a few hours without an evac, those stumbling trips to the can at 3 or 4am result in less injury if I just sit down when I get there. Therefore, the seat stays down.

 

[GHT]

The toilet seat thing never made any bloody sense to me. First, put it down! Who wants to have an open sewer in their house?
If I stagger in at 3:00 AM, don't look and relieve myself on the closed seat, I'm not getting any sympathy. Why should a woman?

That's probably why your record player isn't working. You staggered in at three am and went and lifted the wrong lid.

 

[GHT]

Friends, that's male friends, have said that one of the ladies biggest gripes is that men assume that their spending is necessary but their wives spending is wasteful. I'm probably guilty of that, mainly because I don't have a credit card, everything I buy is with cash, as in, the filthy folding stuff. At my insistence, my wife pays her credit card bill in full, by cheque, that way she is not only responsible for making the payment, she's aware of her monthly spend. Times I've heard her say "Sh*t!" when opening her card statement.