A lot can be learned from earlier generations of women who knew just how to deal with the unwanted attentions of men and handled them with street savvy and good humour.

Since the dawn of recorded time, men and women have been making sexual advances at each other. In twentieth century lingo, any overt move, from the subtlety of a hand slipping from the back of the seat onto a shoulder during a movie date to an actual bodily pounce on the sofa or the front porch swing, the action associated with sexual aggressiveness became known as “Making a Pass”.

There is nothing new in the behaviour of men and women’s sexual interests or sexual intentions, but what has changed, in this age of new-found political correctness and hyper-politicism, is the notion that any form of telegraphing sexual interest by a man might well lead to a law suit, a damaged career and possibly even a ruined life. What seems to be the core question at this point in time is, “just how does a male go about showing sexual interest short of asking permission, which is considered by most young women to be tiresome and unexciting?” And if a male proffers an unwelcome advance and makes a sexual “Pass” at an acquaintance or co-worker, how does the female go about “dealing” with his advance, and at what point does the woman’s rebuff actually require litigation and the media to make her position clear?

YANG MAKES THE MOVE—YIN SAYS “YES”
OR SENDS HIM PACKING

Of course it goes without saying that any type of aggressive or insistent sexual overtones is totally unacceptable and any action that borders on assault must be punished. But there is a vast open field between the trenches in the battle of the sexes where normal, healthy sexual interest might be demonstrated and received with grace and in a spirit of fun by both sexes.

In looking at the questions asked earlier, two things must be considered in their historical context. Firstly, it is helpful to understand that males have traditionally been put in the position to be expected to express their masculine Yang nature by making the first physical move in the courtship of attraction. That is not to say that women have not initiated the male action of forward “movement” by means of the very Yin action of arranging what they have to offer and positioning themselves to be seen in an action known as “display”.  (For a free excerpt from “Nobody Wants to be the Girl Anymore” sign up for the email list). Today that Yin action would be defined as seduction or the encouragement of male attention by what the woman wears, says or how she positions her body. That, in itself, poses countless questions about what is appropriate, especially in the workplace.

The second thing to be considered in a historical context is that, up until the Twenty-first century, the differences between men and women’s Yin and Yang energies and the roles they were expected to play out in the “game” of sexual attraction were more clearly defined and savvy women, who “knew what men are,” were able to use the attentions and interest of men to get what they wanted without the aid of legislation or litigation. In fact, in previous centuries, it was a gauge of popularity for a young girl to boast about how many “passes” the boys had made “at” her during the course of a party or dance. The young man sliding his hand down her back into “no man’s land below the belt” was seen as merely playing the game of courtship and demonstrating his interest in cultivating her as a possible partner or even a wife.

In our American cultural media, at present, we are seeing countless cases where women are alleging inappropriate sexual attentions from male co-workers, and many celebrities and politicians. Sometimes these charges are made decades after the incident in question and it begs the question “why now?”

Some women answer the question by explaining that they were too frightened to mention an unwelcome hand on their back or on their thigh because they were concerned that their job might be jeopardized or that there might be some reprisal or violence. When I polled a number of female patients and asked “why now?”, many claimed that they had only come into their own power as women in recent decades, stated that they had no strong female role models before Gloria Steinem to show them how to deal with aggressive men, and, as a result, felt powerless toward men and even victimized.

WHY I OUGHTA KNOCK YOUR BLOCK OFF

We have always had and will continue to have victims in our society, both men and women. And for those people it might clearly be necessary to turn to litigation and the courts to fight for their rights or for protection.

But to those women who claim they had no strong female role models to show them how to deal with the unwelcome advances of the opposite sex, I suggest they look no further than films with incredibly strong women as protagonists that showed women as early as the 1920s and 30s how to ward off an unwanted “Pass” and put men in their place in no uncertain terms.

The Great Depression of the 1930s created circumstances that forged some very powerful women… tough, capable women whose lives and roles in society are faithfully reflected in the films of the time. These women are able to run businesses, survive the bread lines and manage to “make a dollar out of a dime”, all the while displaying a personal courage and vibrato, that presents itself as tough talk and a confident swagger that let men know that here is a girl who can take care of herself.

There is no better example than the 1933 black and white film Baby Face, starring a very blonde and strikingly pretty Barbara Stanwyck. The film was made before the strict sexual censorship of the Hayes Code went into effect and depicts the harsh life of the downtrodden millions who managed to scrape by during the depression.

In the film, a tired and defeated young woman, Lily Powers (Stanwyck), returns home, down-cast after beating the pavements and still not finding a job. She encounters an elderly friend, who comes from old-world Europe and has himself known oppression and want at the hands of a privileged few.

He reels at her powerless attitude to her lot in life and begins a dialogue that establishes the central theme of the film. Lily explains to the old man who the only jobs she is being offered require sexual favours in return.

She says: “The manager of the strip show offered me a job.
“Doing what?”
“You know showing my shape.”
“Well, that’s a business in itself.”
“Well then I guess I ain’t much of a business woman.”
The old man becomes indignant: “You are a coward. You let life defeat you. You don’t fight back.”
“What chance has a woman got?”
“More chance than a man. A woman, young and beautiful like you, can get anything she wants in the world because you have power over men. But you must use men. You must be the master and not a slave… All of life is nothing more than exploitation. Go to some big city where you will find opportunities and use men to get what you want.”
Lily sits back and takes a drag on a cigarette with a look of understanding in her eyes… “Yeah,” she says with a hint of a smile.

