Books, anthropology research papers etc on permissive culture
November 9, 2015 8:06 AM Subscribe
I am looking for any research or books on how we in the west went from conservative to permissive in our culture, specifically around clothing styles, movies, marriage norms etc. Details and a word of caution inside.
Reading some of the books and literature of the 1800s and later, I am struck by the large scale changes in society, especially Western society. I am looking for any published resources that document the causality for this change.
Some examples include Dressing styles, movies now include the mandatory sex scenes, evening dress is considered inappropriate without cleavage showing, marriages are now thought of only after living in for a couple of years.
Note: I am not looking for moral judgements, only trends and reasons for this change.
Reading some of the books and literature of the 1800s and later, I am struck by the large scale changes in society, especially Western society. I am looking for any published resources that document the causality for this change.
Some examples include Dressing styles, movies now include the mandatory sex scenes, evening dress is considered inappropriate without cleavage showing, marriages are now thought of only after living in for a couple of years.
Note: I am not looking for moral judgements, only trends and reasons for this change.
movies now include the mandatory sex scenes, evening dress is considered inappropriate without cleavage showing, marriages are now thought of only after living in for a couple of years.
Well, for one thing, none of these statements are rooted in fact. Sex scenes are not "mandatory," plenty of evening dress shows no cleavage and certainly is not considered "inappropriate," and plenty of people marry without living together, for any length of time. If you truly do not want moral judgments, then I suggest you do not pre-bias your searching in this way.
As for sources, as Oyeah points out, this is a huuuuuge huge huge topic. You may want to start with an overview text such as The Structures of Everyday Life.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:53 AM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, for one thing, none of these statements are rooted in fact. Sex scenes are not "mandatory," plenty of evening dress shows no cleavage and certainly is not considered "inappropriate," and plenty of people marry without living together, for any length of time. If you truly do not want moral judgments, then I suggest you do not pre-bias your searching in this way.
As for sources, as Oyeah points out, this is a huuuuuge huge huge topic. You may want to start with an overview text such as The Structures of Everyday Life.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:53 AM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Look at movies from the forties, women were still covering their heads in public
In the forties, everyone was covering their head in public.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 6:35 PM on November 9, 2015
In the forties, everyone was covering their head in public.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 6:35 PM on November 9, 2015
Response by poster: @Oyeah: You are absolutely right. Permissive is not the right word - On re-reading after a day, it smacks of the very moral judgement that I hoped to avoid.
@We_put_our_faith...: I did not intend them to be fact, but my opinion based on observations. Totally 1 sample size, but I have been looking at these a bit more critically and which in turn triggered this question.
Overall, I feel we have moved from a culture which placed a premium on "modesty" (for lack of a better term at the top of my mind) to one where we are comfortable with being more open. I also hope to see where we will land in the future.
posted by theobserver at 6:19 AM on November 10, 2015
@We_put_our_faith...: I did not intend them to be fact, but my opinion based on observations. Totally 1 sample size, but I have been looking at these a bit more critically and which in turn triggered this question.
Overall, I feel we have moved from a culture which placed a premium on "modesty" (for lack of a better term at the top of my mind) to one where we are comfortable with being more open. I also hope to see where we will land in the future.
posted by theobserver at 6:19 AM on November 10, 2015
This answer is somewhat out of left field, but take a look at How to Read Literature Like a Professor. IIRC, there are several chapters about the symbolism of sex.
You might also find it interesting to read about the Eleven American Nations.
posted by oceano at 12:34 PM on November 10, 2015
You might also find it interesting to read about the Eleven American Nations.
posted by oceano at 12:34 PM on November 10, 2015
Not exactly what you are looking for perhaps, but I have been on a Jill Lepore reading binge lately, and her books cover quite a bit of this territory...
"The Mansion of Happiness" is billed as "A history of ideas about life and death," but it is also a history of ideas about motherhood and childhood, and about femininity. (Sex, marriage, cleavage... I do think you are looking to understand something about how the role of women in society has changed!) It covers the 17th century through the early 20th century in a wide-ranging set of essays.
