Interview Frances Gender and Opportunity in Decades Past

I spoke with a woman named Frances, who was born in 1929. Obviously, 1929 is a year soiled in American history as the period when the U.S. entered The Great Depression. Frances always said that her parents said she was the greatest blessing to come out of that year. Frances is 88 years old and she is retired secretary and school teacher. She was eager to describe the enormous changes that she has seen take place throughout American society. To begin with, Frances wanted to emphasize how being a child during the Great Depression had an enormous influence on her life. Her parents barely had enough to survive and feed their children. This made her “scrappy” and she was eager to finish high school as soon as possible and get a full time job. In the 1940s, she said more girls were considering college, but they were still the minority. The expectation for young women, Francis emphasized was that they would graduate high school (if they came from good families) and get married and start having children, being prepared to spend the best years of their lives raising those children. Her mother was very eager for her to meet a nice young man, but it was her grandmother, Frances explained, that always emphasized to her that marriage and children were not what they were cracked up to be. She was very close to her grandmother and heeded those words closely. This influence, in combination with growing up during the Great Depression, made her particularly eager to get a job and be self-sufficient. Her mother ultimately acquiesced, but not completely.
Frances explained that her entire life she wanted to be a writer. Her mother forbade it, explaining that it just wasn’t a career choice for women, and that few women writers actually made money doing it. Frances explained that she felt compelled to listen to her mother because, she didn’t have any evidence (or much evidence) to the contrary. So Frances set out looking for a job where she could at least use some of her writing skills. She found a job as a typist, which she said was grueling and very demanding. However, she didn’t mind it so much. It was her first job out of high school, and she enjoyed taking the train in to work and get hot soup for lunch for just a nickel and being on her own in the city. She later got a much higher paying job as a clerk and secretary for a famous writer. She didn’t want to say who the famous writer was, and got very teary-eyed when I pressed to find out more details about him. This was her longest position. She worked for him for over 20 years, until he died. She cited him as the most influential person in her life. He encouraged her to write, but he acknowledged that society was very harsh and cruel to female writers. He was someone who pushed her to write because he believed that she was good at it and it gave her pleasure so why not.
Frances said she went to work for him in 1954: she was aged 25. It was 1954. In those days, she explained, it was very odd that she was not married nor engaged nor pinned. She said in those days, employers could ask you all about your personal life in job interviews, such as questions about whether or not you were married, planned on becoming married, how many children you wanted. Frances explained that she had been on other job interviews where the interviewers would make her feel bad for being single and not wanting to get married right away. Frances said that one interviewer referred to her as “an old-maid-in-training.” However, when she interviewed with this famous writer, he definitely made a big deal about her “old age” and the fact that she was unmarried with no prospects, but that he found it fascinating. Frances explained, “he made me feel very rare and different. Like I was some exotic plumed bird he had never seen before.” She explained that he was impressed with her resume and her typing rate and that she had all this work experience. He was concerned with how loyal she would be and was very secretive. “I need a secretary who can keep all of my secrets,” he would proclaim periodically. Frances explained that she had to take his empty gin bottles and throw them away in dumpsters that were not in his neighborhood, because he was paranoid. This writer also was concerned that she would meet some guy, fall in love and drop the job without warning. “He soon learned that I was loyal and committed to earning a living. Sometimes he would joke when we were alone that I was a lesbian. That was a very risqué thing to say and it would make him laugh and laugh. I didn’t mind.” It is clear that in the 1950s, asking all sorts of questions about one’s secretary’s sexual orientation and personal life were all kinds of permissible. It is noteworthy that Frances was not offended to be referred to as a lesbian, given how taboo that was during the time. When she got to the age of 35 and was still unmarried and still diligently working for this writer, Frances explained that her family had “given up on her.” Frances described how “my decisions caused my family an enormous amount of suffering and disappointment.” When I pressed her to explain what it was exactly that caused them pain about her choices, she stated things very clearly: “the fact that I was still unmarried and had no interest in getting married caused the family much embarrassment. There was speculation that I might be a lesbian and people in the family and in our town often gossiped about me. My decision also caused my family much worry. Without a husband, they worried how I would continue to support myself in my old age.” When I asked why her steady job, strong work ethic and savings didn’t cause them any relief from their anxiety, Frances explained that nothing was going to cause her family any end to their worry until she had a husband.
“But I suppose,” Frances said, “me not getting married was a form of resistance as well. I guess it was my own way of rebelling.” Later when the writer died, Frances got certified to teach school, as she still believed that earning a living as a female writer was just a pipe dream, she married one of the other teachers that she was certified with. They never had any children, something that drastically disappointed her parents. It’s fascinating to see how so many of Frances’ decisions would be completely permissible nowadays, but that the decade she was trapped in essentially shackled her to a judgmental society that was often harsh and cruel. At the very least, it is nice she was able to learn so much from a writer, when it wasn’t quite possible for her to be one herself. However, it is unfortunate she has lived with so much shame, believing so many of her decisiosn brought suffering to her family.


: Interview a woman who is at least 30 years older or younger than yourself. Encourage her to talk about her life and the changes she has seen in women’s lives during her lifetime. The central question should be how has being female has shaped her life. Consider making a list of questions beforehand. Ex: In childhood, what were the roles, rules, and expectations for girls in her family? How did she learn about sexuality? What kinds of work has she done, paid and unpaid? If she married, was her relationship to her spouse different than that of her parents? If she had children, did she raise them differently than she was raised?

Write up the interview as a 5-page essay that focuses on the gendered aspects of your interviewee’s experience (rather than her general life story). Your essay should include specific details and quotes, and you should also reflect upon what you’ve learned about gender in this generation.