TEN KIDS
TEN KIDS
#00236/Greeting Card (6.25" x 4.5") - Blank - Hand-Stamped Skull Columns (I call them "skullumns")
I got this from a 1960's romance comic book. You can guess the story. She's a delusional, not-very-talented hottie tricked into thinking she's going to be a famous rock n' roll singer by a sleazy manager who has unwholesome designs on her person. Her stalwart and loyal square-jawed fiancé wants her to learn a lesson, so he lets her go on stage and make a fool of herself. Then he socks the manager in the eye, folds the wayward little dreamer in his strong, protective arms, and explains the limitations of her "lovely voice…" The end.
This comic was probably aimed at 12- to 14-year-old girls, but today, even a nine-year-old would be insulted. Men were so successful at convincing themselves that wifedom and motherdom were the twin pinnacles of feminine achievement and a woman who wanted anything else was a witch, a bluestocking, a bra-burning radical, or whatever other term you want to use for "crazy bitch." But by 1960, things were starting to fall apart.
To me, this one panel from a dreadful romance comic book seems like a poignant and pathetic foot soldier in the last stand by baffled and frightened men trying desperately to maintain the status quo. Yeah, it still sucks to be a woman in some ways, but seriously: "That's the nicest career of all"...? It could be sooooooooooo much worse.