Since Stanwyck’s character is not only a looker but depression seasoned and tough as well, it is fun to watch as she moves up from rags to riches and masterfully handles the passes made by men. In one sequence when a creepy customer puts his hand on her leg, she pours steaming coffee onto it and says… “Oh excuse me, my hands shake so when I’m around you.”

There is a list of actresses from the time in roles portraying savvy women who are unwilling to be victimized by the unwelcome attentions of men. The list includes the hard-as-nails chlorines of the 1930s to the tough, wisecracking gals with a harsh patter and a heart of gold. Google any of the early films of Joan Blondell, Eve Arden, Ginger Rogers, Alice Faye, Mae West, Rosalind Russell or Betty Hutton (also written about in Nobody Wants To Be The Girl Anymore) and you’ll more than likely see any one of them in the role of a girl who “knows the score” and can take care of herself. The language or colloquial lingo used in films of the time, which actually made its way into the real world, contains a razor-sharp edge that, when delivered by one of these capable gals, makes it known to that two-bit Lothario who is all hands that she certainly means business and no means “no”.

It’s great fun to hear any of these fine actresses repel the advances of a trouser snake with lines like: “Say, whata ya tryin’ ta pull here?” “Lay off ya big lug.” “Why I oughta knock your block off”, and the graphic and winning… “Lay your paws on me one more time and I’ll beat you like the dog you are.”

If the guy is a real heel and refused to get the message of the lingo, the second line of defense is a sound slap across the face. It was known as “delivering the message by hand”.

I am certainly not condoning physical violence and don’t believe that anyone should strike anyone else unless in actual danger. But the idea of finding a way to handle an unpleasant situation in the moment by using language and strong actions is very self-empowering and certainly less damaging to an antagonist that may not really need to be personally destroyed for their infringement on your space.

It is refreshing to see the openness with which male/female sexuality is depicted in many older films, reflecting a society where women took strong roles in sexual relationships and did not need to rely on a social system that sets “politically correct” behavioural restrictions in place to protect them from men. A lot can be learned from those women of yesteryear who “knew what men want” and did not try to pretend that women and men have the same sexual needs or desires. Women of earlier generations perfectly understood the natural male sex drive that, according to the famous Kinsey Report on sexual mores in America, states that men think of sex every six minutes and are far less picky about the quality of their sexual partners. Or, as Comedian Joan Rivers more crudely put it: “you’re not so special… men will f * * k mud.”

It is certain that in spite of legislation and new social policies that are designed to give women more control over the protocol of sexual expression by men, most men will continue to have an “it’s worth a try” attitude toward sex and will “make the first move” in the time-honoured way, without permission.

Sex between men and women should be a win-win situation, and nobody on either side should be victimized, blackmailed, or abused. It is a game of give and take at its best or predator and prey at its worst. But it is a game that has been played since the year one and we must be careful not to trade the perceived domination of one sex by the other for a pendulum swing in the opposite direction.

We can learn a lot from strong, street-wise women in the films of the 30s and during the war years of the 40s. Women who grew out of the hard times of the Depression were expected to take care of themselves and the women of our mother’s and grandmother’s generations would be hard pressed to see themselves as sexual prey to powerful male predators, whether it was their husbands, employers or powerful politicians. When an unwelcome Pass was made at one of those feisty young women, they would have undoubtedly turned on the louse with a smirk worthy of Barbara Stanwyck or Betty Hutton and say…”Why I oughta knock your block off.”

To find out more about the relationship of Yin and Yang and how theses two energies play out in sexual roles of men and women, check out “Nobody Wants To Be The Girl Anymore.”

 

 

 

 

Having been asked how I came to write the book
NOBODY WANTS TO BE THE GIRL ANYMORE…REDISCOVERING THE POWER OF THE FEMALE YIN, I decided to examine my journey.

Since I am an Acupuncturist and practice Oriental Medicine, I have come to understand that the central principle behind the Eastern view of the world is balance, and the key to the Taoist philosophy is to understand not only the balance of nature but the balance of energies in our bodies, including the balance of male and female energies.

Over the years, I have noticed that many of my clients, both female and male, are not comfortable in their skin as the aggressive “go-getter” that our society so values. Our Western Yang culture would like us to believe that if we become forceful and aggressive enough in our behaviour to achieve what is generally thought of as success, we will “have it all”. But the “American Dream” and the contentment it is meant to provide still eludes most of us.

We, as westerners, can too easily confuse our true nature of being complete and caring people when too much emphasis is put on the prize causing us to fall out of balance with ourselves in an effort to “get what we want.”

As I worked with many patients over the years and saw their imbalance of energy and spirit and the illness it produced, I became a life coach to work with the real cause of their illness… the imbalances caused by their excessively Yang thinking and actions. I saw that people define themselves by how others react to them, and instead of them being their authentic balanced self… commanding respect for their real talents and who they are, many people “become” who they think they have to be in order to be seen as powerful and get the rewards and approval they seek.

As a result, many of those that I treat are unhappy acting in the role of an aggressor and admit, in confidence, that they would much prefer to behave in a kinder and gentler way that they feel is more in keeping with their personal nature.

I have come to know that one cannot be a complete person unless the aggressive, active, doing nature of male Yang is balanced with the powerful female Yin qualities of feeling, mercy, strategy and justice.

I wrote the book NOBODY WANTS TO BE THE GIRL ANYMORE to help illuminate the difference between inherent male and female energies…how they are different and how they are each of vital value and TOTALLY equal in power.

The book is essentially about empowering women by reacquainting them with the power they already have, but have lost sight of as a result of the fast paced and demanding nature of our western culture. So much emphasis in the western world is put on winning or producing or controlling. Because of this, there is enormous pressure for all of us to “appear” aggressive and successful in order to compete.

