Allowed to Work
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#1: Allowed to Work Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:31 am
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I was reading some Oxenham the other day, and I cam across several references to the idea that it was wrong for girls from well to do families to do paid work; the idea being that they were being wicked in taking jobs away from women who needed them. In several cases, this results in girls having to stretch really hard to find some unpaid activity to occupy themselves. Enid Sothern, in Goes to It, makes a similar comment regarding her career.

The girls in the early part of the series seem to follow this - the ones who train for a career tend to come from more middle class families, and the upper class girls inevitably return home after school to help their mother and get married. Joey fits in this line too - there's no idea that she would do any further training or education, even when she doesn't want to marry. However, later in the series we have people like Julie Lucy and Josette Russell, whose parents could certainly afford to support them, planning careers.

Does anyone know at what point the idea that women could train for a career for their own sake, rather than solely due to economical necessity, became acceptable? Was the attitude different for more high class professions like lawyer or doctor?

#2:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:54 am
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Quote:
Does anyone know at what point the idea that women could train for a career for their own sake, rather than solely due to economical necessity, became acceptable? Was the attitude different for more high class professions like lawyer or doctor?


I think it was probably a post war thing. Very high rates of taxation resulted in families who had considerable landed estates but who were nevertheless cash poor and struggled to maintain big houses and educate their children and keep their estates together. They probably couldn't afford to keep adult daughters at home.

Also the establishment of the NHS and social services meant that there was no longer such a need for the kind of voluntary work that Joy Shirley and others like her did.

I think professions such as lawyer and doctor perhaps did fall into a different category - although Daisy and Julie were postwar career women. 'Taking work away from girls who need it' I think would refer more to ordinary office jobs, such as EJO's Mary Dorothy Devine had.

Not everyone has the aptitude and ability to be a lawyer or a doctor, so (in accordance with the Parable of the Talents, which was read at Prayers on the first night of every term) one could argue that if one has that ability, one has a duty to develop it.

Joey or Hilda might argue that our talents and abilities are given by God, and therefore if we have a talent that can be used to benefit others, we owe it to God to make the best use we can of that talent.

#3:  Author: JSLocation: Perthshire PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:40 am
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By coinicdence, I was talking the other week to a physiotherapist who trained in the 1940s, who said she had wanted to do medicine but university places were limited as priority was given to men coming out of the forces. Another I was speaking to said her father had been criticised by his friends for 'allowing' her to train for a career, because it was commonly thought to be a waste as women would get married.

I've just been re-reading the 'Drina' books, written in the late 50s/early 60s and her friend Jenny (in the early books) is desperate to go to agricultural college but says there might not be the money because all the boys in the family will cost a lot in training etc. In a slightly later book, she points out that she doesn't see why she shouldn't get the training too, so maybe this was an attitude that was changing as we moved into the 1960s?

#4:  Author: abbeybufoLocation: in a world of her own PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:40 pm
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The idea of boys being more 'worthwhile' training or educating than girls comes up a lot in books of the first half of the 20th century when EBD and others, including EJO, were writing. There was definitely a double-edged sword, or catch-22 for girls - on the one hand, they were expected to get married so their training would be 'wasted' - many employers, as we've discussed before, insisted that one left on marriage, with no thought for whether the money one earnt was necessary to the household income - it was expected that you did not get married until your future husband could support you. And the other double bind was that if you or your family had money - so you'd be able to pay for training, you were morallly obliged not to take a job that a 'working girl' ought to have Confused

#5:  Author: Emma ALocation: London PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:04 pm
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But any job which might need expensive training would be out of reach for "poor girls" who were unlikely to be able to afford this. Therefore, it's the middle stream of jobs which may have been more contentious. For a good middle-class girl, working in an office would be acceptable as a means of earning a living (as Mary-Dorothy and Biddy do), and this would be something that could be done well by someone who had no need to earn a living.

Following a profession which one would abandon on marriage would be seen as taking jobs from the men, who needed them to support their families. This would have been particularly prevalent after WWII, when the women were expected to go back to their homes and make way for the men to return to their old jobs.

Agatha Christie points this out in The Moving Finger, where Aimee Griffiths (the doctor's sister) claims that she would have made a better doctor than her brother, but that her parents would never have considered it worthwhile for her to train.

