From the 1970 book...

[telophase]

If you have never removed the hair from your underarms or your legs and decide to do so, you should ask your mother or teacher or some other adult to show you how.

Barring the unfortunate cases where you can't ask your mom or sister or other close friend or relative, I think that asking a teacher to show you how to shave your legs would rank right up there among the list of humiliating things in your life.

However, this book does what none of the previous books did: acknowledge the existence of black people. We see black girls and women in the photos and illustrations, although Asians don't appear to exist yet. The 1959 book had a few photos that might have had Latino/as in them - I can't tell for sure, just going by appearance - but they tended to be from newspaper file photos of kids in Houston and San Antonio, as the book was written by the woman who was head of the homemaking department in the Houston Independent School District at the time, and the South Texas areas tend to be heavily Latino. The photos from other sources remain resolutely white.

Comments

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

Hey, at least they acknowledge that women grow hair in those spots. I remember some books of this ilk that sort of glossed over that.

..... Asking your teacher, though? You might as well ask why you no longer feel so fresh.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I think it's interesting that the first time the acknowledgment of hair appears, it's also at a time where women are starting to assert their choice to shave or not, and the book acknowledges that.

(Too bad the pendulum of societal disapproval has swung back by now.)

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was one bit of middle school misery I would have liked to have skipped.

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

If you have never removed the hair from your underarms or your legs and decide to do so, you should ask your mother or teacher or some other adult to show you how.

Next time on a very special episode of Welcome Back, Kotter...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

*snrrrrk*

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

Even in the 80's, they were still insisting teachers were Adults You Could Trust. Nowadays, we all know they're secretly child molesters.

(Do I need to point out the sarcasm here? I'm trying to take precautions.)

[assume-a-virtue.livejournal.com]

There are still grown women who will not talk about such dirty things as removing hair from the underarms or legs with their daughters. e.e Outdated cultural attitudes are not as outdated as they should be.

[melster.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't talk about body hair removal with my mother. Then again, I don't remove body hair.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

acknowledge the existence of black people.

Black people only existed around the time of the civil war and Civil rights. The rest of the time we were off doing...something else. It involved spaceships.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Spaceships sound way more fun than the authority-approved pastimes these books mention.

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

You guys are all wrong, black people don't exist (http://blackpeopleexist.org/). They're a hoax made sensational by the media.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I keep telling people I don't exist, but they keep making me pay taxes.

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

Double lmao, because your icon is hilarious.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

If you go solely by the illustrations in the pre-1970 books, that would almost sound plausible.

I'm really going to have to get my hands on some modern home ec textbooks to see what they're like. Perhaps they will have photos of actual black men, who seem to have been deemed Not Appropriate for the 1970s book, although black women and boys make an appearance.

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

I've got a really old book of Catholic Masses from the 50's, with a lot of nice color plates of stations of the cross and that sort of thing. There is, in fact, one black person pictured in one of the images - he's the slave holding up Pontius Pilate's hand-washing bowl.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Ah, of course.

Does Jesus have blue eyes?

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

I can't remember, but I do know that all the children were blonde.

Also: they don't teach Home Ec anymore, didn't you get the memo?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Well, duh, only blondes are worthy of salvation!

Amusingly, when searching for home economics courses, I keep finding college curriculums, not high school or middle school.

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

Because in college people realise mom's not around to feed them anymore, I guess?

[melster.livejournal.com]

I wish my school had a "how to use the kitchen without setting off the fire alarm" home ec course. *grumble*