I wanted the book to allow women to see how they can embrace the Yin power that is natural to them… a power that is capable of balancing and equaling any power a man might have, and when combined with a positive Yang energy within themselves or with a positive Yang energy in a male, total balance and true union is possible.

Both men and women can reclaim the power of the female Yin… that meditative, creative force that is female… and by doing so…many women will come to understand what they have come to devalue in themselves in their attempt to appear more acceptably aggressive and Yang. Many women have taken on male traits and behaviour in order to compete in the workplace and in our culture…. often casting aside the extremely powerful female Yin traits that are their natural birthright as women, and, as a result, they often become nothing more than a caricature of the worst sort of bullying man.

Male behaviour is not, in itself more desirable than female behaviour but, in this culture that rewards little girls for being tomboys and shames little boys who play with dolls, one is given the message at an early age that being the boy is where it’s at.

As a result of male behaviour and aggressiveness being so esteemed in our culture, many women, and recently more and more men, find themselves unable to keep up…. unable to perform…(hence the rise in the use of stimulants, energy drinks and products like Viagra and Cialis)

The demands our western culture makes on us has forced many of us to fly to the opposite end of the continuum of power and become too passive, powerless, incapable of any action. We become totally Yin… unable to move out of a place of total disempowerment and helplessness.

We are supposed to GET a job, GET a raise, GET a better house, GET noticed, GET famous, GET GET GET…BUT HOW? Getting is a YANG, aggressive, male action. We think we need to GET things and often forget that the female, YIN way of achieving a goal is to ALLOW. We need to realize that we, as men and women, are each different and the modern thinking to promote the idea that there is little or no difference between men’s and women’s energy is damaging and erroneous. Now, I am not suggesting here that the sexes divide up into two camps and the men do the GETTING with active Yang energy and the women must settle into the seemingly more passive role of ALLOWING, but rather that the Yin art of subterfuge, suggestion and emotional manipulation and waiting are all part of the female intelligence of ALLOWING. The modern woman might be well advised to reacquaint herself with this age-old female practice, and the modern man would be wise to understand the subtler power associated with a less intrepid but more reliable way of getting what you want.

The inherent difference between female Yin energy and male Yang energy is what makes balance possible… not only within ourselves but within a society as well.

Each of us, as men and women, has an intrinsic role to play that only we can carry out. Men and women have innately different expressions of how they express devoution, duty, honour and even love…. that is why John Gray’s book “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” still resonates with important undeniable truths.

If someone is telling you that we are all the same…don’t listen. Male and female energies, the Yin and Yang that create the balance celebrated in the Dao, are essentially two equally powerful but opposite energies that are necessary to come together to create movement and change in the world. We have come to extol the virtues of the Male energy as superior in our western culture and, as a result, both men and women have striven to emulate these Male, Yang qualities and have put the Yin qualities of the female in a decidedly demoralizing position of second place. But for those of you who might conjure the biblical reference of Adam and Eve and might suggest that a Patriarchal God in Heaven made the man in his own image and the female as an afterthought, consider that it was Eve who ate the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, thereby awaking the understanding of the difference between the sexes, and arming herself with a valuable tool that she has used it to lure, pleasure and manipulate men ever since.

FEMALE, YIN ENERGY IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS MALE, YANG ENERGY… always has been…always will be. Without female healing, nurturing, strategizing, campaigning, scrutinizing, saving, counseling, designing, judging, feeding, exposing and parenting….just where would our precious Yang culture be?

 

Madison Avenue made its money from the women consumers of the post-war 1950s and 60s. Their lucrative advertising pitches continued for decades, successfully keeping women out of the workplace and in the marketplace, buying new products and priding themselves on running their homes with all the resourcefulness of a corporate CEO.

A simple ploy for ensuring that women remained “happy in the home” was to create propaganda that was spread through films of the times and other media to promote the idea that “any truly successful woman was a married woman” and if you dared to venture into the workplace of men you did so at your own risk. In other words…Get a Job, Girls, and Ruin Your Life!

The Best of Everything, 1959-with Hope Lange and Joan Crawford

The 1950s Way of Fostering Female Yin

In American culture, viewed from the vantage point of late 2010s, we tend to think of the roles of women in our society before the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s as being stultified and limited. This is not entirely an accurate view because we have come to CREATE the notion that women have been oppressed just because they are women and that men have tended to control or limit their opportunities and expression just for the sake of brute domination.

Although this notion is decidedly a false impression, it was used very effectively to give the women’s movement traction and create a rift between men and women that would then help bring down the existing power structure and promote what was declared as a new era of “equality.” In actuality, what was at the heart of the issue was not equality for women but MONEY AND POWER.

In terms of the Daoist concept of Yin and Yang or male and female, the polarization of the roles of men and women in society and in the household were pretty well drawn. In most cases, in American society pre-dating the 1960s, men were the bread winners and the women stayed home and tended to running a home and raising children. The male Yang role, as head of the household, was often merely titular in nature and by the 1950s, even though the male of the family earned the money, it was largely the woman of the household that spent it. (See more about the concept of Yin and Yang or male and female roles in society in the book Nobody Wants to be the Girl Anymore: Rediscovering the Power of the Female Yin).

Before their liberation, women were seen by Madison Avenue as being the true consumers in the family and, for the most part, controlled the paychecks of their husbands. Advertisers appealed to the ordinary housewife in order to make her spend the family dollar by making the job of the homemaker equal to that of her husband with her dozens of important decisions to make in order to get the meal on the table and the house spic and span and up to the standards of the family on “Father Knows Best”. The television commercials of the time often demeaned the “man of the house” by making him incompetent and incapable of doing chores like laundry or cooking, and only the savvy housewives with the correct “new and improved” products and detergents were up to the task of running a household and caring for a home and family.

