Facinating.  I came of age at the same time period as you two, graduating college in the early 70’s.  Young women today have no idea what it was like then.  No boys allowed in my dorm above the ground floor and even there the rule was four feet on the floor, only hand holding.  Not even kissing!  Women had to wear dresses to dinner in the cafeteria and be in by 11:00.  The males were allowed to dress as they liked in their dorms and had open hours.  No curfew at all.

When I graduated, I went to an employment agency.  They had pink application forms for women and blue for men.  Every woman had to take a typing test (the men didn’t have to).  I told them I wasn’t much of a typist and I was asked what kind of a job did I think I could get without typing skills.  I guess my math and economics degree weren’t really what they were looking for.

 I got a job with a Fortune 100 company.  Women had to wear dresses.  Absolutely no pants.  I had worked there for about four years and was due my first big promotion.  I had exceeded every goal given me, was recognized as a leader, all the men hired when I was had already been promoted.  And then I got pregnant.  I told my husband I was going to hide it until I got my promotion.  I actually waited until I was six months pregnant, got the promotion and then told my boss.  He took back the promotion.  Said I would have to wait until I came back and worked at least another year to "prove" I was serious about staying because women just wanted to make a few extra bucks to support their kids and then quit to stay at home.  And this was very legal at the time.

I shake my head now at young women with their tight skirts, spike heels and spanks (they were called girdles in my day.)  I fought long and hard to be able to come to work without all those confining garments.

We have certainly come a long way.

I entered college in 1963. The summer before we were to begin our first year, all of us received a list of wardrobe essentials we would need: white gloves and a hat (for attending teas and receptions), a "cocktail-style" dress, skirts, blouses and so on. We were informed that when we walked from our campus to the downtown shopping area, no slacks were allowed. (Jeans? Puh-leeze! Not even in the picture except for evenings spent studying in our rooms!) We were permitted to wear slacks ONLY when there was snow up to our wazoo and the temperature was arctic. Here are some other rules we followed at our all-women’s college:

No chewing gum or smoking in public.

Signing in and out of our dorms in the evening, even if we were simply heading to the library or to another dorm.

An 11:00pm curfew on weeknights.

The need for "weekend passes" if we were visiting friends at another campus, or going on an "overnight" to a party at Cornell.

Checking in with the Housemother when we were expecting a date to pick us up at our dorm.

Meeting our date in "The Date Room", conveniently located right next to the Housemother’s suite.

Oh, my. In four short years, our world was turned upside down. By 1967, many of us were already beginning to devour works by Betty Friedan and other early modern feminist writers. We had begun to question our choices in life, and yearn for a wider sphere for our dreams. Upon graduation, many of us went on to grad school, entered the world of work, and slowly began climbing towards a different kind of life. I went to my first "consciousness-raising group" (remember them?) in 1968, and it was a true revelation to gather with other women of all ages and backgrounds to talk seriously about how we could empower one another and support each other’s dreams.

And as I recall, all the women in that group were wearing - yes, you guessed it - bell-bottomed jeans!

Susan how I can relate to your story.  I went to Vocational Nursing School in 1963 in New Hampshire.  Women in slacks not allowed, jeans never.  We, of course, had uniforms.  Skirts had to be below the knees and these caught in the hospital bed springs everytime you made a bed.  When off-duty we had to sign out of our dorms just to go downtown to the movies. Back then a woman wasn’t a woman unless you had on long flowing full skirts, 3 inch heels with pointy toes that you wobbled like a duck in and long flowing hair.  The stories that were told about women in slacks with short hair were abominable.  There is one thing that still hasn’t changed that drives me crazy  Men are still considered the head of the household.  It doesn’t matter if you are a single mom if you have a son any job you hold, on your tax records the oldest man in the house is listed head-of-household.  When this changes I know we will have made our mark.  Equality should be decided by a job well done not by gender.

And this is why I find AMC’s show Mad Men so incredibly fascinating. To see how far women have come. The way we thought we had to think, move, act and live is so dramatically different, that in today’s world to even think of behaving in the manner we used to is so foreign for many of us.

We have indeed come a long way and I would argue the only thing standing in our way is us. Why are we still only paid a fraction of what a man is paid? We can’t blame it on men, we have voices in and out of politics. So what is the answer? I say it is because (as is the case with some other issues) we are content in accepting the status quo.