#6:  Author: tiffinataLocation: melbourne, australia PostPosted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 5:01 am
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Yes, it was expected that you'd give up a paid job once you got married- except during the war.
My grandmother was very envious of her best friend (who had some money) who didn't have to go to work when she left school.

When she got married during WW2 and expected to give up work then, she was told that because it was 'war work' the only way she could leave was if she became pregnant.

Even in the 70's here women were still expected to give up work after having a child.

Yet now on the other hand The Queen has requested that Kate Middleton goes out and gets a job. This is a girl who doesn't need to work in the EJO/EBD sense. Haven't times changed!

#7:  Author: JeneferLocation: London PostPosted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:55 pm
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My mother's oldest sister wanted to nurse but my grandmother would not let her. She felt it would be a waste as Muriel would get married and have to give it up. Also money was tight at the time. Sadly Muriel never got married and spent most of her working life as a clerk. She joined the WRAF during the war and could have gone on to do Occupational Therapy but felt she was too old (late thirties) to start studying.

#8:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:57 pm
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I don't know how typical this was but just for the record, here is my experience.

I was a child of working class parents - father worked in a factory in a job which would be considered semi-skilled today. I got a scholarship to a good Convent High School. On completing O levels, the equivalent of GCSE, I had an interview with the Headmistress.

Headmistress :"Patricia" (she was the only person to call me this without risk of knee-capping in my entire life to date), "You have done well. You should achieve 2 A levels and be able to go to Teachers Training College."

Me: "I don't want to teach."

Headmistress: "Oh! Secretarial or nursing?"

Me: "I don't know."

My parents' highest ambititon for me was that I should 'work clean' - in other words, work in an office, rather than a factory.

A close friend was denied even secretarial training by her professional father on the assumption that she would 'get married and it would be a waste of money.'

Of the more upper class girls in my year, the more academic of them (and there were few) were regarded with a mixture of awe and disdain. After all, they were only pursuing a career because they could not attract a suitable husband.

I am a year younger than the triplets.

Edited to correct typos, caused by wine, not lack of 'eddication'!

#9:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 11:57 pm
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My mum was born in 1956 and her teachers (nuns) were scandalised when she chose to go to university rather than teacher training college. The only options for the "bright" girls were going to teacher training college, nursing, joining the civil service or joining the nuns (and leaving shortly thereafter). My mother was the rebel. Smile In her family she was the only girl to go to university (out of six) and three out of the five boys went. Funnily enough, my mum ended up teaching anyway. Smile

#10:  Author: TheresaLocation: Brisbane, Australia PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 12:28 am
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My mother excelled at academics, particularly maths, when she was at school but was made to give up her academic subjects after year ten and take typing, shorthand etc because she was from a poor family and, it was expected, would have to work after leaving school. She was the first person in her family, of any gender or generation, to finish high school. This was in the late 70's - early 80's (her father only went to year five before becoming a butcher's apprentice, and her mother didn't do much school either).

#11:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 6:20 am
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patmac wrote:
I
Me: "I don't want to teach."

Headmistress: "Oh! Secretarial or nursing?"


That parallels what my mom, who's about the same age, said about her highschool experiences, with the exception that high school was free and non-entrance exam linked. Girls would go into teaching, nursing or secretarial work, or get married. My mom did secretarial work for a while, loathed it, and went back to school, doing some career counselling first, and ended up picking teaching because she really enjoyed it.

A friend of mine, in the late 90s, had an elderly relative say, when they found out she was going to grad school, "Oh, isn't it sad she couldn't find a husband in undergraduate!" Apparently no-one had told the relative she was a lesbian, too.

#12:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 11:09 am
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Of course, there wasn't the range of jobs that there is now, for girls or boys. No IT, much less work in the media, for example - one, two or three three tv channels, depending on the date, and only bbc radio, unless you wanted to go to Luxembourg or bob around on the North Sea.

My old (mixed grammar) school magazines from the '60s and '70s give the destinations of school leavers. Banking or the civil service was where most of the boys who didn't go on to further education ended up (even the one whose ambition throughout school had been to be a sports commentator on the radio) - and back then boys didn't have the option of nursing.

#13:  Author: MiaLocation: London PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 12:44 pm
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I was just about to post that my mother, born in 1952, went into banking. She must have followed the boys' plan. Laughing

#14:  Author: JeneferLocation: London PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:32 pm
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JayB wrote:

- and back then boys didn't have the option of nursing.