It is important to remember that after World War II many women who had been given jobs of real authority and productivity during the war years had been simply released from their responsibilities when the men came back from the front, and their jobs were given back to the men who had temporarily surrendered them to go to war and protect the country. Many women resented this cavalier dismissal because they had gotten accustomed to the pay and responsibility the war years had provided them. Employers assumed (most certainly erroneously) that the female work force understood their employment was only transitory, and employers made little or no provision to offer any form of career choices to the outgoing female workers and executives.

Many commentaries have stated again and again that the women should have known that surrendering their job back to a returning male would be the ultimate outcome, and some women did. But for many it became simply a case of “how you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree”. And even the women who fully understood that their efforts were merely a wartime necessity were nonetheless disappointed and disheartened to return to a life that seemed to put them back in the Dark Ages.

The Workplace is No Place for a Nice Girl

Jobs were for men who had to support families and children, so, as a result, men would naturally get paid more than a woman in the workplace. If it was shown that a woman was a single parent and needed a job to support her children, she was most assuredly given a job. But, in the culture of the 1950s, the working woman was seen as taking a job away from a man who needed to support a family, and she was limited to certain kinds of positions because it was believed that job was only temporary for the woman. It would be a waste of time and resources to train a woman for a high level career job when in a matter of months she would most likely meet an agreeable man who she might marry and might make her new provider and a new father of her children. Such was the thinking of the post war decades.

This might sound demeaning even insulting to an ambitious woman of today, but it was largely the rule that women worked until they could marry or remarry because the state of matrimony and motherhood was what the American culture promoted as the goal of a truly successful woman and the primary goal of any attractive, self-respecting female of the species.

Hollywood of the time reinforced this connubial standard and made it an unquestionably attractive choice to give up the drudge and routine of a loveless job and find a man with whom to settle in and start a family. Madison Avenue advertisers reinforced this stereotype for women, knowing that she controlled the household budget and in the 1950s and 60s the marketing term for the consumer was almost exclusively referred to by the pronoun “she”. The thinking of the time was that it was somehow unnatural for a girl to want a career and working girls like stewardesses, waitresses, secretaries and even nurses were often seen as having questionable morals and were believed to be an easy target for the businessman or salesman. It was acceptable if that salesman asked you to marry him, but if not, you were seen as …” nothing but a cheap little slut”.

One of the best examples of “the working girl is the big loser” is the 1959 film “The Best of Everything”, starring Hope Lange and Stephen Boyd. The film is an indictment of the perils a young career girl might face living in the big city, so, predictably each of the three young women who share a Manhattan apartment struggle with the effects of “modern” relationships. In the film, it is unequivocally shown that the office of the 1950s consists of working girls that are waiting to get married, engaged girls saving up for an apartment in which they can co-habit… and successful but unhappy career women. There are few or no exceptions to this rule and there are virtually no happy women executives because they have presumably made all the wrong choices or somehow refused to want what a woman should want.

Joan Crawford is also in the film, playing an aging, lonely career woman who finds her chance to meet a man has come too late, and she returns to her job after a failed attempt at finding happiness with an aging widower and his two kids. Upon her return she explains, “They needed too much and I found I had nothing left to give.”

Such is the none-too-subtle warning of the film to young working girls…. that if you stay too long in the urban jungle, you will become jaded and hard, undesirable and only fit for illicit and loveless affairs with married men.

From the high-strung actress, Gregg,  Suzy Parker, who becomes unhinged and falls to her death from a fire escape while spying on a shallow producer who threw her aside in favour of a less clingy and neurotic actress, to the small-town-girl, played by Dianne Baker who endures the obligatory unwanted pregnancy, the working girls of the fifties are shown to run a gauntlet of shame and disappointment because they choose to hold down a job rather than marry and raise a family.

It is the heroine of the film, Caroline, played by Hope Lange, who finally chooses the man over her job as an editor at a prestigious publishing house and, in the final sequence, removes her hat as a gesture that she no longer has the need to identify as a business executive. She  chooses to invest in the hearth and home and buys the products and commodities that Madison Avenue and the film’s producers insist she must.

There is a bit of heavy-handed foreshadowing early in the film when Hope Lange’s Caroline first meets Stephen Boyd as a book editor, Mike Rice. Over the obligatory cocktail that serves as the urban underpinning of sociability, Mike advises Caroline to: “work for six months or a year and prove to yourself what you need to, then get out and marry the med student or law student and love ever after… don’t get caught.” But Caroline has been to an exclusive college and can handle Mister Shalimar, the editor and chief with the roving hands and worn out compliments. She has her sights set on making her own way and being independent. This is a very credible and believable state of mind to us of the 2010s, but in the 1950s that kind of talk sent a mild shock wave of disapproval through most of the movie going public.

Playboys and Dirty Old Men

Films of the time depicted male business executives as philandering predators that prey on the young women who are new to the game and circle the water cooler pinching bottoms and proffering dinner invitations after late evenings of unnecessary dictation. These men are all about sex and tempt the unwary young females in the office with dreams of a better job, a possible marriage or simply a mink coat. In 1950s terms, once you had sex you were supposed to get married and any man that broke this rule and lured a poor girl into bed without marriage was seen as a brute and a very bad man. It is interesting from the vantage point of sixty years later to see that the entire responsibility for the unwanted pregnancy, or the suicide following a break up after a relationship was consummated, fell almost entirely on the man… most often seen as if the male was entirely in control and the woman was the “poor girl” who had been maneuvered into the sexual act but somehow had no responsibility for its outcome.

