2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Fifties were a better time. We need to return to a better Democratic Party. [View all]Hekate
(90,538 posts)...but also provided visual depictions of crises of the time. I think LIFE is where I first saw photos of Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors, but not totally sure; same with Nazi concentration camps, not sure if that was my first exposure to those photos, just that it was very early in my life. It was certainly LIFE that brought us photos of polio victims and Thalidomide victims, and photos of the violence against Civil Rights protestors. Still photography is a very powerful medium.
I know the difference between text and photos or art as sources of information. As a person with a doctorate I know I always reflexively privilege the text, and being aware of that always makes me pause a bit in my evaluations, for which I am glad to use multiple sources. I lived through the times I write about, learned, and observed. The opportunities presented to my mother were quite constricted; mine somewhat less so, but still very constricted. My mother, it has to be said, had rigorous ideas about thinking and learning. My first degree was in history, which gives one a certain point of view about facts and perceptions.
My point is that for women times were quite different than you depict in your nostalgia, and that you should read and consider what the women in this thread are trying to tell you. In fact, my thesis, as you call it, is that you should take a day off from this thread and simply take in what our experiences have been and allow them the validation they deserve.