Vintage Advice for Women
It turns out that you need look no further than vintage magazines to appreciate just how far women have come since your mother’s and grandmother’s generations. We’re not entirely sure how they managed to stay sane with advice like this.
You thought you could just bring a fun novel on vacation? We think not.
“While travelling, your costume must be impeccable, your luggage interesting and your reading matter carefully chosen to invite conversation.”
Apparently laughing can earn you a bad reputation.
“Do not allow yourself in the habit of joking with your companions. This tends to cultivate severe sarcasm, which is a bad habit of the tongue.”
To gain a fella’s attention, women shouldn’t laugh, but they should most certainly cry.
“Stand in a corner and cry softly.”
Whatever you do, don’t be too interesting or intelligent.
“In this day of literary clubs and reading circles, the ambition to excel and keep pace with other women in mental culture, will prove a snare if not guarded against.”
You didn’t wear a dress?! It’s like you want to die alone.
“Never wear slacks on a date, unless it’s a rugged outdoor picnic or an evening at an amusement park. Otherwise, I think slacks are an insult to a boy.”
The refrigerator broke, the basement flooded, Timmy is flunking algebra, and I burned my hand making you your favorite pot roast, but no, please, thrill me again with complaints of watery noontime cocktails.
“You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first — remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.”
Your marriage is only one mediocre meal away from infidelity.
“And bad cooking, which is the usual thing in the average American home, has been responsible as much as any other factor for driving the husband to the saloon, and to other places. And when she does cook, she should cook, and not be… a mere can opener.”
You really should smile more.
“She smiles easily and she is pleasant to be with. She has many friends, whom she entertains within her means, but she is careful to prevent social activities from interfering with her husband’s rest, health, and efficiency.”
You only think you want the risotto. Don’t worry, he knows better.
“The man always does the ordering. Never ask the waiter anything for yourself.”
Your calendar is ruining his self-esteem.
“Change around your schedule so that you will always be there when your husband needs you, accept his emotional distortion, and to build up his self-esteem.”