# In the dustbin of our cultural history **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 10, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703 "2020-12-10T00:57:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/61 "2020-12-12T00:12:59Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I recall a Mad Magazine comic on this topic of the front room never being used. It was one of Dave Berg’s “Lighter Side Of” strips. In the first panel, a kid is sitting in the living room. > > Mom: Billy! What are you doing in the living room? What do you think the living room is for? > Billy: Um … for people to live in? > Mom: Wrong. The living room is not for living. It’s for … company. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > There was another Mad piece illustrated by – I’m pretty sure - Paul Coker that showed a kid peering into the living room, filled with plastic-covered furniture, and his mother is saying “…you know the Living Room is for Nobody.” > > When I was a kid, I had a friend whose parents kept a plastic-enclosed living room like that. They got over it, in time, possibly because their house was so small that it was stifling to congregate only in their kitchen and very small TV room. People are getting living rooms and parlors mixed up. Parlors were the fancy rooms that were used only for company. Living rooms are indeed for living. They virtually always have a couch, and they often have a recliner or two as well. And in the days before multiple TV sets, if a family had a TV at all, it would be in the living room. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/62 "2020-12-12T00:18:54Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > People are getting living rooms and parlors mixed up. At least in the dialect of Midwestern American English that I grew up using – no, they aren’t. I have never heard anyone refer to a room in their house as a “parlor” – that comes across as an old-fashioned term, at best, and the only time I’ve really heard the word used is in conjunction with the words “funeral” or “beauty” (and even then, it feels old-fashioned). In my experience, the “nice room” that was largely reserved for receiving company has always been referred to as the “living room”\*. The room that everyone actually spends time in is typically the “family room” (or maybe the rec room or den). \*- Except for in the Chicago area, where locals often call that room the “front room” (pronounced “frunchroom”), as it’s in the front of the house. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/63 "2020-12-12T00:37:34Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > However, were American **single** working women allowed (again, by banking practice) to open and manage bank accounts before the 1960s or '70s? Speaking for my aunt here in Canada who never married, when she bought her own house in the 1950s she needed her _younger_ brother to co-sign the mortgage, and she had to fight to get a credit card from her bank. She had to have an interview with the bank manager to explain why she wanted a credit card. She ended her working career as an Assistant Deputy Minister with the government of British Columbia. Clearly, a financial risk for her bank. 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/64 "2020-12-12T00:56:51Z")
> [@psiekier](#): > > Yes, I am aware that you can still get MAD, but there is no new material. It is but a shell of its former self. Not quite true. Current Mad magazines are mostly reprint material, but with some new material. (They’ve started putting in brand new , post-Jaffee Fold-ins, for instance,) ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/65 "2020-12-12T01:22:11Z")
I’m sixty-five, and I can remember help wanted ads that specified if a man or a woman was wanted for a position. My mom showed me a newspaper from the generation before mine, and those want ads specified what _color_ the applicant could be. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/66 "2020-12-12T03:04:44Z")
I did see an ad within the past 10 years or so that specified “male applicants only” but it was for RNs to work at the intake clinic of a men’s prison, so that made sense. Oh, yes, company dropping by unexpectedly. Our house always had to look like something out of BH&G in case anything like that happened, and I was not allowed to wear any kind of denim until I got to junior high in 1975 and insisted on it. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/67 "2020-12-12T03:06:51Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > Until the early 2000s, there were two, Holy Cross and Mother Guerin, literally next to each other but (as I recall) completely duplicating their facilities (library, gym, cafeteria, etc.). I attended Holy Cross in the late 60’s. They were definitely two completely separate schools. We were allowed to go to Mother Guerin’s cafeteria to “socialize” before classes started, but they weren’t allowed to do the same. During my junior year (IIRC) we started having co-ed “Humanities” classes which covered various topics where it was felt that we could each benefit from exposure to the opinions of the opposite sex. There were held at Mother Guerin. and we were walked across the driveway and through the halls under strict supervision. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/68 "2020-12-12T06:10:19Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > but when she was referred to, by herself, she was “Mrs. John Smith,” as though her own name had ceased to exist entirely. 😛 That was prevalent in the Midwest US into the early ‘70s. I never acquiesced to being called Mrs. Edward XXXX but it was a hard sell to be called Ms. MyName XXXXX in 1973. Had to keep correcting people. > [@AskNott](#): > > If a girl got pregnant or married, she had to drop out of school. I think they started allowing girls to wear culottes to school when I was a freshman. 1968, Iowa. Girls were gone “to an aunt’s in Colorado” to live if they became pregnant. The father, in the same school? Just kept being the jock Mr. Popular as if nothing had happened. Never missed a step, sailed off to college. Culottes were not allowed. Slacks/pants for girls unheard of. If it was 10 below zero we could wear pants under our skirts to school but had to take them off and shove them into our locker until time to wear them home. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/69 "2020-12-12T09:29:36Z")
