Bachelor Girl_ The Secret History of Single Women in the Twentieth Century - Betsy Israel [104]
I was involved in a…conversation with an unfamiliar young man…and I mentioned that I’d just moved out of my parents’ home into an apartment of my own in Greenwich Village. The young man’s ears perked up, his eyes took on a new gleam, his smile grew enterprising and his manner insinuating. “Oh-h-h, so you live alone, do you? And in the Village!?” I realized I’d apparently taken not a new address, but a new address that gave me a whole new character…. I could just see him at my place. We mix up some drinks and…so much for the conversation. You can imagine the rest.
Let’s go back to that man, circa 1953, having his nightcap and listening to excuses in the living room. Here’s how a 1958 guide updated the situation.
From the moment he entered, he leapt to certain conclusions…the curtains are closed and there is alcohol out and on display. The girl has an obvious familiarity with mixing drinks. Note and note well: The way a woman handles…the liquor question is essential because men, except for an unusually sensitive minority, immediately assume that if a girl lives alone she is worldly and, especially if she drinks, she must certainly hope to use her freedom as fully as possible.
Many advice columnists counseled meeting men elsewhere—blocks, entire districts, away from one’s apartment. One 1958 guide, Today’s Manners: Footloose and Fancy Free, was devoted to this idea, providing many specific suggestions on how to manage oneself while entertaining in public. For example, if a single woman invited friends out for dinner, she would designate an escort for herself, first “making it clear to the management that she was the host, that she would sign the check, but that ‘an escort’ would handle the actual transaction.” If there was no available escort, a man at the table could be “discreetly called upon to do the honors.”
If the plans called for her to arrive at the appointed place alone, there were comparable instructions. According to Footloose and Fancy Free, “If a woman arranges to meet a man in a central spot, a hotel or a restaurant, for example…[and] she is the first to arrive…she should ask to be seated at a table. It is perfectly alright to order a cocktail or coffee while waiting…the man pays for it when he arrives.”
But life was rarely that simple. Men came over. They often invited themselves or just showed up. And as much as no one wished to acknowledge the idea, men stayed over.
“My kids have the idea that nobody before 1960 had recreational sex,” said Martha, a secretary turned travel agent, now sixty-four. “Oh, you tried harder in those days to push it back. You went to theater and made excuses after, tried not to have him see you home, or he came in and you tried to cut it off and it was so awkward…. Eventually, though, you’re twenty-three, you’re not married, and you’re human. As they say, do the math.”
Part of the math involves a consideration of the unpublicized figures. Between 1944 and 1955 there was an 80 percent increase in the number of white babies put up for adoption and an unspecified but noted rise in what were known as “homes for wayward girls,” especially on the East Coast. While it’s impossible to calculate the number of illegal abortions performed, coroner’s and doctor’s reports indicate that between eight hundred and one thousand women died each year from these procedures.
Other signs of sex in the culture were harder to miss. By the late fifties there was an increasingly visible sexual demimonde. As one New York Tribune columnist described it: “Movie stars who are idolized by millions jump in and out of bed on the front pages of daily newspapers. Celebrities and socialites return from trips to the Caribbean with ‘traveling companions.’ A celebrated romance finally culminates in a wedding and five months later a ‘premature’ 11-pound baby is born.” And less celebrated young women became the subjects of stories typically entitled (this from the Daily News): “Bachelor