The American woman in fact and fiction; Extra program: A panel discussion on the theme of the series, part 2 of 2

Which I would like to say. There has only been a hundred years or so that women can do anything to get an education or ride fine. Jane Austin wrote she just hit her riding on her knitting. When people came in because that was not considered to have been an occupation but knitting was and naturally women blended with 10 would have had 20 wonderful computers this is the tool when one can compose a symphony when cooking a dinner and still we don't have a well I don't know how because I don't think Dr. Minkin statement opened up the question of women and creativity and there was considerable discussion centering around this problem. Dr Oda gard for example reminded the panel that women for the most part have only recently been accorded educational opportunities. Roughly comparable with that of men. Now this may be because the problem of equality for women in education in the professions and this is still a problem that is a long way for a journal that's what I mean we're in a transitional stage we can't really say what women could do creatively

until we still choose freed from some of the other things that I agree that what she has to do with the manpower Hottel on education just recently published a book in which they said that I think it is one quarter of the women who are capable of taking degrees in college take them and one 300 apart who are capable of taking a Ph.D. take them. Certainly it's even worse if you go into the professional schools which is yes I'm hearing that as yes there's prejudice right there at all along the line in education. Girls are discouraged from taking heavy mathematics we've learned that in our recent surveys on education they're discouraged and they they what do they take when they go to the university they take up English or teaching or something that is considered traditional where you know they are pretty I mean in large numbers and they take it because you know I don't know but I don't actually know.

But the discussion of creativity continued. Virginia Maynard offered the following observation distinctly. Certainly the number of women as of that didn't have an education is so small in comparison with that of men that is really remarkable. We've had as great scientists or great writers among women at all I think I think there is this tendency to say that women could not do anything creative as man but I don't think they've ever had a chance to prove whether they can or not I don't think they will for a long time until and till the traditional education changes in childhood so that they are not oriented so many of them oriented completely to doing well it's a great function to become a mother but after all is something a man doesn't have to contend with if you can have a woman to take care of the children in the family and look at the women that make a career. Yes that's what I think it was an area before I was married. It wasn't just a question of education as you say it isn't part of the waste that you mention the

woman who could be doing some of the Who could be getting these degrees could be doing this kind of work is because of social mores which stilt to too great an extent. So when a girl marries she gives up her life and becomes an adjunct. She has no she is now someplace something that creates babies and attends to a man. While I well we will never know what women are capable of. We will never know whether our not everything in them goes back to a maternal impulse until it is customary and orthodox and conventional for every adult healthy human being to have two kinds of life to have a personal and personal life to have a work life and a personal relationship wife. In other words there's no more reason why a girl should give up her work when she gets married and a man should give up his when he gets married when a man does that we call him a gigolo and I already resent that the babe I'm sure has a has to have her and if she

walks up and does her job in the last hours she's doing in the law as a matter of fact you know that there are already a great many places and a great many industries where you get maternity leave and you come back and you go along with your over there because you don't know there's another point it seems to me that my friend would be a lot healthier for most of the American men if they had had mothers who had some other interests in them when they were babies. I don't know. For the record I would like to say I'm a nurse and I would like to travel farther and saying that it probably now be better for many of the children much better to see me a striking thing for example that we expect in our image of the woman I'm not talking about what women are or what the leisure class women are but the image of the American woman has her tending the children loving them tending her husband cooking meals cleaning the house making beds and doing this sort of thing on the theory that this is the kind of house woman irritation instinct this is the women's work sort of

business not how much more efficient it might be if we apply the principle of division of labor. For example we had people to take care of children who knew how to take care of her and this is a terrible thing to say over the air. Have you looked at Mayberry you wrote the studies of children who are left you know inside. Through him instead of with a personal affection and devoted affection all assuming the right might go through. Don't play doctor much and we have a concept of have an American mother as being the devoted creature that looks after her children and her family and we know a great many of them that do. We also know a great many women who have no feeling for motherhood who have children just like animals when I have them and who leave them to their own devices and sell them for a trauma some years ago a good many years ago I have or I have an article in a magazine which circulates mostly to Middle Western farm and small town women.