"Book of Ages" is a biography of Jane Franklin, Benjamin's sister. She wasn't necessarily a particularly remarkable woman, but that's one of the things that makes her story so fascinating to me. Her life was the life of many women in her time. We just happen to know (slightly) more about it, because her brother saved her letters, and he was famous. She was one of 17 children of her father (two different mothers -- his first wife died) and she married at 15, and went on to bear 12 children of her own, almost all of whom died before she did. She recorded their births and deaths in her "Book of Ages" until the deaths got to be too many, and she stopped. As a picture of what life used to be like for women, it's incredibly vivid.
"The Secret History of Wonder Woman" is a biography of Wonder Woman's creator, William Moulton Marston. He had connections to the early women's suffrage movement in the 1910s and to the birth control movement led by Margaret Sanger. He also had a very unconventional family life (a wife and two live-in mistresses). I found it a little harsh in its judgements of its subjects, personally, but Lepore's point seems to be that people don't have to be perfect to make progress. She is a historian who is not interested in "heroes," and as soon as anyone starts to seem larger than life, she is quick to highlight their imperfections and failures. The point seems to be that they accomplished what they did because of as much as in spite of these flaws. This book takes us up to the invention of "the Pill" and the founding of Ms Magazine in the 1970s, so in combination with the other two, it is useful in showing how the circumstances of the past led to the circumstances of today, for women in particular.
One thing Lepore doesn't really talk about, but which I have heard credited (along with birth control) for the sexual revolution, is the widespread availability of cars, combined with widespread movement of the population from rural to urban and suburban lifestyles. Basically those two changes opened up the social horizons of many people from a few dozen to a few thousand acquaintances, among whom there were many more possible mates, and many more possible ways of supporting oneself.
Lepore does talk a bit (in The Secret History of Wonder Woman) about the role of World War II, when women started working outside the home in "men's jobs" only to find themselves "grounded" to the kitchen when the men came home, to an even greater extent than they had been before the war. This was the environment that led to 'The Feminine Mystique," which is also very much worth reading.
Finally, a little outside the box in terms of thinking about the history of women and sexuality, C.P. Snow's "The Two Cultures" comes to mind. Nominally this is about the academic rivalry between science and literature, but I have always thought that what happened in the 20th century can be pretty well described as "The culture of science won." Snow describes the culture of science as being open to change, unbound to tradition, "technocratic" and meritocratic (as opposed to aristocratic), relentlessly quantitative and practical (but utopian in its vision of the future), unimpressed by ritual and symbolism.
Science led to the development of cars, of industrial farming, of birth control, and the spreading "culture of science" led to the acceptance of these changes, which fundamentally changed the relationship between men and women. Also guns. (A woman with a gun is as deadly as a man.) Also mechanization. (You don't need physical strength to work when all the heavy lifting is done by machines. A woman can operate a computer as well as a man too.)
One of these days I'm going to write my own book about this stuff. :-)
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:24 PM on November 10, 2015
"The Mansion of Happiness" is billed as "A history of ideas about life and death," but it is also a history of ideas about motherhood and childhood, and about femininity. (Sex, marriage, cleavage... I do think you are looking to understand something about how the role of women in society has changed!) It covers the 17th century through the early 20th century in a wide-ranging set of essays.
"Book of Ages" is a biography of Jane Franklin, Benjamin's sister. She wasn't necessarily a particularly remarkable woman, but that's one of the things that makes her story so fascinating to me. Her life was the life of many women in her time. We just happen to know (slightly) more about it, because her brother saved her letters, and he was famous. She was one of 17 children of her father (two different mothers -- his first wife died) and she married at 15, and went on to bear 12 children of her own, almost all of whom died before she did. She recorded their births and deaths in her "Book of Ages" until the deaths got to be too many, and she stopped. As a picture of what life used to be like for women, it's incredibly vivid.