Boys did go into nursing. When I was an OT student in the 70s, I met quite a few male nurses while on hospital practice in psychiatric hospitals.

My teachers had little idea of careers beyond university and teaching.
The other options were nursing, primary teaching, domestic science and secretarial. I did the latter, worked in an office for 2 years before doing my own career research and training as an Occupational Therapist.

#15:  Author: KarryLocation: Stoke on Trent PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 6:29 pm
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Male nurses were around for many years - my father and three of his friends went from mining in the 1930s to psychiatric nursing (and then back again during the war). It was more acceptable in the mental health area than the general nursing area at the time!

#16:  Author: SunglassLocation: Usually London PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 8:42 pm
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JayB wrote:
Of course, there wasn't the range of jobs that there is now, for girls or boys. .... and only bbc radio, unless you wanted to go to Luxembourg or bob around on the North Sea.


Have just realised that Emerence Hope's dream job was clearly being a shock jock on a pirate station. Possibly with Mary-Lou as resident agony aunt, solving the world's problems over the airwaves.

Also, I was at a convent secondary school in the 1980s, and our careers nun, on the rare occasions she did individual interviews with us, would intone as soon as we sat down 'Nursing, teaching or the bank?'

#17:  Author: Fiona McLocation: Bendigo, Australia PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:15 am
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My parents were born in the 1930's in working class families, and both left school early. Dad at the end of Primary school and Mum in Form 4. both of them, especially Dad were very pro education and despite not being able to financially support us through University, 8 of the 12 of us went on to Uni, while the rest did some sort of Tafe course or apprenticeship. My Dad basically had the attitude was he wanted his kids to do better than he did. I must admit I've always been glad we were always encouraged to do well at school and go on. I couldn't think of anything worse than to just go home after school and not do anything. I would be so bored. I can certainly understand Joey not looking forward to it

#18:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 10:52 am
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Quote:
I couldn't think of anything worse than to just go home after school and not do anything. I would be so bored. I can certainly understand Joey not looking forward to it

She didn't look forward to it, but she didn't seem to have any other ideas either.

The Belsornia idea was given up (although I don't think it would have suited her, so probably a good thing).

She didn't want to teach. She never had any idea of going to university. She didn't think of, for example, going to Italy to work on her singing. She didn't plan to travel to widen her experience and improve her languages.

Her reasoning was that she 'couldn't leave Madge with all those babies'. Madge was probably glad of Jo's companionship when Jem was working long hours at the San, but she had plenty of paid help, Jo wasn't really needed. (And Madge probably assumed Jo would marry sooner or later, so probably wasn't counting on having her at home long term).

Would Jem and Madge have stood in Jo's way if she'd had a sensible plan for her life after leaving school?

#19:  Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:36 am
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JayB wrote:


Would Jem and Madge have stood in Jo's way if she'd had a sensible plan for her life after leaving school?


I'm quite sure that they wouldn't. Madge at that stage was a pretty open-minded and "go-getting" person. Daisy was less than 10 years younger than Joey and they didn't object to her training as a doctor.

Mr Cochrane, who by the sounds of it was fairly well off, and only had one child to support, more or less insisted that Grizel go on to do further training (not that Grizel would have wanted to go home anyway).

I think that basically EBD didn't want to write Joey out of the series, so the bit about "helping" Madge (who had Marie to do the housekeeping and Rosa to look after the kids) was just an excuse to keep Joey at the Tiernsee until EBD felt that it was time for Joey to get together with Jack.

#20:  Author: TheresaLocation: Brisbane, Australia PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:52 am
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I think that although Madge and Jem would have allowed Joey to pursue any reasonable plan for her future, there would be very little that would have made Joey happy. I think she would be dissatisfied in any career that wasn't exciting or romantic in the way author or lady-in-waiting would be, and that she would find anything where she wasn't a 'star' surprising and disappointing. University and teaching would be too mundane, while studying singing would place her in a group of people at least as talented as her and probably with a lot more single-minded dedication to their art. She would be unlikely to get the adulation she was used to.

I think travelling to improve and broaden her languages and life experience would have suited her, and that she might have enjoyed doing something like reading for a history degree in Paris. Or travelling back in time and totally making out with Napoleon?