The subject of the article the title was do women want children. And my thesis was that there are a great many normal women and women who certainly are not solid or wish to be celibate who nevertheless have no none of the so-called factitious maternal instinct who do not want children who have never wanted them and who if they have them either subconsciously or consciously resent them. Well the article was as you may imagine very badly pruned and softened down the way I always type is going to be cut. But it was published and they did put that point you know Mark with illustrations and I got a very large mail I wouldn't say it man mail it was divided into two parts. It contained anonymous letters most of which began with things like you know creature in the form of Warman. It contained a great many letters which were signed with the names and addresses of women and you would probably be shocked horrified and credulous if I told you how many of these agricultural and small town women of the Middle

West wrote almost hysterically liking me for saying what they had never dared to say. And I remember one woman who said I had eight children I never wanted any of them I never liked any of them. I feel that my life has made a complete tragedy. There is a romantic American myth about motherhood and somehow it's a whole way and it's something that that you're naturally fitted for and it is a myth. I Robot or approve the mice present to you but children are what you have when you get married that they take a lot of care and hard work and hard play and the bit of nothing. Nothing is guaranteed an event that is going to be easy to have or bring them up. And I would disagree with the notion that it doesn't make any difference whether a woman has a family or a career I think that it's a terrible problem and one that has to be faced and a choice that has to be made and I think that that's part of what may have been meant by Mr. Warner when he said that the second quarter after the passage of the law enabling women to vote for the second quarter of this century is devoted to wondering about it.

And there's a good deal of talk among those of us who are professional women as to whether you can indeed be a professional person or a mother. And I like what the wife of a Harvard professor has said about it she's not a married woman can have a job she can't have a career and I want to dollars you mark whether in your opinion creativity among your own sex is something that happens so frequently that just anybody at all can become creative. And I ask because I wonder whether just anybody at all and among the females can become creative. There is a need for devotion and time and psychological energy not just hours a day to do something creative and this is what is not right. All I can say I certainly haven't had the babies and I necessarily have a zit. I suppose the long time fans devote any attention to will I find a mate which I think women have to do if they want to get married at

all. They put an awful lot of it you know that I'm trying I mean I know what I'm going to have to do that a man doesn't have to do that takes up our time. A few years ago I interviewed for a magazine article a woman whose name I've forgotten I write here as I was to score a charming brilliant young woman who was an engineer I know very little about engineering as she was a civil engineer I think she was at the time working on a water system for summer in county Tom. And while I interviewed her in her apartment here she was an officer of the Society of America side of women engineers. Her six month old baby was sitting on a swing perfectly happy and comfortable with him and I said What do you do with him when you do go on a job should I take them all. Indian culture. Well I mean I think that yeah that solution. I think it's a and I guess one solution yes.

And I don't see why it shouldn't be a much more widely useful issue I think it was a larger board has a pointer to what I think would be a wonderful thing if people start having so many babies. Overpopulation is probably the greatest problem facing the world today I have a general you had something. Well Dr. Alberts said that she did not think that women could have both a career and be a mother. I just would like to mention here that if women married at say 20 had their children in the next 10 years or so over two or three you and a normal family they would lose a say 10 years from their life it seems to me a little ridiculous gaming woman to be specialized completely for motherhood when the actual use of it when the actual law of necessity is the mother Mind you I don't say you know I have a job I'm making the distinction that I think is so wise between a creative career for which you have to have certain natural talents as well as a great deal of time and devotion and a job I don't see any reason in the world why women

shouldn't go back to teaching or nursing or engineering or anything she pleases when she's having a family well my point is would you say just the opposite. I'm wondering it's an interesting idea and I'd like to play with the officer. Namely that a woman can have a career but not a job because creative activity is what you refer to your career. He just couldn't go on like she used changing diapers why she was doing anything OK. Oh yeah I think it's ridiculous I don't dance. Regards. Do you think you'll be a writer painter or compose music just out of a corner of your mind. Or designing words or anything any creative. It's very distressing for a woman who's in the middle of writing a script or a story or something to have to stop suddenly and attend all these household duties it's quite an upset in your mind if you're if you're just getting to a place where you can work and go and would like to continue for hours and hours and you have to stop every few hours for formula.

I know a great many writers naturally a great many of them are women a great many of those women are mothers and some of them who have more energy than some others have managed. Yes sorry. I don't know wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin washer with with one eye washer restoring the putting with the other. Yes lots of well here's a few of us have that much energy and it's a rare thing and this is probably one of the very important things about why women are I mean in the history of creative activity I don't. But equal and then they have to take out that 10 years that you mention virgin other crew and that those are the 10 years in which I think it is all very much a matter of timing as I know it is when you know I truly cannot go to mechanical way to look at it we don't think our sport of minutes or years spend if you sing off creativeness and just the aspect that a woman Suckley far as this 10 years of her precious life for her children is to me a very strange idea. Which means again it is all going to those of chores where gadgets should be found to