The cultural dichotomy here is that at the same time the idea of marriage and home is being glamourised and extolled to women, men of the era were inundated with popular pulp fiction magazines in the ilk of Soldier of Fortune that objectified women as sex objects and promoted the masculine mantras of “take what you want” and “she really wants it”. Even higher-toned magazines like Esquire and Playboy, at the time, depicted sexuality as a kind of game. Men had to learn to be smooth and forceful because the women folk were just waiting with their engines revving.

Such is the threatening propaganda behind the 1950s morality of “The Best of Everything” and it is only after Caroline sees the tragedy and unhappiness that befalls her roommates and empathizes with the plight of the lonely Amanda that she “comes to her senses”, and conforming to Mike’s warning, surrenders to his love and protection and then strolls off arm in arm in the final scene, hat in hand.

Hollywood was instrumental in leading women back into the home after the war with films like “Mildred Pierce”, which won Joan Crawford an Academy Award. In the film the character Mildred Pierce shows us the heartbreak and loneliness of a woman who claws her way to the top of a life in business only to discover that she is has not enough “woman” left to keep her man, and who also suffers the indignity of an ungrateful daughter who loathes her for her apparent hardness and lack of feminine charm.

The Valley of the Dolls, 1967- with Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke
and Sharon Tate

Same Story- Different Ending

With the advent of the 1960s and the women’s movement well underway, a film like the 1967 adaption of the searing Jacqueline Susann novel “Valley of the Dolls” follows basically the same theme as “The Best of Everything “ but with a decidedly different ending. Once again it is the story of three girls… the clever beauty from the good school, Anne Welles, played by Peyton Place star, Barbara Parkins; the up-and-coming singer, Neely O’Hara, played by Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate as Jennifer, the body-beautiful with no talent.

Again it is a story of ambitious young women trying to make their way in the business world of New York City and the glitzy falseness of Hollywood.

Brainy Anne Welles is discovered working in a New York talent agent’s office by an advertising executive who then makes her the spokeswoman for a national cosmetics line and dubs her the “Gillian Girl”. Her climb to the top is easy and it allows her the perspective to be the narrator of the story and remain the stabilizing influence throughout the film for her girlfriends who struggle with depression and addiction to alcohol and pills. Nonetheless, Anne is in love with a dashing New Yorker whom she met at the agency, and their relationship continues across both coasts as their careers rise and take shape.

Once again the women are lured into sex by an array of exciting men, and Anne succumbs to the wooing of the agent Lyon Burke, played by actor Paul Burke. The difference between the relationships of the 1950s and the 1960s is that now the woman is less a victim of the sexual encounter and the lovemaking is decidedly consensual. What does remain from the “Old School” thinking and morality is that the man is still seen as a cad and a bastard if he does not want to get married within weeks of the first penetration. With all the lip service to liberation and truly a new “improved” role for women on the screen, the old propaganda still remained… namely that women needed to find the right man to marry and create a home.

In the film, the Patty Duke character, Neely O’Hara, climbs to the top of the charts as a pop singer only to destroy her talent and career with pills and alcohol. She alienates her husbands and friends and is last seen in the film an incoherent mess, lying in any alley, shouting her own name and lamenting her irreversible mistakes.

In the last scene of the film, world-weary Anne returns to her pristine home in Connecticut, having left the man in her life, Lyon Burke, because he was not what she wanted and his marriage proposal came too late. By 1967 the agenda was not about getting him to marry you, but rather about finding the man you, as a woman, wanted to marry.

Feminist Gloria Steinem is famous for saying: “The women of our generation have become the men we wanted to marry”. This statement perfectly embodies the new philosophy for women…. not what he wants but what she wants. Women no longer strove to be the women he wanted to marry but rather to find a man that reflected what the woman wanted in a mate and partner. In “The Valley of the Dolls” the men are no longer “bad men” for not wanting to marry or for treating a girl in an unacceptable way, but are now merely the “wrong man”, and therefore nothing more than a disappointment.

But how was Madison Avenue’s hold on the purse strings of the women of America affected by the rise of the women’s movement and true liberation from the role of the domestic little wife? IT WASN’T AT ALL!

With men comfortably returned to their positions of power, after the war, advertisers no longer needed to make the home the attractive choice for the discerning woman. It could now approach a whole new generation of up-and-coming young women with products made just for them. The focus was no longer on selling detergent and cleaners for the home and family but on new products that women would now need in the workplace…”L’eggs” panty hose, “Charlie”(note the new masculine very Yang name) cologne and “Virgina Slims” cigarettes became the new best sellers. Women also began to compete with men in the world of fast and easy sexual fantasy and new “women’s” magazines like Viva and Playgirl began to appear on the newsstands. Women now had a real taste of personal and professional freedom and Madison Avenue would continue to thrive by waving the bright new standard…”It’s all about you baby” with memorable slogans like the  L’Oreal catch phrase…”Because you’re worth it”.

 

 

 

 

 

The Yin and Yang or male and female energies have been identified and assigned to us from the day we are born.
The male child has traditionally been seen as the great and shining hope for the insurance of wealth and the prosperity of the family. But all that has changed in the current century and women are taking on a new role and are now seen as the possible heir apparent in family dynamics of
inheritance, wealth and power.

