The CBB :: View topic - Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls

Of course it's accurate to the time period, but as other people have said often on various threads, the breezy acceptance that Julie will inevitably give up her fledgling law career in favour of living in a public school, without even a token expression of regret by another character, galls rather.

I've sometimes wondered if the fact that Julie gives up a prestigious career in favour of her husband's less prestigious one isn't EBD signalling a slight covert dissatisfaction with the status quo?

This book does get a star for (finally) remembering Daisy's credentials:
Quote:
She's Mrs Maynard's niece or something. I know she used to live at their house when they were in England. Len told me so once. She's a doctor, too, you know, only she doesn't do it any more because she's got three little kids so she hasn't time.

Though I have sometimes found the Grizel situation rather artificial - are we to assume that if she'd borrowed against her inheritance, to find her PE training, she would have been disinherited?

Nightwing wrote:

Though I have sometimes found the Grizel situation rather artificial - are we to assume that if she'd borrowed against her inheritance, to find her PE training, she would have been disinherited?

Grizel's situation is the most realistic in the series and her character is the most complex and finely drawn. I have no difficulty in acception that she bound to lose out against her parents in the battle over her career.

As most of the girls there were aged 12 and under, presumably - maybe not? - there wouldn't have been as much specialist knowledge of things like history and geography needed as there would at the main school, so I wonder if Grizel taught other subjects too.
It's never gone into very much - and possibly wasn't thought out very much? - but the only staff at the Annexe seemed to be Juliet, Grizel, I think Gertrud for a while, and Madge on a visiting basis. As most of the girls there were aged 12 and under, presumably - maybe not? - there wouldn't have been as much specialist knowledge of things like history and geography needed as there would at the main school, so I wonder if Grizel taught other subjects too.

She was a far greater role model to her readers than, say, Enid Blyton.

EBD was an excellent example herself of an independent and ambitious woman. From what I've read, life was not too easy for Elinor. In her early childhood, before the mother met her second husband, money must have been scarce. She may have had to finance her own way through teacher training. When her step father died, the care of her mother fell to her. It is highly to her credit that she opened up her own school and still managed a prolific writing career. She was a far greater role model to her readers than, say, Enid Blyton.

And thinking on a bit more, it might also explain the dichotomy (as seen by me, anyway) that appears to exist in EBDs writing between the corporal and spiritual world.

To bring this back roughly OT, I'll take this back to EBD as ambitious woman having a hard time in her own life - presumably her Catholicism was primarily a touchstone of comfort, a moral SLOC, rather than some kind of philosophical attempt to understand the universe?

What I do find odd is that she presents faith in all her adult characters as necessarily 'childlike' - and sees this childlike quality of the belief as good.

And so, in some ways, it is almost tragic reading all of the 'happy endings' for characters who get whisked off their feet ('rescued' even) by a masterful male, and often drop their own career like a hot potato. If this is in anyway a wistful desire on the part of EBD, it implies that she was ambitious, and had a very successful career, but that she didn't really want it that much herself.

And I know that praying is very important to some people, but on a practical basis it doesn't have the same effect as Joey or Hilda or whoever else sitting you down and helping you to sort your head out.

(As a single woman living alone myself, I venture to suggest that what most single, professional women need is not a Jem or a Jack but an Anna!)

But I wonder if she'd have liked the reality, once she'd established herself as a successful, independent career woman? Would she really have liked to have a masterful man striding into her study as she was trying to meet a deadline and telling her 'No, Elinor, you may not stay up to finish that chapter. You must go to bed now. Drink this hot milk....'

(As a single woman living alone myself, I venture to suggest that what most single, professional women need is not a Jem or a Jack but an Anna!)

What matters more is if you’ve met a man you feel you could bear to spend the rest of your life with – seeing him at breakfast every morning, doing all his mending and cooking his meals, putting up with his whims and fancies – and that is a matter for both sides, let me tell you. Remember that marriage is for life.

