Preface: Since Herb and I are not quite older than dirt , and we never met Napoleon or Josephine, let alone had firsthand contact in their royal beds, we cannot speak to Napoleon as a cuckold. Assorted biographies about their relationship, however, do address that as a dynamic in their relationship.

We now return you to Bettie Page....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The blog, "The League of Ordinary Gentlemen," addressed someone's Confucius ponderings by cross-posting an essay titled, "History, Confucius, Hegel, and Bettie Page," created by Rufus F.

You can find the complete entry here:
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2010/07/history-hegel-and-bettie-page

For now, focus on this provocative extract:

> Creative anachronisms are flourishing. For example, every city I’ve lived in has had a
> number of white, college-educated, feminist-leaning women for whom Bettie Page is a
> personal hero. They’re often into burlesque, retro pinups, and a certain 50s image of
> female sexuality. They’ll say those images are more “natural”, “glamorous”, and a
> “celebration of women”- even “empowering”; while today’s images reduce female
> sexuality to another consumer item, these ones seem to raise it up to the status of a
> magic fetish. And yet, none of those women would want to live in the 50s and deal
> with the gender roles of that era. They’re fully aware that women had fewer options
> in that time. And I think they’re also aware that what they’re responding to is the
> paradoxical fact that patriarchies strip women of actual power and influence, while
> investing them with exaggerated imaginative power and influence. I’d call this the
> Napoleon/Josephine syndrome: he was one of the most powerful men in human
> history; yet, even today, more people know that he was a cuckold than how he
> won the Battle of Austerlitz.
>
> But that imaginative power is latent because none of us have to live within
> patriarchal gender roles. We can play dress-up and camp it up with ironic self-
> awareness. We can draw creatively from the past because it has no power over us;
> it is as indifferent a matter as eating Chinese one night and Mexican the next. We
> could call it historical tourism, or temporal multiculturalism, we the wandering
> amnesiacs. The break with the past allows us to treat it as a source of latency,
> instead of a burden or a golden age. We can all be magpies. Not remembering the
> past, we’re likely condemned to repeat it (torture, ill-conceived wars, and recessions
> a go-go); conversely, we have no excuse if the future is boring.


Do you think Rufus F. is onto something vis-a-vis Bettie's iconic role in the 21st century?

Rufus is correct about why certain women identify with Bettie Page. But, he misses the point by saying he doubts they would want to live in the stiffling 50's patriarchal ethos. For one thing, how much change has really taken place? It's precisely because Bettie is perceived as transcending that sexually repressive era that these women find her liberating. And despite the advances in women's status, we still live in a male dominated society. I think Rufus in engaging in a male put-down of women who are looking to Bettie as a way to circumvent the female sexual ideal put forward by the dominant culture as supermodel, or Barbie, or Paris Hilton. In this regard, Rufus is certainly an "ordinary gentleman."

Can't tell if you're making this remark with tongue planted firmly in cheek -- or not.

One of the critical changes that arose from the feminist movement was women's ability to not have to choose between home and career. They could have both, if they so desired. Remember when that notion was such a groundbreaker that Enjoli launched a 1978 ad campaign around it?




And husbands became optional, even if/when a woman wanted to start a family. So much for the traditional nuclear family unit!

Major contributing factors were contraceptive and abortion rights. They freed women to invest traditional "reproductive years" in the workforce.

One of the more recent evolutions/contrasts was that "original" feminists tended to be pro-abortion, while 21st century feminists stand on both sides of abortion beliefs. Suffice it to say, we've come a long way from the days of Margaret Sanger being harassed and imprisoned for distributing contraceptive information to combat deaths from women engaging in self-abortions.

Since what's changed is way too complex a topic for me to dissect, I'll let U.S. News and World Report's recent three-part march through time point out some key changes.

http://tinyurl.com/285vno5

Part 1:
The 1960s: A Decade of Promise and Heartbreak
It contained both hope and failure, innocence and cynicism

By Kenneth T. Walsh

Posted: March 9, 2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://tinyurl.com/25vdf5r

Gains in the 1960s Made Obama's Election Possible

By Kenneth T. Walsh

Posted: March 10, 2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


http://tinyurl.com/27nl3rf

Part 3:
The 1960s: A Decade of Change for Women
Cultural changes led women to fight for equal pay and an end to domestic violence

By Kenneth T. Walsh

Posted: March 12, 2010

Could it be there an alternate way to view this issue?

It's been over 46 years since Bob Dylan sang his way to the hearts and minds of his listeners that "The Times They Are a-Changin' " socially and politically. In the grand scheme of all that evolves on planet Earth, 46 years is a mere blink in time, hardly adequate to fully get women their due. Even so, a glance around at current data on women's progress reflects major role revisions during that short period.

Consider the July/August, 2010 issue of The Atlantic, which devoted an article to "The End of Men." Its introductory paragraph notes:

> Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in
> U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get
> a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s
> progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end
> point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A
> report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural
> consequences

The entire article is archived here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135


Coincidentally, while sorting through publications for recycling, I noticed the back page of the January/February, 2010 issue of the AARP Bulletin featured a full page about "Women At Work." It echos the same sentiments as The Atlantic and is attached.

What did women want in the early 1950s? Find out from the one and only Sophie Tucker, who aspired to be President in 1952!?! And what a platform she had!