Have you ever noticed that when a baby is born, even in this day and age, there is still certain language used to proclaim the gender of the new arrival? If the bundle of joy is a male, you might hear….It’s a “Bouncing baby boy”… it’s a healthy nine pound boy or just the proud announcement that a new male… a ”boy” has entered our ranks. In years past, cigars were handed out by the proud father to celebrate the gender of his offspring and on the band of the cigar was emblazoned three simple, totally fulfilling words…”It’s a boy”.

But if a female child is born, in years past and still today, you will invariably hear almost everyone refer to her, from her first moment of appearance, as … “a beautiful little girl”.

My point here is that in terms of the Yin and Yang of Daoism, the healthy, “bouncing” active male qualities of Yang and the recessive, attractive qualities of the female Yin are assigned to us on the very first day of our lives. And while the male child is greeted with the anticipation of success and the hope of carrying on the family name, the girl child is somehow already diminished by being described in the diminutive as “little” and judged on the basis of beauty as if her attributes of attractiveness are the primary resource that will ensure her future success.

In short, a boy baby has always been seen to be the prize in the gamble of birthing babies because he is the one allowed the traditional role of being the empire builder, the soldier and the defender of the faith. He is the active Yang participant in the world and for millennia has been the one to bear the burden of earning a living, carrying on the family name and seeing that no shame or insult come to tarnish it.

BUT ALL OF THAT HAS CHANGED… or at least come into question in the new century. The battle of the sexes and our view of the potential of baby boys and baby girls has taken a sharp turn in our cultural ideas of reproduction, gender value and sexuality. Even the institution of marriage is under intense scrutiny as to its value and actual purpose… With the change in women’s ability to generate income, build empires of their own and thrive without the protection or husbandry of men, women have a new freedom and a new identity that no longer relies on their looks or their ability to attract male favour. But it is of infinite importance to understand a bit of why we as a culture have given the “Bouncing baby Boy” the upper hand.

Follow the Money….Follow the Boys

One of the classic reasons that male babies were held in higher esteem than girls was that the mortality rate in children was extremely high before the advancement of more modern prenatal care, birthing techniques and delivery facilities. Since the rate of deaths in children continued to be high well into their adolescence the likelihood of male children dying due to their higher risk activities left the family in danger of losing an heir and the potential to generate income and produce more offspring.

Using the 18^th and 19^th centuries as examples, the income generating potential of females, other than making an auspicious union with a wealthy male, was next to nothing. Working as a servant or a prostitute or at the occasional job of governess, seamstress or shop or tavern keeper could give a woman a certain level of independence, but that income was largely reliant on employment by men or culling the favours of men to make a buck.

In the 17^th and 18^th centuries married women experienced pregnancy and childbirth as many as six or seven times in their reproductive years and some as many as a dozen times or more in order to generate males to support the family and create potential for grandchildren who carry the family name.

The mortality rate in children during those centuries was as high as 36% before the age of six and according to multiple studies the total infant and adolescent deaths before age sixteen reached a staggering 60 out of 100. To put that in perspective with today’s research, according to the United Nations Population Fund, the world’s infant mortality rate is now approximately 69 deaths per 1,000.

The cherished son
Admiral Francis Holburne and 
his son. 18th Century portrait by Joshua Reynolds

With a high percentage of male children dying, in earlier centuries, it was imperative to keep having more children in order to generate the highest number of males who might create businesses, engage in trade and generally provide the wealth and status that would ensure the family’s survival and well-being for yet another generation.

The males that were unlikely to generate children or wealth or who would not stand to inherit property by means of entail or rights of the progenitor were often shipped off to become a priest or clergyman or joined the military where they might enhance the name of the family through pious or heroic deeds. This was the case for many homosexual men who, even if they tied the marital knot would be less likely to spawn more than a meager offering of offspring to keep the family going.

The real MONEY was almost always a result of the success of male children so little effort was expended by parents to promote the efforts of their female children other than the obligation to prepare them for a fortuitous marriage by teaching them the skills of womanhood and levels of refinement suitable to their station in life. Where a miller’s daughter might be taught to cook and learn to sew, a middle class or upper class girl might be taught music, singing, deportment (how to walk, move and present oneself in public) and even such manly sorts as riding or fencing in order to attract a mate from the upper levels of society.

The Mating Directive

The primary directive of the sexual act is that of reproduction…to have as many children as possible. And since the infant and juvenile mortality rate in earlier centuries was so high, that meant a LOT of children.

Of course, the main purpose of sex in other centuries was the bonding of families in order to create stronger alliances, produce more children and grandchildren in order to widen the gene pool and increase potential to acquire wealth to guarantee that the elders of the family would be taken care of in their old age.

Pleasure in sex has always been the subject of romance and many a bawdy tale, but behind it all was the necessity to attach to family in order to gain position and money. Even the illegitimate offspring of wealthy and important men were often provided for, because even without legitimacy they nonetheless carried the blood of the great personage and was therefore either worthy of being unofficially recognized or might be murdered in their sleep as a threat to the true legitimate heirs of the great man.

Birth Ratios and the Fisher Principle

It is important to note that even though it was in the best interest of a family to have male children in order to bring in the cash, the actual ratio of male to female birth rate is close to 1:1 or a fifty- fifty chance of having either a male or female child. The actual statistic as of a 2013 study is that for every 100 females born there are approximately 107 males. But taking into consideration cultural elements and others factors, it is argued that, worldwide, the figures are closer to 101 males for every 100 females… roughly 1:1 or neck and neck in the race.