Quote:
What matters more is if you’ve met a man you feel you could bear to spend the rest of your life with – seeing him at breakfast every morning, doing all his mending and cooking his meals, putting up with his whims and fancies – and that is a matter for both sides, let me tell you. Remember that marriage is for life.

It makes marriage sound about as inviting as a life-sentence in some kind of Home Economics-obsessed prison! Given that virtually everywhere else EBD goes along with the prevalent view that marriage is a Woman's Happiest Duty etc, I always wonder if here, from the mouth of a successful, contented unmarried professional, we're getting a hint of another point of view, which perhaps EBD may also have agreed with, at times...?

The daughter carer role is, in my view, one of the lonliest. It is also one of the least appreciated by society. It is only recently that the state has recognised how much it has been saved in service provision by these unsung heroines.

If my memory serves me correctly full-time carers, not the paid variety, get a whole 48 pence an hour for saving the Government £18 Billion. That's how much they value us.

/soapbox

If my memory serves me correctly full-time carers, not the paid variety, get a whole 48 pence an hour for saving the Government £18 Billion. That's how much they value us.

Quote:

If my memory serves me correctly full-time carers, not the paid variety, get a whole 48 pence an hour for saving the Government £18 Billion. That's how much they value us.

and you only get that if you basically have no income at all. Even a part time job puts you over the allowance threshold!

And you lose it once you receive your old age pension. :cry:

Can't have people being given TOO much money for saving the government millions.

MaryR wrote:

And you lose it once you receive your old age pension. :cry:

Can't have people being given TOO much money for saving the government millions.

Would you people kindly remember that the government has to pay billions in pensions and bonuses to bankers. (oops,nearly typed a w instead of a b there. A freudian slip perhaps?) Surely no one would wish to deprive these people of their mansions, cars, homes abroad etc for the sake of those who merely want the sick and the elderly cared for?

Although in the interests of balance, HNW individuals are taxed highly and are therefore effectively paying for said carers out of their salaries.

Although in the interests of balance, HNW individuals are taxed highly and are therefore effectively paying for said carers out of their salaries.

I think there tends to be a view here that EBD's beliefs and thoughts are very black and white because of her religion. It's perfectly possible to be a practising RC and also take an interest in science. It doesn't automatically follow that if one believes in God one has to reject evolution, for example. I'm not sure the collective view of the CBB always appreciates this?

What are HNW individuals? (Being dumb here! :oops:

)

Although in the interests of balance, HNW individuals are taxed highly and are therefore effectively paying for said carers out of their salaries.

It's perfectly possible to be a practising RC and also take an interest in science. It doesn't automatically follow that if one believes in God one has to reject evolution, for example. I'm not sure the collective view of the CBB always appreciates this?

I see so many posts beginning "As a Catholic EBD would have thought this..." and it does grate.

I very much doubt if any bank at that time would be prepared to lend money against her inheritence. Both her age

Author:	Róisín [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 1:29 pm ]
Post subject:	Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
...for example, Margia Stevens/Stacie Benson/Dorothy Brentham/Vicky McNab/Daisy Venables/ Julie Lucy/Elfie Woodward/Nina Rutherford/Mary-Lou/Richenda Fry/Marilyn Evans. There are a number of girls over the series who are shown as having strong career aspiriations from a young age. What do you think of EBD's portrayal of career oriented women and career options? Please join in the discussion below

