Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea

[ailbhe]

Wait - all those maids and hired hands described as French are actually black, aren't they?

I think I preferred the books before I realised that.

Comments

[barakta]

All of those tasks would have been done by maids and not by the mothers of "nice posh children what went to boarding school in the 30s"...

I'm not saying women "couldn't" do these things I am saying that nice women were perceived as not needing to, or shouldn't need to do those things cos that's what you had "help" for...

Individual women did drive in the 30s but I am sure it was radical and slightly shocking a bit like wearing trousers... And not what "Nice" St. Clares/Mallory Towers/Topsy & Tim mummies did.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Doing something raical and shocking is a bit different to doing something you're physicaly incapable of doing, though. If what you're saying is that these women didn't drive because the social perception was that they oughtn't/couldn't, fair enough - but I read what you said as "they didn't drive because cars back then required physical and mental skills beyond the female ken".

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Driving = independence. You don't want middle-class women being too independent! Plus, the "women can't drive and make a big mess of it" starts early: I've seen it in 1920s films.

(I never feel less independent than when I've got to drive somewhere, personally, and much prefer to be on public transport or on a bike. But that doesn't mean it wasn't independence for middle-class women.)

Diary of a Provincial Lady is great for how ladies of a certain class actually lived in teh 30s.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Or upper class women, or *any* women. Hence the moral panic about bicycles. Bet you didn't know that they will corrupt your character and harm your fertility, did ya? =)