#21:  Author: SunglassLocation: Usually London PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 12:27 pm
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Which brings up one thing I'd never thought of before - before the advent of rich old Jem and Madge's marriage, Joey must surely have been facing the prospect of earning a living? Dick can only support himself, and all the family money, what little there was of it, went into the set-up costs of the school, which can't have immediately looked like it was going to be a sure-fire financial success over a long period, especially with the political situation...

Wouldn't it have been obvious to Joey, simply from seeing Madge have to go it alone, that she needed to put herself in a position where she could earn her own living? Wouldn't Madge have encouraged her to work towards this, or would she have sheltered her from the prospect? I would have thought that she would have wanted her sister not to have to do what she'd had to do, and at the start of the CS it wouldn't have been a guarantee that the school could support them both for life.

Obviously, thing change when Jem enters the scene, but under the veil of romance, blushes and indirection, it would actually have been really interesting to see a sense of how Madge and Joey's economic prospects change. Down on their luck upper-middle class having to work for a living suddenly now supported by senior medic with serious money and prestige.

Might that have been behind Jo's reluctance to leave school? Might she have expected to have had to earn some kind of living pre-Jem (or at least to teach in the CS?) and now finds the economic motive is removed, so she has only to hang about at Die Rosen practising her singing and helping out? Especially as she isn't apparently planning this as an interlude before the right SLOC comes along...?

#22:  Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 12:46 pm
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Joey actually says as early as Jo of that she plans to be an author, but she then seems to forget about it until she's left school and is writing a story to amuse Daisy and only then decides to try writing a proper book.

As someone who always wanted to be an author when I was a kid Laughing , I can quite understand that maybe it seemed like a great idea when Joey was 13 but that by the time she was a few years older she felt that the chances of getting work published and actually being able to make a living from it were remote (Con approaches things from a more practical viewpoint and hopes to become a journalist, i.e. to write but in a way that offers a more obvious/structured career path), but she never actually says that.

I wonder whether EBD always planned for Joey to become an author, or whether it was just something that seemed like a good idea later on when she didn't really know what else to do with her.

#23:  Author: SunglassLocation: Usually London PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 1:18 pm
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Alison H wrote:
Joey actually says as early as Jo of that she plans to be an author, but she then seems to forget about it until she's left school and is writing a story to amuse Daisy and only then decides to try writing a proper book.


I suppose I always saw Jo in the tradition of Anne Shirley, Emily Starr, and Jo March - the traditional imaginative girls' story heroine who plans to write. But it still wouldn't have paid the bills day to day (unlike, as you say, Con's more practical approach) if she'd been trying to make her way in the world, in an alternative future where the CS fails to make amuch of a profit and Jem never marries Madge.

Incidentally, can someone remind me what reason is given for the fact that she doesn't actually go as lady-in-waiting to Elisaveta? Is it because E. becomes next in line to the throne? Although, other than making her become more important in the scheme of things, I don't quite understand why that means Joey wouldn't go as lady-in-waiting anyway. Is it that Jo would have been OK for a princess who couldn't inherit, but that a Protestant foreigner was unsuitable for the next in line?

I quite agree with the others who said she'd have been a disastrous lady-in-waiting, anyway - you are essentially a socially-OK upper servant who needs to be polite, unobtrusive, prepared to be ignored for long periods, do discreet errands, etc. And given that a bookworm like Jo must have known Fanny Burney's diaries about being Mistress of the Robes to Queen Charlotte (years of misery), I can't imagine why she ever thought herself it would be a good idea. Bossy, often tactless teenage Jo of the dubious health, who is incapable of being in a room without dominating the conversation and splashing coffee all over herself, in formal court life?

#24:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 1:38 pm
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I was just thinking about this very same thing myself - what would Joey have done if Jem hadn't arrived on the scene?

(AU drabble, anyone?)

I think she would have had to teach at the school. It was essentially a family business, largely set up for her benefit, and she couldn't expect Madge to keep working in order to support her hanging around doing nothing. Writing would have had to be a spare time occupation.

The only alternative would have been to go and teach somewhere else, or hire herself out as nursery governess/mother's help somewhere.

But EBD never explored this of course because she introduced Jem in School At and presumably intended him for Madge all along. They were married when Jo was fourteen, before she'd have had to think seriously about her future.