Author:	Emma A [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
I think EBD was forward-thinking in presenting girls, from the very earliest books, as capable of studying and wanting careers - some of them quite ambitious ones, too, like Julie wanting to be a barrister, and Daisy a doctor. Where I think she falls down - at least as I see it as a modern reader - is how easily and unregretfully they seem to give up these careers for marriage. Of course, Daisy and Julie may have had some regrets and second thoughts, but EBD doesn't present them at all to the reader. In fact we get Joey saying that "of course" Julie has to give up her hopes of being a barrister when she gets married to someone who is a housemaster at a public school! If she'd been called to the Bar and been accepted into chambers (and got work) she would have been far better paid than her husband. So one gets the impression that ambitions are all very well, but marriage is a higher calling, and supersedes all others! This strikes the modern reader as very old-fashioned. It's rare that girls can combine the two - Joey, for example, manages to combine writing with being a wife and mother; I'd argue that Margot, too, manages to combine a career (being a doctor) with a sacred marriage (being a nun). The seriously dedicated career girls - Margia, Nina, Stacie - seem not to have thought of marriage, though that's not to say that they wouldn't, particularly as it's accepted implicitly by EBD that musicians, particularly, are bound to have eccentric and perhaps bohemian lives, due to the exigencies of their art. Lady Carewe, for example, tours with her husband's company and is a well-known actress, so she's managed to combine career and motherhood. So perhaps EBD saw the artistic or creative careers or callings to be compatible with marriage, whereas a career in one of the professions was less important than marriage, because one didn't feel such a vocation? Mind you, she is, I think, only reflecting the mores of the day: I was rather surprised that in one of P D James' early novels (written in the early 1970s, IIRC), this attitude still seemed to be prevalent.

Author:	Alison H [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:58 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
I could write a long and probably boring essay about the way in which Julie and Daisy and many other people give up their careers for marriage and EBD treats it in a totally offhand way, but I've made my views on the subject boringly clear umpteen times before so I won't! I don't think that Daisy gets nearly enough credit for her achievements, BTW. A lot of girls have definite career plans, but (as a general rule) the only CS girls we see (and I know that there must have been plenty of girls we don't see) go on to pursue their careers long term (although by the end of the book the post-war-educated generation who were more career-minded generally are still only young) are: 1. People with an outstanding talent, e.g. Nina and Margia. 2. People who enter religion (Robin) or related fields (Tom). 3. Joey, who gets to have it all. 4. Academics (Stacie). Mary-Lou would possibly fall into this category too - I know archaeology isn't the same as academia but there are similarities. 5. CS mistresses (and Rosalie!). Interestingly, some of the people who do pursue careers long term are people whom we never saw express career ambitions at school. Joey herself would fall into that category: she says when she's 12 or 13 that she wants to be an author, but by the time she leaves school she has no definite plans. Irene Silksworth is another one: I know we were only told that she was a nurse as a plot device linking the Emburys and the Rutherfords, but a lot of girls go on to become nurses and we never see any of them in their work. Nancy Wilmot is another one: OK, maybe she was waiting for a nice doctor to carry her away and didn't want to teach for ever, but we're told that she's a "born teacher" (in Richenda). I'd like to have heard different mistresses' views on this subject. Did they become teachers just because their families couldn't afford to support them and teaching was the obvious career for middle-class females, or was it because they loved their particular subject, or was it because they liked the idea of teaching/working with young people generally? In the case of teachers who were at the school long-term, did they think of themselves as career women and plan to spend their lives as teachers, or did they hope to meet Mr (Dr?) Right but he never came along? Same with Matey and Rosalie. Sorry about the long-windedness and excessive use of brackets! And I appreciate that, when EBD was writing, long-term careers for middle-class women were the exception rather than the norm. I was going to say that for most girls who did work it was just out of financial necessity but, let's face it, the same's true of most people!!