In 1930 and English Statistician and Biologist named Ronald Fisher used mathematics to equate Mendelian genetics and Natural Selection to explain sexual selection and helped generate a renewed interest in Darwinism. His theory is called the Fisher’s Principle in which he presents the idea that the sex ratio, male to female, amongst most species, including humans is 1:1, but it is the expenditure of effort and energy by the parents (or parent animals or insects) that determines the success of the species. He concludes that a female of any species best choice amongst potential mates is the one whose genes are inclined to produce the most male offspring with the best chance of reproductive success. He goes on to state that any other factors like nurturing, the ability to provide gifts or a pleasant environment are all irrelevant and secondary to the ability to father the female’s future offsprin

The male is king…or The Sexy Son idea…
where the inequality with women begins

In his 1967 paper “Extraordinary Sex Ratios”, W.D. Hamilton expands on the “Sexy son Hypothesis” to explain that if one starts with a reproducing couple, their “expenditure of energy” toward the offspring is going to be governed by the return expected from that offspring. In the final analysis… although the birth ratio of males to females is 1:1, what matters most to the reproducing pair is the future breeding successes of their sexy sons. And as a result of this desired need to have as many children and grandchildren as possible to keep up with the staggering infant and adolescent mortality rate, the more sexual and promiscuous nature the male displays, the better the original couple’s chances of having ongoing progeny.

Males can reproduce as many times as they can find partners with which to mate. Females can reproduce a number of times but produce only one issue or fraternal group at a time. Therefore a healthy “boy” of a species can reproduce himself potentially hundreds of times while a female cannot.

 These ideas are, of course, couched in science but not in social culture can be interpreted to make one feel uncomfortable as to the equality of the sexes. The truth is that in this one area there is no equality. It is simply a fact that the male of most species has an advantage in terms of reproductive ability.

But if one factors in the alternate facts… that women generally live longer than men because men historically have higher risk occupations, more stress and high incidence of heart disease, or that women are more likely to have an emotional network that provides care and nurturing than men… the seemingly unfair advantage men have over women markedly decreases.

The New Directive… New responsibilities for women

In the past, the primary reason for getting married was to form a family alliance, as has been stated earlier, or to have children to reinforce the family labour force or to carry on the family’s good name. Men have traditionally shouldered the burden of making that happen by marrying off their daughters to prosperous suitors that would further the family’s social aspirations or by founding and working in businesses in order to create a suitable environment in which to raise children.

The woman’s JOB was to have children, preferably boys, and keep them alive until they reached adulthood, thereby ensuring multiple heirs to the family business and the family name. But the need for men and women to take on these rather two-dimensional roles is seemingly and hopefully no longer necessary. As a result of the women’s movement, newer thinking and programs that foster both education and jobs for women, the females of today no longer require the protection and husbandry of males. In fact it is argued by many that there is no longer a practical need for marriage other than the convenience of having a shared responsibility in raising children. But in this time in our culture, if the woman works and can generate enough money, even the true need of being supported by a man as the family matures is in essence no longer necessary.

The value of that “bouncing baby boy” has also changed in our society in recent years and boys are no longer seen as intrinsically more valuable than girls. Since women can now generate large incomes and build their own empires and careers, men are no longer seen as the bread-winners worthy of the singular attention they received in the past. And since a woman, in today’s world, can retain her own family name in business or have her family name included in a hyphenated form of a marital union, it is no longer necessary to see the male child as the sole offspring capable of carrying the family standard toward greatness.

Since women are now capable of fulfilling all of these roles that were exclusively filled by men in the past, it raises many questions about marital union or the necessity to stay married once the offspring are legally documented as legitimate.

Many questions are now looming as to the new role of men, and beg investigation into how men go about regaining power in the balance of Yin and Yang without reverting to a system that once again suppresses women.

Because of this, men are conscientiously revaluating their relationships to women at home and in the shared workplace and some are finding that the need to act out traditional roles of protecting and supporting women is no longer financially or emotionally desirable and that staying in a marriage is no longer necessary because there is no longer the need to wait until a male heir is produced in order to guarantee either the prospering of the family or the survival of the family name.

Fifty-seven percent of college graduates are women according to current statistics, a figure that certainly levels the playing field in that initial value judgment between the “bouncing boy” and the “beautiful little girl”. Women have the potential to be the top income earners in the American workforce and one can already hear the shattering of the perceived glass ceiling.

One question remains as women take on the true equality they so valiantly fought for, not only for equal rights and pay but to be of equal value as well. Will they rise to the occasion and take on other traditional roles that have been historically fulfilled by the male child? Will they defend the honour of the family, financially support their parents in their old age and fight and die for their country? Many women are already doing these things and there are countless stories of women who serve in the military or preside over a clan of family members.

But with men demoted from the role of heir apparent to that of heir presumptive, at best, only time will tell what new words will be used to describe our Yin and Yang energies and what forms of address will greet little girls and boys on their first day… when they come careening into this new world.

 

 

Constance Talmadge from D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, 1916

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MAKEUP

There are lots of people out there on the internet trying to recreate silent movie makeup “looks” to replicate the way actor’s faces looked on the shimmering black and white movie screen of the nineteen-teens and nineteen-twenties. Everyone who has had any exposure at all to the early art form of film knows what Charlie Chaplin looked like with his bowler hat, thick moustache and pale complexion that offsets his heavily outlined dark eyes. And many might recognise the names of the great actresses of the day (when female actors were still designated as actresses, tragediennes and comediennes, in a time before they thought it was somehow more powerful to take on the more generic male form of identification as an actor.)