Giving up the Belsornia plan is discussed in New House. Simone says:
Quote:
'And for you there will certainly be work at the Sonnalpe. Or do you keep to the old plan, and go to Belsornia as lady-in-waiting to Elisaveta?’
Jo shook her head. ‘No; not now that Sybil has come. And Dick and Mollie come home on furlough this summer; and when they return, they will leave Bride behind at Die Rosen. I couldn’t go away and leave my sister with all those babies to look after. Elisaveta can get any number of girls to maid-of-honour her; but Madge has only me.’
‘Elisaveta will be disappointed,’ said Simone, with a thought for the young Crown Princess of Belsornia, who, three years before, had spent two happy terms at the Chalet School as a schoolgirl.
‘Elisaveta knows how we are situated,’ said Jo. ‘After all, she comes here for a holiday most years, and I shall see her then. It would be much harder, really, in Belsornia. Court etiquette produces a certain amount of constraint, however fond of each other you may be. And they’ll be thinking of a husband for her before long. I’d rather have it as it is, I think.’

#25:  Author: MelLocation: UP NORTH PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:03 pm
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H'm it sounds like Madge wanting a companion, which is what Jo becomes, on an allowance, until she marries. Madge wants her daughters with her in Australia which is the same kind of thing.

#26:  Author: JeneferLocation: London PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:18 pm
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I think Joey should have been encouraged to go to university and study History with a view to teaching afterwards. At the time, she was not planning to get married so did she expect to be supported by Jem for the rest of her life.

#27:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:28 pm
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I think there are sly glances and nudges around Joey in New House - as if everyone knows that she will end up with Jack but her. So maybe Madge and Jem were playing matchmaker to some extent and that is why they wanted her to stay.

#28:  Author: SunglassLocation: Usually London PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:51 pm
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Jenefer wrote:
I think Joey should have been encouraged to go to university and study History with a view to teaching afterwards. At the time, she was not planning to get married so did she expect to be supported by Jem for the rest of her life.


It strikes us as strange that a perfectly healthy young woman with talents and an education should expect that - but I suppose partly it's that our notions of marriage have altered so much and become more individualistic. We are now entirely used to the idea of a person marrying someone with children from a previous relationship, but the idea of taking on and providing for life for an able-bodied adult dependant of your new spouse has become odd to us. Imagine you got a sibling of your husband/wife for life?!!!

Though in Victorian times it would have been quite ordinary for a bride to take a favourite sister on honeymoon and then have her live with her and her husband afterwards, perhaps because she seemed unlikely to marry, and would run the household and earned hr keep that way. Joey seems to be joking around that idea of the spinster aunt at times, but of course she isn't needed at Die Rosen as anything other than a companion.

(Of course, Jem was clearly in Jack's confidence all along, so knew he wouldn't be saddled with her for long after she left school!)

#29:  Author: TheresaLocation: Brisbane, Australia PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:56 pm
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I think that lady-in-waiting probably sounded terribly romantic and medieval at first glance, but that as time went on and the prospect became more familiar and imminent to Joey it probably occured to her that she wouldn't really like it and, whether consciously or otherwise, Sybil was a bit of a relief in that she provided a reason not to go. I'm sure Madge and Jem also realised that, whatever may have been settled with Elisaveta, Jo had not grown into the sort of young woman who could be a successful lady-in-waiting and probably encouraged her to do pretty much anything but that.

She sure did get a cushy spot out of it, though. I think if I had been Madge I would have encouraged Jo to go to university and read history or modern languages. She's a smart girl, and Madge was looking to raise a family with her own finances tied up in a business that could easily go belly-up through political upheaval or bad word of mouth. There was Jem's money, of course, but given that the Bettanys seemed to have had and lost money in the past, I would think that they would want some insurance that Jo could support herself should the need arise.

#30:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:49 pm
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I'm not sure that Joey was academically minded enough for a university education.

Although I do think it would have done her all the good in the world to go away from home and learn to cope on her own without anyone at hand to coddle her and dose her and send her to bed if she overdid it.

I wonder if perhaps she thought that as Dick was her brother too, she ought to share the responsibility of looking after his children. In which she perhaps would have been right if Madge hadn't been able to afford paid help, but as things were there wasn't really enough for her to do.

#31:  Author: ClareLocation: Liverpool PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 9:43 pm
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Joey does say that being lady-in-waiting wouldn't be the same as being friends with Elisaveta due to having to follow protocol, and that the state came first. She then uses Dick and Mollie's children and Madge's pair as her excuse not to go.