Oh yes. My aunt’s house built in 1953 was in my uncle’s name even though my uncle never wanted to own a house, and my aunt paid for it from her job at the bank! Earlier, my mom and her two sisters were forced to end their singing careers with the big bands when they got married. And my aunt had won a scholarship to the Royal Conservatory of Music in grade ten! Mom and my aunts were _good_. We are talking classically-trained voices with full operatic range. The day of women as possessions… family accessories… traded from one man (father) to another (husband)… goodness me! We can’t have them being _independent_! What will people think? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/70 "2020-12-12T11:28:07Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > It was a long standing tradition in some parts of the US (and the world) that one of the children would be the one designated to take care of the parents in old age - usually younger and/or female (but not always). The Chinese tradition that every Chinese person I’ve met is aware of, even if they don’t follow it, is that the eldest son is responsible for the parents. Obviously, that’s why it’s so important to have a son. > [@Broomstick](#): > > Lesbian women. Obviously, it’s only recently that lesbians could marry, and not that long ago that they had to remain deeply, deeply closeted Just don’t ask, don’t tell. Women lived together without any explanation being required. Women could share the same bed without any explanation being required. Women could declare their undying love for their partner without any explanation being required. Largely, women were never prosecuted for same-sex sexual activity, which, in any case was often defined as penetration. Not talking about your sex life wasn’t just restricted to lesbian couples. Many hetro people also thought talking about sex was inappropriate. To the extent that was a cupboard, it still wasn’t deep. And all that equates Lesbianism with sexual activity, which is a very 1970’s point of view. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/71 "2020-12-12T11:50:05Z")
Yes, makes me think twice regarding our obvious moral superiority with respect to countries many people, good people, look down to, although women may now even drive their own cars there. It is a pity I will not make it that long, but I wonder what changes lie ahead for societies - including ours - in the next 50 or 100 years. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/22080_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/72 "2020-12-12T12:28:07Z")
Some other things that upthread posts have brought to mind: School dress codes: Girl were not allowed to wear pants at all in my high school when I started (school year 1969-70) but by my senior year, we could wear pantsuits - had to be pantsuits, not pants and a top. Jeans were forbidden for everyone. (I still can’t get used to seeing kids wearing shorts to school.) Speaking of jeans, my mother called them dungarees, and absolutely refused to let any of us own any. The closest I got was a pair of white Wranglers that I bought with my own money. Since they weren’t blue denim, they were acceptable. Apparently, only “hillbillies” wore blue denim jeans. Sex education (HAH!) - mid-60s, my mother told me about periods (sorta.) I knew nothing about how pregnancy occurred, since children were “a gift from God” - so I was understandably perplexed over how unmarried girls got pregnant - how did they confuse God?? Honest-to-goodness, most of what I learned about sex for a lot of years was gleaned from dirty jokes - I was pretty good at putting pieces together. But holy crap, was I naive and uninformed for an embarrassing long time! And, of course, homosexuals were sick perverts and always men - women didn’t do that!! All things considered, I’m not nearly as messed up as one might expect, based on my upbringing… No, really, I’m not! ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/73 "2020-12-12T12:59:39Z")
My school still required uniform skirts and tights for students- at a girls’ school- in 2000. The few Muslim students were allowed to wear trousers under the skirts, so they even had uniform trousers selected. During the optional final two years, there was no uniform, but jeans, leggings or any other casual style trousers were still not allowed. I believe they dropped the skirts requirement a year or so later when the -female- head teacher retired and a new, male, head took over. I think the dress code for the older students is still in place, with a few minor changes, though. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/74 "2020-12-12T15:32:12Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Just don’t ask, don’t tell. Women lived together without any explanation being required. Women could share the same bed without any explanation being required. Women could declare their undying love for their partner without any explanation being required. Largely, women were never prosecuted for same-sex sexual activity, which, in any case was often defined as penetration. Sometime in the late seventies my aunt was telling us about a pair of female teachers she knew. They had worked at the same school, one as head and the other as her deputy. On retirement they bought a house together - what a practical idea to save money on bills! My brother and I daredn’t look at each other. Of course that’s another change, no gentle ribbing of those with poor gaydar 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/75 "2020-12-12T15:35:24Z")