What is so scary about this discussion between Lesley and Gail is the realization that we all know to be true, there are still women today living as if they were stuck in 1960. Still believing when their husband speaks they need to "pipe down" - not voice an original opinion- not work and certainly not become involved politically in any aspect. Women who wouldn’t know what an orgasm was if it snuck up and bit them, content in being a grandmother to their beautiful grandkids.

And they do so  by choice not force, and for me that is a frightening thought.

This is a great topic and a stroll down memory lane as I approach 60 and also relate. As an Art major on a women’s Alum scholarship-I was encouraged to go into fashion design when all I wanted to do was draw the buildings on campus and was motivated by architecture & design. I, like Belinda, find "Mad  Men" an amazing program where so much of my own history during that time pricks of not getting a mgmt job in 1965 because the company I successfully worked in only allowed men in management until the late 70’s-by that I time I was on the road playing keyboards with Jazzmen in Nevada shows-learning more and returning home to teach Art & Music until the late 90’s when I started a care business working with aging women and the disabled.

I did as I’d been taught in my first marriage and ended up losing a very independent self "for a season"-which propelled me into working a lifetime with women, the arts & healing. Today-in a marriage made in heaven, I see all of these experiences as tools for learning and a part of a plan. I also see that (and some may disagree) some women are unaware of the beauty of the differences as well as the value of being loved, cared for and protected by a man with a heart to serve a woman in a very deep and nurturing way. I have no interference in being "free" to do as I so choose in my marriage-but I am enveloped in the differences and as the old song says-"I love being a girl" and am thoroughly filled with Joy in the arms of my knight in shining armor. There is something very beautiful with the created masculine/feminine energy & differences-when walked out in an atmosphere of freedom, playfulness and respect. I having a blast in that sandbox. 

If a woman does not know about an orgasm-this is a sad treatise rather than  "wouldn’t know if it snuck up and bit them".  Most women who I’ve had in support, healing groups have been deeply wounded, ravaged by cruel men and hurt by sexual abuse or some other painful experience and have not been healed and set free to enjoy a loving sexual relationship. Others, understand sexual response but give it away too easily or use their sexuality to control in an effort to feel safe-or in some respects may have become bitter and hardened-another sad response . It is our goal as women to love, care and encourage one another if this is the case. Ultimately-it’s about being happy and keeping one’s dignity, self-respect and honoring another’s choices. It’s not always about the outward appearances-but the heart.Women work this out in various ways and one person’s configuration may look odd to another-but that person may have great peace and love caring for their grandkids and having days of cuddles. Abuse is never acceptable-however, love manifests in many different tapestries. 

When I entered college in 1974, out-of-town Freshmen (they tried "Frosh" as a gender-free term, but it never caught on) had to live on campus for the first year, by law.  After that we could move into student housing in town.  (I had no choice but to move into student housing—I had no place to go when campus was closed for holidays—I hated the smug assumption that everyone had a home and parents somewhere.)

I was assigned to the last all-female dormitory on campus.  It was also the only dorm with a "house mother"—quite an antiquated notion then.  She had a little apartment right there on the first floor of the dorm, clearly had lived there for a long time, and she used to invite us in for tea and conversation on a nightly basis. 

This was a generation that smoked pot and drank (the drinking age was 18 then) before leaving high school, so we thought the whole idea was quaint, that is, until we visited her. 

We quickly realized she was an older woman, far from elderly, who had devoted her entire life to her "girls" who came and went, new faces every year, faces that grew more and more bewildered by her presence.  

We were her purpose for being there, and even though the RAs helped us navigate registration (all done by hand on punch cards back then), she helped us with something much more important—respect for how far she had come in her time. 

We didn’t own little white gloves to wear to tea, but we visited her frequently, and listened to her stories of how much the campus had changed over the years.  She was an integral part of our education as women. 

All of the dormitories turned co-ed my sophomore year, and I heard she had moved.  Over that summer I moved downtown to a communal house that was like night and day compared to that dorm.  I recall thinking how confusing the times were to me then, and how incredibly confusing the times must have been to our house mother who lost her home, her job, and her purpose, in the span of a few turbulent decades.