#32:  Author: AnjaliLocation: Sydney, Australia PostPosted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 3:15 am
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I find the contrast between Joey and Anne Shirley in AOGG very interesting - even if they were in very different situations - Anne giving up her university scholarship to be a companion to Marilla and teach and earn her living always touches me. EBD does give her later heroines Mary-Lou, Jack and even Len some sort of ambition though....strange that she doesn't stress more on Jo's writing ambitions, given that she's so successful later on.

Edited because I can't spell!

#33:  Author: libertyLocation: Essex PostPosted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:51 am
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It would have been fairly common at the time for a young, unmarried sister to live with her father, brother or another male relative. Very few women went to university and it was still frowned upon by many. It seems strange in our modern view but Joey was just doing what many women would have had to do. If she had been somewhere where there was a bigger community she probably would be doing charity work and other voluntary work. I seem to remember that in New House she even says it seems quite a boring life.

#34:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 3:45 pm
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When Madge started the school, Joey was in pretty poor health - I don't think they would have been thinking as much about how she would support herself as about getting her to adulthood in the first place. Madge gets engaged to Jem pretty quickly (a year later), so the question of what Joey would do was not as urgent then.

If Madge hadn't married, I suspect she would have found a place at the school for Joey. I'm not sure she would be well suited to teaching full time, but she could probably tutor languages, act as a house mistress, and so on. I see the lady-in-waiting thing as more of an adolescent enthusiasm, and when they realized just what it would entail, and just how poorly suited Joey would be to the life, they quietly dropped it.

I don't think Joey would have done well at university. She's good at specific areas (history, writing, singing) but doesn't have a particularly strong work ethic, and has never had to buckle down and actually work hard at something she disliked (art, math, science). I'm not sure a university would do a CS style coddling of her emotional volatility either - I can just see a professor excusing her from class to go lie down because she's been over excited and is looking tired. Very Happy

Actually, what I think would have been really good for her would have been to go to Italy to study voice seriously for a year or two, like Grizel does with piano. She could polish her Italian, really work on her singing, and get a slightly wider life experience than that at the Platz.

#35:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 4:47 pm
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jennifer wrote:
I don't think Joey would have done well at university. She's good at specific areas (history, writing, singing) but doesn't have a particularly strong work ethic, and has never had to buckle down and actually work hard at something she disliked (art, math, science). I'm not sure a university would do a CS style coddling of her emotional volatility either - I can just see a professor excusing her from class to go lie down because she's been over excited and is looking tired. Very Happy


In university she would have only studied specific areas though, so it might have suited her better than school. She wouldn't have had to do subjects she disliked.

#36:  Author: JennieLocation: Cambridgeshire PostPosted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 4:51 pm
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But if she had gone to Italy to have her voice trained, she would perforce have had to become more independent and self-reliant. No-one would have coddled her the way they do at school and at home. And she might have been able to put her voice into perspective - good, but not the best.

#37:  Author: macyroseLocation: Great White North (Canada) PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:47 am
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I've just been reading the Sue Barton nurse books that have recently been republished by Image Cascade Publishing. And in Visiting Nurse, Sue is talking to another older nurse: she asks her, you are Mrs. Egan, not Miss? And Mrs Egan says "that's right. Lots of girls here get married, you know, and stay right on. You hate to give up the work once you're in it." Sue asks if her husband minds and Mrs. Egan says that he thinks its swell. Visiting Nurse was first published 1938 and I think it's the first girls book I've read from that time where a women working outside the house after marriage is thought of as a good thing. It didn't say if the nurses continued working after they had children and I don't know how it was in the real world in the U.S. at that time, but I though it was a very unusual attitude for a girls book of that time. Coincidentally that was around the same time that the Chalet School books with Jo leaving school and getting married were published and I can't think of any women in those books who worked outside the home after marriage (though Biddy and Daisy did later on in the series).

ETA: I just remembered that Jo and Simone taught in at the Chalet School in Gay From China after getting married and having children but I don't think that would have happened if there hadn't been a war on.

#38:  Author: TheresaLocation: Brisbane, Australia PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:53 am
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I perhaps take an ungenerous view towards Joey's character, but I don't think she would have appreciated having her voice put into perspective.

I still think she would have done best at university, studying languages or history. She wouldn't have to study subjects she didn't like and her flair for languages actually is demonstrably remarkable in the early years, as opposed to her voice which I have always just imagined as 'very good' rather than 'astounding'. A bit of a break from all the coddling would have done her good as well.

