Over break, I interviewed my grandmother for our class. Before the interview, I had gone through the questions and had given a guess as to what my grandmother would say for each one, based on the types of instructions given to me by my parents in situations. I was quite relieved to find out that my guesses and my grandmother's answers were quite similar. At the time I interviewed my grandmother, I had just begun to read The Beauty Myth. When I came to one part of the definition of the beauty myth: "Strong men battle for beautiful women and beautiful women are more reproductively successful" I asked my grandmother what it was like at that time when she was growing up in terms of beauty and the perception of it (12). She responded by saying, "We didn't think about that at home. We were more focused on what we were doing. That is how my mother taught me to be and that is how I am." However, she also said that, "Our parents didn't let us cut our hair. This was not for religious purposes but because of the idea that girls looked beautiful with long hair." So the idea of beauty did exist back then at the superficial level even if it was not as prevalent. My grandmother also went to an all girls school and had very strict rules determining when she had to wake up, go to sleep, finish playing, do homework and so on. However, she mentioned, these rules were not just for women, but for everyone. It was a very disciplined culture back then.
The idea of the "housewife" still did exist though in some ways. I am unsure as to how it was seen in those days, whether it was simply a division of labour or whether it had more weight on the gender side. My grandmother said that her mother (my great grandmother) used to cook lunch for the children and my grandma's father and send them off to school and work respectively. The way that I saw this in my head, the way that my grandma described it, however, seemed to make her mother more like an old sage, to which all other members of the family went to seek food, shelter, and advice.
School was very different for my grandmother. She went to an all girls school, and there was a very strict dress code. She mentioned that everyone was meant to dress neatly in the same uniform and the uniform had to be worn in the same manner by all students no matter what age they were. There were also no school dances (because it was an all girls school). It was very focused on studies (essentially the bare basic nature of a school).
I found it very interesting to learn that what I had imagined of my grandmother's life, knowing the world my parents grew up in by their stories, was so close. I suppose that my guesses were quite general though, hence their accuracy. It is, in essence, the life of someone who lives in a reasonably poor area of the world but can afford to go to school and eat daily.
The idea of the "housewife" still did exist though in some ways. I am unsure as to how it was seen in those days, whether it was simply a division of labour or whether it had more weight on the gender side. My grandmother said that her mother (my great grandmother) used to cook lunch for the children and my grandma's father and send them off to school and work respectively. The way that I saw this in my head, the way that my grandma described it, however, seemed to make her mother more like an old sage, to which all other members of the family went to seek food, shelter, and advice.
School was very different for my grandmother. She went to an all girls school, and there was a very strict dress code. She mentioned that everyone was meant to dress neatly in the same uniform and the uniform had to be worn in the same manner by all students no matter what age they were. There were also no school dances (because it was an all girls school). It was very focused on studies (essentially the bare basic nature of a school).
I found it very interesting to learn that what I had imagined of my grandmother's life, knowing the world my parents grew up in by their stories, was so close. I suppose that my guesses were quite general though, hence their accuracy. It is, in essence, the life of someone who lives in a reasonably poor area of the world but can afford to go to school and eat daily.
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