The Good Wife's Guide
April 27, 2004 10:03 AM   Subscribe

 
Have things changed so much?
posted by sageleaf at 10:17 AM on April 27, 2004


I am printing out a copy for my wife tonight. I'll let you know how she takes it.

Of course, she's also tired from work too so sometimes its hard to have a hot meal waiting. And being 7 1/2 months pregnant seems to make her tired for some reason.

Nice to see that things have changed just a little bit in almost 50 years even if it makes Andy Rooney angry.
posted by fenriq at 10:17 AM on April 27, 2004


The advice can be dead on when you add, "for both" parties in the relationship. Which was pointed out to me by a house wife with a college degree in chemistry.
posted by thomcatspike at 10:21 AM on April 27, 2004


The Stepford Wives' Guide
posted by culberjo at 10:22 AM on April 27, 2004


Clicking on the image in hama7's link brings you to a "Tell Your Friends!" spam form. I was about to recommend searching for a "cleaner" copy of the cutting, and that brought me to a J-Walk "Good Wife" copy with links to a Snopes "Good Wife" document. which cites this specific "Housekeeping Monthly" cutting as a fake image.
posted by brownpau at 10:38 AM on April 27, 2004


It's no wonder my Grandfather was such a smug bastard his whole life.
posted by Keith Talent at 10:40 AM on April 27, 2004


Here is the original, from a 1954 home economics textbook. Or so it would seem....
posted by brownpau at 10:41 AM on April 27, 2004


brownpau, Snopes says its Undetermined, neither true or false.
posted by fenriq at 10:42 AM on April 27, 2004


if only at least one of my girlfriends would read this and learn something for once... but at the same time, it's not really fair to them because we're not married. If you're paying the bills, you need to get something in return. I don't pay for shit except for booze so I'm no 'house master'.
posted by chaz at 10:43 AM on April 27, 2004


fenriq - Yes, that's what I thought at first too, but it's the original "good wife" text which is of undetermined veracity. If you scroll down to the bottom of that Snopes page:

"Additional information: An image purported to be a digitized photocopy of the 13 May 1955 edition of a magazine called Housekeeping Monthly circulates with this message, but the graphic is a fake, created by simply adding text around a 1950s-era magazine graphic. (The image itself even bears an "Advertising Archives" legend along its side.)"
posted by brownpau at 10:49 AM on April 27, 2004


Well, I am going to pretend it is not a fake and just laugh.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:06 AM on April 27, 2004


Ahh, damn fine print and all the way scrolling gets me everytime.

Thanks, brownpau!
posted by fenriq at 11:26 AM on April 27, 2004


The Goal: Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.
Today: a sofa with built in cooler full of beer & a big HDTV.
posted by thomcatspike at 11:29 AM on April 27, 2004


Hey, good advice is good advice, regardless of of whether it's fake or not.
posted by keswick at 11:30 AM on April 27, 2004


Then: Be a little gay and interesting for him.

Translated for today: Invite your hottest girlfriend over and put on a hot lesbian sex show for him.

Then: Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.

Today: This is best accomplished by greeting him in a warm smile and nothing else.
posted by jonmc at 11:58 AM on April 27, 2004


It was cited in this interesting book as truth, and warranted further investigation.
posted by hama7 at 11:58 AM on April 27, 2004


At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer, dishwasher, or vacuum

Back in those days the dishwasher consisted of one's own two hands. Also, washers and dryers were not all that common in the average home. I know that even in the sixties a good portion of women hung their laundry on the clothesline.
posted by konolia at 12:01 PM on April 27, 2004


reminds me of that song "How to keep your husband happy" - forget which punkish girlband sang it but it was a hoot. if you must wear curlers, pin up when the lights are out, and wear a bedcap!
posted by dabitch at 12:12 PM on April 27, 2004


Konolia nailed it. The key's the appliances. "Washer" and "vacuum" are pieces of vernacular that weren't widely used until the 1970's at the earliest. Semi-formal woman's magazine copy of the 50's would have read "washing machine" and "vacuum cleaner" and probably "automatic dryer" or "clothes dryer."