Then there’s the flip side, wherein people today either deliberately or unwittingly confuse the different kinds of love, and assume that any sort of reference to love in years past meant that the people were in a same-sex relationship. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/76 "2020-12-12T17:10:24Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > There’s still a few separate boys’ and girls’ high schools in metro Chicago now, though many that were around in the 1980s when I went to high school have closed or gone co-ed. There are a few more visible from my Northwest Side view… [Regina](https://rdhs.org) up in Wilmette is still around. I knew quite a few girls from [Resurrection](https://www.reshs.org), also still there. Marillac [merged with Loyola Academy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Louise_de_Marillac_High_School) in 1994. Quigley closed in 2007. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/77 "2020-12-12T17:28:52Z")
In public school in Indiana (class of 1967,) there wasn’t any sex education class. The closest thing was high school zoology, an elective class, where human reproduction was covered in the most clinical terms for a week or two. The stages a cell goes through to become a sperm cell, for example. One question was asked about birth control, but the teacher said he couldn’t tell us about that. When I was 12 or so and my brother a year older, our evil dad took us to a reunion at the Masonic Home where he had been an orphan. That was just a cover story for a stop on the way at an empty playground, where he awkwardly, painfully, told us about the “birds and the bees,” that is, sex. He told us nothing about STDs, birth control, masturbation, wet dreams, and nothing about homosexuality. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/78 "2020-12-12T19:14:13Z")
College life is a fascinating example of rapid change. The rules for dorm residents were very strict up until about 1965. Strict dress code—no jeans any time, girls were allowed to wear slacks in their rooms, but not in the lobby or cafeteria.One or two nights a week were formal dinners–suit and tie required. But even more interesting were the rules-and punishments- for naughty behavior. Curfew was 10:00 p.m at which time the doors were locked. Actually, it was 10:00 for girls,and 10:15 for guys…so they had time to get home after walking their date back to her dorm. Saturday nights the curfew was extended to 11:00, and once a year for the big homecoming dance extravaganza you were allowed out till midnight!!! If you violated curfew, the punishment was being grounded the next Friday night. You had to sit in the study room next to the dorm mother’s office from 7 till 10 p.m. A second violation meant being grounded for the next two weekends, and a letter was sent to your parents. These rules were common at almost all American universities in 1963. In 1965 a few radical places like Berkeley began to change–but only a few… And by 1970 it was all over. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/79 "2020-12-12T19:40:42Z")
That reminds me of another item in the dustbin of history: The panty raid. I went to college at Cornell in the fall of 1969. At the time all the dorms were segregated by sex. Most of the men’s dorms were utilitarian buildings on one side of campus, while the women’s dorms were fancier old buildings on the other side. The dorms were inhabited mainly by freshmen, since you had to live on campus your first year. After that most people would move to nicer quarters in fraternities, sororities, or off campus. I don’t know exactly how it started, but one chilly evening guys were hanging out outside the dorms when someone yelled “Panty raid!” Even then they were viewed as something from a bygone era, so it was done somewhat ironically. In any case, a crowd of us charged off toward the women’s dorms, where we assembled under their windows chanting “Silk! Silk! Silk!” Most of the women treated it as a goof, and threw undies out the window (definitely not their good stuff). At one point a couple of guys got in through one of the windows, setting off a fire alarm, where they were soon chased out with brooms. I think that was most likely the last panty raid on that campus, or at least the last I ever heard of. Guys weren’t allowed in the women’s dorms after 10. Theoretically there were restrictions in the men’s dorms too, but I recall considerable amusement when we had a fire drill at 6 AM and there were a number of women huddled in blankets among us. The following year I lived in the first co-ed dorm, which was segregated by sex by corridor so you didn’t have to share a bathroom with the opposite sex. But if you wanted to see panties, you only had to go down to the laundry room.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703/80 "2020-12-12T19:56:32Z")
My father was born in 1936 and grew up in Arkansas. As a kid an African American man was working on the farm and my father called him, sir. One of his brothers pulled him aside and said, “we don’t call them that”! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-dustbin-of-our-cultural-history/927703.md?page=5)