relieve the woman of this chore and not the life experience. Don't you know them with your mates not being charged that a gadget you cannot really but then you add to your chores you don't write 5 minutes I don't know but certainly this would have you know what about the great creative with his child herself and people who are Dr. Albert were free from this. So I've been both. The bulk of them but they're the ones of the four done by the great exception with them and sort of suss out what the mark haven't they been exceptions not because of the sexual problem of the void. Haven't there been exceptions because women historically have not been given educational opportunities opportunity to participate in this kind of them and I think they've been exceptions and I don't think you know that I want I would have been dismissed that it's. Terrible handicap his butt and take 10 years out of your life to have your

children but you will admit that if you've been if you've been a scientist or some sort of an artist or a mathematician that ten years off for either a man or woman in which they did work at home and paid no attention to the profession would be a handicap and worse than having to go without it's no use yes. Oh and then the notice is 10 years of your last years of her life. Oh absolutely. Oh not sure if she could write during that period on international leave she leaves during this period and not just does an expert job which you can write your own. I was thinking before I came out about American women in fiction. I'm trying to remember in modern and 20th century fiction and I was here once. And I thought I couldn't at first. I mean 50 hero of the 19th century fiction leave in the mind all of Jane Austen's hero was George Eliot's The Brontes you know on Zachary's

anyone away on them you remember their names and then I began and then when I never left Robert March 20th century now is the 19th century now as we're trying to remember a single woman's name from fiction. I remember Marjorie Morningstar a book I read that you would say yes but it was only because I have other reasons not only am I going to listen to you and amber of you know wherever I am or look and there was rather an scar on her unaware of but that those are that's all because of the list city not because a character a really memorable woman's character was created as friendly dogs were that you know the first one that I finally heard my name was know was actually Carol Kennicott like oh yeah you know you and Main Street and them friend. It's worth bad. They're not very good novels but you know all those women are memorable. Well as I was my own time now that's right. And then I remembered Ladybird Ashley but then she was British so that doesn't count. And then I try to remember the name of that girl if

Gatsby dies for him The Great Gatsby couldn't hurt I could remember them the narrator a very unimportant character. What is the point the point is on site service I have a point is that I was thinking really him about this man it's a series of women in fact and fiction is that they seem to me to be fading out of fiction but that's significant I mean Hester Prynne him. I mean one archetype really that was her name go with me and we have no longer got 90 minutes then you get all kinds of material that not only made great women characters but discuss them as women you know that and their and their problems. When I came to the 20th century there was nothing. Is there anything else since you really want to like that in your home. Well there's just one more point I'd like to quote here from Lerner again he says there are as you have no signs of a clear direction in which the American woman is moving. But as she used to discover her identity she must start by

basing her belief in herself on her womanliness rather than on the movement from feminism. Well there's this imply that there's some clear direction in which American males are mad at us. And you must know there may be something men Richard may sound ridiculous but he said a man who is discovering his identity must base his belief and himself on his manliness. Why. Or should that be ridiculous to go find a ridiculous movie you think to me to be the other song is right there are a lot of emotional rich men wanting to discover their manliness and not succeeding. Well it seems to me that anybody should know if they base their belief in their humanity and their relations with a human being rather than on their sexual function since our birth will take over that way. Agree with you but what do you mean I don't think it's men serve me by buying a daisy in her identity on her womanliness. You can see this as a solution. How or how

would the American woman move to base her identity on her base and how do you get Rochelle the other woman whom this has recently been she was but she must not try to be oh man you know I think she is trying to be a man. I don't think it's like oh are you guys excited you date with this competitiveness American woman you saw the you saw. Unfortunately a lot of the Arab I think part of the just the aggressiveness. Might be connected. Why is there still was a big great expanding country of the 19th century that are remnants of the pioneer times and their ideals to better oneself and to better one of his children you know there is a element in it but I would agree with his last point and obviously were used as an example that unfortunately the woman has to do something else and are more and

more and more and be an expert in doing the job and my point was that in doing so many x better jobs she lives less experiences less is less of a woman and therefore I would agree with this last point that if she from this diffuse IDM deep she finds her damages obviously will be based on the identity of a woman who is a creator of life in the family are in her community and it is more than the household chores. Oh I see. You've been listening to sections from an informal panel discussion held in connection with the series the American woman in fact and fiction presented recently by the station. The quotation right at the outset of the discussion was from the chapter entitled The ordeal of the American woman which may be found in the book America as a civilization by Max Lerner. Simon and Schuster publication participating in the program were Mark

Schorer writer and professor of English literature at the University of California. Ethel Albert professor of anthropology and recent fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the behavioral sciences Stanford University doctor and a monk and Berkeley psychiatrist Peter O'Dowd garde professor of political science University of California and former president of Reed College Miriam Allen the Ford writer of San Francisco and Virginia Maynard writer and director of the series the American woman in fact in fiction. The program was produced and recorded in the studios of KPFA Berkley California under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center and is being distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the N E E B Radio Network.