There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This: Women in the 1960s
As a character, Charity Hope Valentine can be read as a physical embodiment of the oppositional ideals for women in the 1960s. On one hand, Charity is a sexually liberated dance-hall hostess who makes no qualms about the number of men she’s dated. On the other hand, she’s also a girl who desperately wants the quintessential suburban life with a loving husband and kids. The increasingly progressive world around her at the time seemed to be saying that she could be both, but the reality was much more complicated.
In the early 1960s, the prevailing societal norm placed women primarily in domestic roles. The Leave It to Beaver archetype of the happy homemaker was heavily promoted, with women expected to focus on their roles as wives and mothers. This pursuit of traditional feminine virtues was reinforced by the media, educational institutions, and government policies. During this time, women were not permitted to get their own credit card, receive compensation equal to that of male coworkers, or even serve on a jury in all fifty states.
At the same time, the ideas of second-wave feminism were gaining traction, prompting a re-evaluation of women’s societal position. The movement was particularly concerned with reproductive rights, sexual freedom, and the confines of traditional domesticity. These feminist tenets were reflected in Helen Gurley Brown’s 1962 bestseller Sex and the Single Girl. The book encouraged women to take control of their own lives, including their sexual desires and relationships, without being bound by societal expectations or the pursuit of marriage. Brown argued that women should have the freedom to prioritize a career and personal fulfillment before marriage, a trajectory that quickly became prevalent in popular entertainment of the 1960s. Brown’s book came on the heels of the FDA’s approval of the birth control pill in 1961, and access to the pill meant that young, unmarried women could heed her advice to engage in sexual relationships on their own terms.
The Sexual Revolution, however, was not particularly democratic in its treatment of men and women. Though men embraced the sexual freedom and reproductive choices practiced by women, there was an implicit double standard that remained firmly in place when it came to women’s sexuality. Alfred Kinsey, in his famous reports on sex, found that fifty percent of male respondents in his study wanted to marry a virgin, despite the fact that the majority of those men had engaged in premarital sex. Virtue still equaled value when it came to women during this period.
Charity, like many women in the 1960s, exists at a sociopolitical crossroads. Her journey mirrors the contradictions that women had to navigate on a daily basis as they made their way through a world that encouraged them to be boldly independent, and then punished them for being too assertive or sexually active. It was a world, one could argue, that isn’t all that different from the one in which women find themselves today…
—Dr. Megan Stahl