Also, the author assumes that every 1950's family has a fireplace, which is something you might believe if you watched a lot of "Nick at Night." Obviously that isn't the case, and an authentic magazine writer would have included "If you have a fireplace..."

Lastly, the "be a little gay" of the third paragraph is an odd construction which smacks of "I'll use 'gay' in the old sense to further the notion that this is from a more naive time."

This is so fake.
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:19 PM on April 27, 2004


Aye, seen it before and quickly came to the conclusion that it was a fake. One thing that keeps jabbing me in the eye each time I see it is the date... why on earth did they put a specific date on a supposed monthly?
posted by digiboy at 12:33 PM on April 27, 2004


Sorry hama, but of course Larry Elder, "the Sage from South Central" (as they call him on his L.A. radio show), declared the item true, because he has been spreading misinformation for years, starting with his own past with a mid-west employment agency that practiced racial job profiling. His big break into L.A. radio was the saddest example of Affirmative Action in the media in years, an attempt to create "the Black Rush Limbaugh" that failed, no matter how many 'truths' he made up. Elder still has a local audience, but he has few friends in the radio biz, among Blacks OR Conservatives. He's on my rather lengthy list, containing both lefties and righties, whose opinion you are safer to ignore.
posted by wendell at 1:13 PM on April 27, 2004


hama, repeat after me: disinformation to debunk an entire generation and deliver "truth"-in-jest: a patriarchal past generation.
posted by SpaceCadet at 2:00 PM on April 27, 2004


Automatic dishwashers as we know them were around well before WWII. I've worked on some of these cast iron heavy weights. I have no idea what the well-to-do house wife of 1954 called them. Some early models were top loading like chest type freezers.

And if you were really wealthy you had a microwave oven as early as 1947. My father worked for GE as a warranty tech and remembers replacing Magnatrons in the 60's. It was nerve wracking work because each tube was about 6 months salary and was about as durable as a light bulb.
posted by Mitheral at 2:14 PM on April 27, 2004


Automatic dishwashers as we know them were around well before WWII.

Yeah, but if you had one, the maid used it and not you. At any rate, they weren't mentioned very casually in magazines for normal people.
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:29 PM on April 27, 2004


He's on my rather lengthy list, containing both lefties and righties, whose opinion you are safer to ignore.

Nothing he's actually written is anything but refreshing and deadly accurate (save this, perhaps), with one exception: his "libertarian" stance on legalizing all currently illegal drugs, which is at best somewhat irresponsible, but admittedly in keeping with the personal responsibility aspect of the libertarian ideal.

disinformation to debunk an entire generation and deliver "truth"-in-jest: a patriarchal past generation.

What? (Or maybe that was the point?)

The dishwasher was invented in 1886, though it's true that only a very few owned them until much later. Did the publication 'Housekeeping Monthly' actually exist? It seems only to survive in order to substantiate this guide, some with or without the last line highlighted.
posted by hama7 at 2:53 PM on April 27, 2004


What? (Or maybe that was the point?)

Ask those who champion the stereotype you're peddling.
posted by SpaceCadet at 3:10 PM on April 27, 2004


Back issues of magazines are actively traded on eBay. No issues of "Housekeeping Monthly" show up either as current or completed auctions. This makes me think there never was such a magazine. The thing's a hoax. I wonder when it first appeared on the Internet and who posted it?
posted by richg at 3:20 PM on April 27, 2004


Doctorow-EFF Maxim

Now there's an issue I'd leave on the shelf...
posted by inpHilltr8r at 5:09 PM on April 27, 2004


What nobody's asked is...

Hey hama7, why did you post this? As a curiosity? Or do you agree with the sentiments expressed within, be they from source factual or fraudulent?

:)
posted by zoogleplex at 5:10 PM on April 27, 2004


I received this via email years ago and checked it out then. It is fake - it just satirizes the fifties. I wouldn't be surprised if there were very similar articles appearing in magazines then.
posted by orange swan at 7:39 PM on April 27, 2004


even in the sixties a good portion of women hung their laundry on the clothesline.
So what the hell do you hang them on now?
posted by dg at 10:40 PM on April 27, 2004


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