For thousands of young women in the early Fifties, the dream of having an education and a fulfilling career was suddenly within reach. The war had exploded the myth of inequality between the sexes and doors were opening everywhere.
It was the women themselves, however, who all too often refused to step through them.
In 1956, a survey on the aspirations of school leavers found that a large majority imagined themselves at the altar before they were 25 and envisaged their job as being ‘marriage’.
At school, many pupils regarded their teachers — often spinsters from the World War I generation — as frumps who’d failed at the business of being a woman. They flat-shared with other female teachers, pedalled to school on heavy-framed push-bikes and wore clumpy shoes with socks.
‘We associated education with women with ankle socks and bicycles. Our own aspirations ran in the direction of cars, men and fashionable clothes,’ said Mary Evans, a bank manager’s daughter.
Meanwhile, many state schools were teaching girls cookery, laundry skills, embroidery and even deportment alongside more academic subjects. Some schools even had a fully-equipped school flat, where girls learned to clean, polish and serve tea to the head.
In 1953, one school in West Sussex invited in the Pathe Cinemagazine cameras to film their pupils doing housework at one of these flats.
In the film, a jaunty male voice comments: ‘June’s finished her polishing, Mavis has made the bed, Anne’s done the sweeping — but what’s a home without a man about the house?
‘And that’s where the headmaster, Edwin Crawford, comes in!’
The next shot shows the head sitting at a fully-laid table. ‘And trust a man to know the right time to arrive!’ says the voice-over. ‘This is one cup of coffee that will be right up to standard … but not unless he comes back for a second will she get top marks!’
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