to wish that Marilyn Monroe's figure was still the type of figure our girls aspire to

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watching Prince and Showgirl on tv now - she's all bouncy and rounded with a definite belly - the height of beauty, the sexiest woman

womanly curves and not stick-thin model catwalk and photoshopped rubbish - that's what we should see around

look a ther - she wobbles

I know, lissie :o.

I agree, too. If you weren't a white male, you were stuffed.

No way I see that as anything to aspire to.

Mazza was a healthy looking beauty, but she was also a very intelligent woman who found herself having to play stupid and a bit slutty for success in the acting industry. I would rather see my 11 year old aspire to be Kate Winslett, Cameron Diaz or Angelina Jolie who all look as if they are the weights they were meant to be and who have demonstated thier ability to play intelligent roles and/or are known to have upheld personal moral principles.

I wasnt strictly on about the way in which us women were treated legally, I was more on about how people had morals and respect for "their fellow man" - people didnt say "shit, Fuck," etc freely in the street, people being seen spitting and telling people to "fuck off" in the middle of the street wouldnt have been seen or even heard of!
children would have had stricter upbringing which would probably be a good thing, we wouldnt have so many "yobs" vandalising and freely boozing and taking drugs out in the open.

Clothes sizes have even changed since '86 ~I was 14 then ,my mum bought me a denim skirt and tee in a size 8 from Richard shops (remember :)) and it fitted perfectly .

I had a 31-22 -31 body ( a child's )
I am still a UK 8, and after 3 kids would you believe ?

all these actresses people or children aspire to be like arent real, they play characters and thats what they are probably doing to the cameras and public, in private they might be the nastiest unhealthy rotten people on the planet for all we know!
we only get to see, read or hear what the tabloids, films and radio shows are saying or portraying them at the time.

Looking at pictures of Marilyn through her career, you can see that she does not stay one size. She was also quite tall for the time (5'7 1/2") and was an early devotee of gym exercise.

She very rarely bought off the peg clothing, or at least rarely wore it in public, so the size thing is another red herring.

Marilyn's story is so sad - very few of the men in her life treated her with anything approaching respect. We know very little of the women in her life, other than her psychiatrically-ill mother, who is a convenient stereotype. However, I've always found her interesting, and enjoyed her films. Although most of the characters she was given were silly, one-dimensional stereotypes, she somehow brought them to life and made them more than the sum of their parts.

I wasnt strictly on about the way in which us women were treated legally, I was more on about how people had morals and respect for "their fellow man" - people didnt say "shit, Fuck," etc freely in the street, people being seen spitting and telling people to "fuck off" in the middle of the street wouldnt have been seen or even heard of!
children would have had stricter upbringing which would probably be a good thing, we wouldnt have so many "yobs" vandalising and freely boozing and taking drugs out in the open.

but all those things happened (more often indoors) they just arent shown on series' like mad men. the type of courtesies you are talking about didnt extend to a huge proportion of society. a stricter upbringing also often involves corporal punishment. how is THAT a good thing?

sassy totally agree with both your recent posts .

But Sassy if this were the 50's your husband might never say "fuck off" to you in a row, but he might well tell you that from now on you lie down and take it whenever he wants it, you leave the house only if he sees fit, you have no further need of education or a career and you must henceforth call him Sir, have his dinner ready for 5.45pm sharp and stand when he enters a room. No one would have thought less of him for it either and if you because disenchanted with him he could simply have you imprisoned in an assylum. Even the 1959 Mental Health Act, which was the first set of rules of it's type wouldn't have freed you if hubby still insisted you were irrational at home. And those places would be even more brutal than your marriage!

You can't separate the parts of history as if they were totally unconnected. Everything is connected, music, fashion, language, art, lifestyles, it's all part of a bigger picture.

Men didn't swear at other men because it was the come-on for a beating and beatings were pretty normal in 50's Britian. Teachers beat the pupils, police beat the witnesses, men beat thier wives, women beat thier assistants, everyone was hitting everyone else and that was considered alright as long as no one of a "polite" social class had to see it. Well unless they were at public school of course, where gang violence between pupils was encouraged.