"The Secret History of Wonder Woman" is a biography of Wonder Woman's creator, William Moulton Marston. He had connections to the early women's suffrage movement in the 1910s and to the birth control movement led by Margaret Sanger. He also had a very unconventional family life (a wife and two live-in mistresses). I found it a little harsh in its judgements of its subjects, personally, but Lepore's point seems to be that people don't have to be perfect to make progress. She is a historian who is not interested in "heroes," and as soon as anyone starts to seem larger than life, she is quick to highlight their imperfections and failures. The point seems to be that they accomplished what they did because of as much as in spite of these flaws. This book takes us up to the invention of "the Pill" and the founding of Ms Magazine in the 1970s, so in combination with the other two, it is useful in showing how the circumstances of the past led to the circumstances of today, for women in particular.
One thing Lepore doesn't really talk about, but which I have heard credited (along with birth control) for the sexual revolution, is the widespread availability of cars, combined with widespread movement of the population from rural to urban and suburban lifestyles. Basically those two changes opened up the social horizons of many people from a few dozen to a few thousand acquaintances, among whom there were many more possible mates, and many more possible ways of supporting oneself.
Lepore does talk a bit (in The Secret History of Wonder Woman) about the role of World War II, when women started working outside the home in "men's jobs" only to find themselves "grounded" to the kitchen when the men came home, to an even greater extent than they had been before the war. This was the environment that led to 'The Feminine Mystique," which is also very much worth reading.
Finally, a little outside the box in terms of thinking about the history of women and sexuality, C.P. Snow's "The Two Cultures" comes to mind. Nominally this is about the academic rivalry between science and literature, but I have always thought that what happened in the 20th century can be pretty well described as "The culture of science won." Snow describes the culture of science as being open to change, unbound to tradition, "technocratic" and meritocratic (as opposed to aristocratic), relentlessly quantitative and practical (but utopian in its vision of the future), unimpressed by ritual and symbolism.
Science led to the development of cars, of industrial farming, of birth control, and the spreading "culture of science" led to the acceptance of these changes, which fundamentally changed the relationship between men and women. Also guns. (A woman with a gun is as deadly as a man.) Also mechanization. (You don't need physical strength to work when all the heavy lifting is done by machines. A woman can operate a computer as well as a man too.)
One of these days I'm going to write my own book about this stuff. :-)
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:24 PM on November 10, 2015
I guess the tl;dr version of my super long comment above, is that it seems clear to me that the reason for increased "permissiveness" in women's dress is that women are no longer seen as valuable and vulnerable property of men, not to be flaunted. Also they can now hold jobs other than "housewife," hence no longer have to get married or stay married if they don't want to.
The more interesting questions are "So why aren't women considered property anymore? Why is it that women can hold jobs now, and couldn't before?"
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:20 PM on November 10, 2015
The more interesting questions are "So why aren't women considered property anymore? Why is it that women can hold jobs now, and couldn't before?"
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:20 PM on November 10, 2015
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I read the nordic peoples traditionally married when they had a child on the way. Their marriges were not arranged. So the two year cohabitation is not new, particularly. The workers in the early era of industrialization, slept six to a bed, fully dressed to stay warm. (Zola wrote about the lives of French coal minimg families.)
In the upper classes there has never been permission needed to do anything. Cleavage has been a part of evening wear for these three centuries, in the west.
The secrecy surrounding intimate acts is a defensive breeding strategy. This is also true for acts of intimate pleasure afforded by easily available birth control. In many non western societies death is the punishment for the crime of unsanctioned intimacy.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in a growing democratic society, means personal pleasure is also a goal of society in general.
I see the term permissive, as a loaded word that has always implied a moral judgement. Look at movies from the forties, women were still covering their heads in public, in the US. The rise of protestantism, and agnosticism might be why many women uncovered their heads. Women from traditional groups might have talked about hatless women disparagingly at the time. The sudden prosperity of the baby boom, and the hard times of the thirties might have left people questioning hat purchases. On one hand it might of seemed unproprietous, on the other it might have been frugality. The change was not due to permissiveness, but to shift in population and resource allotment.
posted by Oyéah at 9:52 AM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]