In such a small community, too, where most of the people are not wealthy and Madge has all the help she needs around the home, it wouldn't have been so very strange for Jo to go off -- probably to sing rather than university -- just so she could find herself a reasonably well-to-do husband, whether she wanted to or not. Lucky for Jo they had all those doctors loitering about looking for young girls to snap up.

#39:  Author: SunglassLocation: Usually London PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:44 am
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Of course, it would run absolutely counter to the spirit of the CS books, but it would be enormously interesting to see Joey, not knocked off her pedestal exactly , but have to confront her own limitations in something she cares about succeeding in. She's spent a lot of her school days getting out of the stuff she's bad at - art, maths - and it would be fascinating to see a character who always effortlessly dominates her little world studying music and disovering that her voice isn't perhaps absolutely outstanding, and that if she wants to make a viable career in, say, opera, she needs to work like a demon, at everything.

Or at university discovering other people are brighter and better historians or linguists. I see that a lot with my incoming first years - people who did brilliantly at their own school and won every possible class prize and did exceptionally well in their exams, who need to some serious readjustment to their sense of self when they leave the small pond for a much bigger one full of other big fish.

But then that would have involved completely reinventing Joey as an adult, and EBD clearly loves her as she is, someone who doesn't (I think) change a great deal between her late teens and the oldest she gets in the series.

#40:  Author: TheresaLocation: Brisbane, Australia PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:56 am
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I have to admit that one of the reasons I'd love to see Jo be taken down a peg at university is because it happened to me. Shocking that I have to actually do the assignments if I'm to be top of the class! Shocking!

#41:  Author: MonaLocation: Hertfordshire PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:45 am
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Quote:
I've just been reading the Sue Barton nurse books that have recently been republished by Image Cascade Publishing. And in Visiting Nurse, Sue is talking to another older nurse: she asks her, you are Mrs. Egan, not Miss? And Mrs Egan says "that's right. Lots of girls here get married, you know, and stay right on. You hate to give up the work once you're in it." Sue asks if her husband minds and Mrs. Egan says that he thinks its swell. Visiting Nurse was first published 1938 and I think it's the first girls book I've read from that time where a women working outside the house after marriage is thought of as a good thing.

I'm re-reading the Sue Barton books just now, and I was very struck by this difference in attitudes. I'm not sure whether it's because they're American and attitudes were more progressive there at the time. It shows in her descriptions of romantic relationships as well. Sue's relationship with Bill grows throughout the series in a way that seems utterly realistic, from the first realisation that they care for each other, through misunderstandings caused by long-distance relationships and a broken engagement, to difficulties settling in to marriage together. None of this ever troubles the good CS girl!
I wonder if they were originally written for different audiences: the CS definitely in the Children's books arena, and Sue Barton more Young Adult.

#42:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:49 am
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Even in your favourite subject there are usually some aspects you don't enjoy (Hanoverian politics, anyone?) and might have to study as part of a degree course. Especially in the past as there wasn't so much opportunity to pick and choose between different modules. And there would be lecturers she didn't get on with who didn't see why she should be treated differently because of who she was or because she was 'delicate'.

I think Joey might have been one of those students the Dean complained about, who didn't take their studies seriously and took up places that might have gone to girls who really would benefit from them. (Not that Joey would go out and get slaughtered a la Miss Cattermole, I imagine!)

But I do think Joey should have gone away to study something after she left school, whatever it was and at whatever level. The greatest benefit to her would have been in widening her social circle and learning to stand on her own two feet and manage her own life.

#43:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 11:07 am
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Theresa wrote:
She wouldn't have to study subjects she didn't like and her flair for languages actually is demonstrably remarkable in the early years, as opposed to her voice which I have always just imagined as 'very good' rather than 'astounding'. A bit of a break from all the coddling would have done her good as well.


I'm fairly sure that it is said in the books that her voice is not strong enough for concert work.

#44:  Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 11:59 am
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Personally speaking, I couldn't wait to get to uni and study history full time instead of having to do other subjects as well Laughing , so I'm surprised Joey didn't feel the same.

(The lecturer I had for modern European history was, like Joey, very keen on Napoleon, and was rather put out when I refused to do an essay on Napoleon and insisted on doing one on Austria instead because he couldn't understand why anyone woule be interested in Austria Laughing , but that's beside the point!)