Personally getting occasionally told to "fuck off" doesn't seem half as offensive or disrespectful to either women or men.

*became not because

underacheiving, you have worded what i wanted to say perfectly!

Agreed. The same man who would doff his cap, open the door for you and call you ma'am would then go home, rape his wife and then beat the shit out of her. And she would do expect him to. There was nothing moral about the 50s.

Underachiever makes some very good points there.

Society has not become violent. We are just allowed to talk about it now.

I'm saving up to buy one of these at the moment. It's a new bike but it's a copy of the early 50's stuff. It's got no performance worth writing home about but it's just so beautiful. Bikes were beautiful in the 1950's... But it doesn't matter if the machines and the clothes were beautiful or not, I wouldn't have been able to ride one.

If by some miracle I had managed somehow to have independant money to buy one, I would have needed a mans tuition to ride it, which meant I would have needed my fathers permission. Any man teaching me without Daddies permission would have been considered fair game for one of those lovely old style beatings the Daddies of young women handed out for such crimes as speaking to his property little girl. Even if I came from a family of incredible liberals and was rare enough to have got my Daddys permission I would be widely considered an immoral harlot for engaging in a mans persuit and no man who was considered in his right mind would have wanted to teach me how to service it (dealer servicing wasn't an option in the 1950's). Nor would any hardware shop owner have wanted to sell me the spanners! If I had broken down, what with being an immoral harlot, what do you think might have happened then? In the middle of the countryside where no one can hear you scream...

Thank God it's not really the 50's and I can ride that in safety, where people will smile at me for it and no one will want to hurt me.

Let's face it, 'sexy' isn't about body shape at all.

The 'Face' and general 'Charisma' tend to rule, if anything.

Throughout history sex sirens have been all shapes and sizes - from beanpoles to significantly more padded - but they always have a certain something which is unique to them, and maybe not generally accepted as standard sexy.

MM was pregnant when she made that film - she later lost the baby - so that prob explains the bigger boobs and belly.

She was actually far thinner than people think. Details of from her autopsy reveal she was 5ft 6 and around 9 and half stone at time of death - so prob no morethan a size 10

under I understand and agree with you but ...

not all families were that way , not all men .

You have painted a realistic description for some women (a disgrace ) not all women lived that way ...no women in my family ever did .

They are examples right ? :)

Maybe I have a very 'modern' history ?

doley, my MIL grew up in the 50's and that was the reality for her. she had to leave school because it was only worth educating her brother. she was married off at 18 to a violent, abusive , unfaithful drunk. when she left him after he beat and raped her she was shunned by her whole family.

I think women of all shapes and sizes look fantastic. Me personally the likes of beyonce Knowles makes my mouth water, on the other hand cheryl Cole makes me wretch.
But that is just me, oh and by the way Miss Knowles is a 8-10 so i am not just a chubby chaser, although i like a fat bird too ha ha

Lissielou I am sorry to hear that ...it is sad .

I am guessing many ,many women had those vile experiences ~maybe I should count my family lucky then ?

I mean that genuinely .

Marilyn Monroe was an incredibly beautiful, sexy woman but I don't think her figure is something to aspire to any more than a teeny size zero model today is something to aspire to.

It sounds a bit obvious and trite but we come in all different shapes and sizes and women can be beautiful in all different shapes and sizes. As someone said a page or so back, the whole idea of picking an ideal feminine shape and saying we should all aspire to it is just another way in which we objectify women and beat ourselves up for not fitting the ideal.

And then we have charmers like CFAW who say "i am not just a chubby chaser, although I like a fat bird too" . But do any "birds" - fat or otherwise - like you CFAW?

I think those types of experiences were far more common than we will ever know, because they werent spoken about. it was normal to hit your child for getting in your way. to yank on their tongue for swearing (what my grandad used to do to my dad) and a lot of women did nt need keeping in their places because they were so conditioned that they would stay there anyway. its very sad and I thank my stars that I am as lucky as I am to live where I do, when I do.

fwiw, MIL met and married a rather lovely man and had three dc's with him and never looked back!

Yeah plenty like me!

I myself am a girl by the way.