Names like Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, Greta Garbo and Mary Pickford are surely some of the most recognized—as well as Constance Talmadge, Vilma Banke and the temptress Theda Bara, whose name was an anagram for “Arab Death”. We are accustomed to seeing black and white photos of these people with the classic pale complexion, sometimes approaching a ghoulish pallor, with eyes lined in blackest kohl and lips artificially shaped into a cupid’s bow or a tulip and coloured so dark as to appear black. I’d wager that the majority of youtube makeup pundits and makeup artists who are attempting to recreate this “look” have little idea of why the stars of the silver screen really looked the way they did. The truth is—IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MAKEUP—IT’S ABOUT THE FILM.

Actors and actresses had been wearing makeup on the stage for centuries, usually in the form of grease paint in a range of flesh tones that were designed to enhance the character portrayed from “robust juvenile” to “aging crone”. Although these skin tones were far from natural looking, owing to their opaque and oily consistency, when seen from the respectable distance of the theatre stalls they did the trick and conveyed a convincing illusion of youthful beauty or rugged manliness. But when filmed photoplays became the rage at the start of the twentieth century, most of the actors in the fledgling moving picture business were totally confounded that when they did their makeup, intending to be rosy-cheeked and youthful, on film they appeared ghostly and ashen or swarthy and ill defined. Pinks and reds photographed dark and even uncosmeticised skin with a natural “high colour” would be recorded on film as dark, blotchy and uneven.

The film used by companies filming the early photoplays was what is referred to as “blue-sensitive” film, meaning that the blue-violet part of the colour spectrum washed out and was barely visible or appeared as white when an image was recorded on the film. The yellow-red portion of the colour spectrum was not sensitive so that reds and even pink would register as a very dark grey or even black. In addition, the film created a higher contrast in what it recorded so the fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty in her stage makeup was captured on film as having white, colourless eyes in place of pale blue, dark hair, and sunken hollows where the pink rouge had been applied on the cheeks. The colour of the lips was the most difficult to control and even the lightest orange, pink or brightest red would register as near black on the gray scale of early black and white film.

Richard Barthelmess in Broken Blossoms, 1919

COMBATING THE BLUE-SENSITIVE FILM

Because most early films, before the 1920s, were mostly shot outdoors or on sets that were constructed on the roofs of buildings in order to capture the strong natural light, it was even more difficult to get makeup to look natural because the camera and the film saw a different spectrum of light and colour than the human eye. Cinematographers of the times would wear a lens made of blue glass around their neck, which they would look through to “see” the gray tones that the camera saw and better judge what might be recorded by the film.

 

Actors became savvy as to which colours of greasepaint or powder would translate to the appropriate gray tone on the screen to make them look their best. Since virtually all of the actors of the time did their own makeup, there was a wide range of styles discernible in any given scene of an early film. It was widely accepted that the paler the complexion, the more youthful an actor would appear. This was largely a carry-over from the theatre, and, as a result of this inherited notion, it is clearly obvious in the majority of early films that the young hero and heroine are several shades lighter than the supporting players. In fact the hierarchy of actors is clear, in that the leads are skillfully cosmeticised, the second leads have a secondary, somewhat darker colouring and the extras, who are often without makeup altogether, are dim with ill defined features.

The pale complexion was soon adopted by actresses who created characters for themselves that were meant to appear virginal or childlike. Mary Pickford with her golden curls and Dorothy and Lillian Gish with their pale, powdered ethereal beauty soon became cherished icons for the moving picture public.

It was soon discovered that pinks and reds should only be used for shading the contours of the face. A crooked nose or a double chin would seem to disappear when “shaded” with pink. Because pink does not reflect light onto blue-sensitive film, it could be used to flatten a bulge or contour a face to make it longer and more aesthetically pleasing. Pink was also the new prescription to shorten a nose and create the desired youthful effect.

Bobby Harran as “the boy” in Intolerance, 1916

By the late teens all manner of makeup was being tried to lighten and contour a face and create gray tones that the camera could “see”. It was discovered that a base colouring of yellow or pale blue yielded the desired impression of youthful vitality on film, so actors began to employ makeup “specialists” to create makeup “looks” for them that best enhanced their features and supported the types of role in which the public liked to see them. If one looks at the Gloria Swanson film “Male and Female” from 1919, the type of makeup and the difference between star and cast members is somewhat more obvious.

The early indoor lighting systems for filming, the carbon arc lamps and the Cooper-Hewitt mercury vapour lamps with their unnatural greenish glow slowly began to be replaced and, as a result, the spectrum of light and what the camera saw began to be controlled.

By the late teens and into the early twenties, the “screen test” was born and both cinematographers and the new tribe of makeup specialists “tested” actors to see how they photographed and the idea of a “camera face’ or a face the camera “loved” became an important factor in the making of a star.

PANCHROMATIC FILM— THE NEW ERA BEGINS

In the 1920s most filming companies converted to the new panchromatic film and in 1922 the first complete film, “The Headless Horseman, Sleepy Hollow” was shot on panchromatic film that captured a wider spectrum of colour and light that translated into gray tones that appeared more natural and changed the necessity to overcompensate for the limitations of the old blue-sensitive film. By 1925 the severe makeup of the early days of film-making had softened dramatically into an appearance that was much more natural and appealing.

Makeup artists had taken over the job of assisting the actors with their own makeup and pioneers in that field like Perc Westmore and Max Factor created lines of makeup that were more faithful to natural skin tones. Max Factor, who would go on to create a consumer retail makeup dynasty, was the first to create film makeup that was specifically designed for film. His product was called panchromatic greasepaint that came in a range of 31 shades of base colour and matching powder for men women and child actors and were determined in gray scale tones based on the colouring of blondes and brunettes. With the addition of tungsten lighting after 1927, the film set became a kinder and friendlier place for the actor and the days of acting opposite compatriots with yellow, pale blue or even green faces was truly a thing of the past.