I think that the question's academic (no pun intended!) because EBD didn't want to let Joey go, but I do find it rather unrealistic that the question of Joey going on to further study is never even raised. Simone, Juliet, Grizel and various others all go on to do further study, and Marie and Frieda both say that they hope to marry young, but the question of Joey's future after leaving school is never really addressed.

JayB, I quite agree about Hanoverian politics ... all those Rockinghamites and Fox-Pittites and all the rest of them ... aaaggghhh!!

#45:  Author: JSLocation: Perthshire PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:27 pm
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I suppose Joey did do a 'gap year' - her trip to India. Question is, what was it a gap between? (appallingly constructed sentence, I know, sorry Hilda)

#46:  Author: RóisínLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:30 pm
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About Joey going to university because it would be interesting to see her confront her own limitations ...

I think she does this quite a bit as a young adult already in the books. Not until she is married and has around five children does the 'perfect Joey' start, IMHO. Before that, we see her struggle with leadership in the school (doesn't want to be headgirl, doesn't think she'll be good at it, and she does make quite a few mistakes), struggle with ambition (not sure where she fits in, what she wants to do, or how), struggle with starting her career (it doesn't come entirely naturally at first! And even when school stories do come to her naturally, she finds it hard to transfer to adult historical novels - but she does get there eventually, after spending a couple of years studying the pure history around the topic on Miss Stewart's advice), struggling with her marriage (when Jack is thought dead, she completely breaks down and there are repercussions afterwards of course), and struggling with her health, ie what she can and can't do, given fairly frequent breakdowns and delicacies.

So yes, I think Joey is human (until That Point when EBD decides she is perfect of course) and does confront her own limitations as part of the narrative, many times.

#47:  Author: LizzieCLocation: Canterbury, UK PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 4:59 pm
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Róisín wrote:
And even when school stories do come to her naturally, she finds it hard to transfer to adult historical novels - but she does get there eventually, after spending a couple of years studying the pure history around the topic on Miss Stewart's advice)


I don't remember that. Which book did it appear in? Was it a HB-only event? Smile

#48:  Author: RóisínLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 5:20 pm
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LizzieC wrote:
Róisín wrote:
And even when school stories do come to her naturally, she finds it hard to transfer to adult historical novels - but she does get there eventually, after spending a couple of years studying the pure history around the topic on Miss Stewart's advice)


I don't remember that. Which book did it appear in? Was it a HB-only event? Smile


From memory, because I haven't the books to hand Laughing -

Jo says at some point that she wants to write historical novels, Miss Stewart thinks she is taking the idea too lightly and recommends that she spend at least two years doing an indepth study of her subject (ie Napolean presumably) before she even attempts to produce a work of fiction on it. Because it is some years before any historical fiction appears to follow the school stories, I always presumed that she did exactly as Miss S. advised.

#49:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:43 pm
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I have a feeling that was in New/United, but I wouldn't swear to it.

#50:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 4:24 am
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From experience at university, I can safely say that even if you're studying a subject you love and have a talent for, there will always be classes that you have difficulty with or dislike, because of the subject matter, or the professor, or the teaching style. I hated advanced multi-variable calculus due to the professor, but had a blast in the sequel course, real analysis. I loved classical mechanics because the prof was fantastic.

For Joey, I don't know if she'd be able to handle the courses she didn't like, when you have to master them anyways to get on to what you do want to do. At that period, the CS was still small and informal, so she didn't have the experience studying for formal exams, either.

I don't see her as a professional musician, but I think it would have been good for her to be away from the Sonnalpe for a year or two, and away from the CS environment, doing something that required steady work and effort.

Although she may have had problems there too - her voice is said to be extraordinary, but her piano is only minimal, and I would expect that a music course would want piano training and theory as well as just singing.

#51:  Author: alicatLocation: Wiltshire PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:37 am
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regarding joey living with madge and jem all her life if she did not marry: as someone else said, that was not considered abnormal between the two wars.

My OH's grandparents lived their entire married life with his younger brother, who could have gone home after leaving the army in 1946 to live with his widowed mum but preferred to live with his brother! they only died recently and my OH's great uncle still lives in what was their house, as a sitting tenant (much to my mother in law's fury, as it means she can't sell it!)

wonder what would have happened if ...say...jo and margot venables had clashed over Jem and madge's money if they'd been wiped out in an avalanche......scatters bunny treats hopefully....



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