Author:	Sunglass [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:18 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
The moments that always strike strangely on my modern ear - and unfortunately, I can't remember precisely who the characters are - are the one or two times where EBD says something along the lines of 'She was that rare thing, a born student' - as though it's a vocation. There seems to be something similar going on with later Stacie as Scholar, who is portrayed as nun-like and rather withdrawn, and who seems never to have considered marriage. (I admit to getting slightly annoyed with EBD retiring her back to Freudesheim - there's no reason why someone like her shouldn't have gotten on extraordinarily well in Oxford, had the time of her life in scholarly and social terms, ending up head of one of the women's colleges or married to some brilliant fellow-classicist. Her own parents combined two careers, marriage and a child, after all, even if EBD thinks they were oddballs.) And when - is it Dorothy Brentham? - someone says she plans to become a surgeon, like her father, and that it's OK, because her father has no sons and has agreed to back her all the way. I assume this is just a plain statement of fact, that, had she a brother, his education would have come first, had he planned a medical career. (One wonders if part of this agreement with her father involved her undertaking not to become involved in a relationship which would compromise her commitment to her medical career, after he's paid out all that cash for her training?) But presumably one was more reliant on parental financial help then - I paid my way through four degrees entirely on scholarships and part-time jobs, and there was certainly no way my parents could or would have paid, but I imagine there were fewer sources of funding/grants available when EBD was writing? Though I have sometimes found the Grizel situation rather artificial - are we to assume that if she'd borrowed against her inheritance, to find her PE training, she would have been disinherited? One does feel (as none of the characters seem to) the waste of time, effort and talent in an aborted career like Julie Lucy's. Of course it's accurate to the time period, but as other people have said often on various threads, the breezy acceptance that Julie will inevitably give up her fledgling law career in favour of living in a public school, without even a token expression of regret by another character, galls rather. I've sometimes wondered if the fact that Julie gives up a prestigious career in favour of her husband's less prestigious one isn't EBD signalling a slight covert dissatisfaction with the status quo?

Author:	Cat C [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Quote: Of course it's accurate to the time period, but as other people have said often on various threads, the breezy acceptance that Julie will inevitably give up her fledgling law career in favour of living in a public school, without even a token expression of regret by another character, galls rather. I recently finished reading Shroud for a Nightingale, which is set in a Nursing School at the beginning of the 70s (ie well after the end of the CS series) - and there's even a remark in there about how they're going to have a shortage of trained nurses if the automatic 'retirement' (they didn't use that word) on marriage continues. Not that it's altogether straightforward, or even necessarily profitable even now for both parents to continue working full-time in this country once there are children involved. So I don't think we've really solved this all yet!

The CBB http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/

Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5790

Author:	delrima [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
I find it odd that nurses should have "automatically retired" so to speak. My Auntie Marjory was a ward sister in the late 50s early 60s and had worked as such all through her married life (to my Uncle Vince ) except for when her children were very little.

Author:	Tor [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Quote: I've sometimes wondered if the fact that Julie gives up a prestigious career in favour of her husband's less prestigious one isn't EBD signalling a slight covert dissatisfaction with the status quo? That's an interesting way of interpretting it, and one that hadn't occurred to me. However, wen you think about it, the context is appropriate for just that (if we ignore the idea of Joey being mouthpiece of the author, and never wrong). Yes Joey dismisses it, but the fact that Len?/Con? actually asks about Julie's career is a definite sign that a new generation of girls does not automatically come to conclusion Joey does. And then later, I think from remembering something on the Redheads thread, doesn't someone comment on Daisy not working as a doctor as her children are small? (will check that thread and come back). To me that reads as recognition of a temporary career break, rather than a full-on abandonment. here it is, courtesy of Kathy_S on the redheads thread: Quote: This book does get a star for (finally) remembering Daisy's credentials: Quote: She's Mrs Maynard's niece or something. I know she used to live at their house when they were in England. Len told me so once. She's a doctor, too, you know, only she doesn't do it any more because she's got three little kids so she hasn't time. not quite what I thought, but still, ahs a tone that could at a push be interpreted as meaning when the kids are older, she'll have time again...

Author:	Nightwing [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 8:38 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Sunglass wrote: Though I have sometimes found the Grizel situation rather artificial - are we to assume that if she'd borrowed against her inheritance, to find her PE training, she would have been disinherited? Er, perhaps she couldn't? Borrow, I mean. I'm not sure what the laws were in England at the time (does anyone know?) but it could be that because she was young and a woman she wouldn't have been able to borrow the money - or perhaps it was simply socially unacceptable to do so? I've always thought it weird that Grizel's father wanted her to go in for music, not PT, when the end result is the same for both - Grizel becomes a teacher. I never found it that unusual that marriage was seen as so important to women that they needed to stop working once they were wed, at least in terms of when the majority of the books were written. Second-wave feminism, which saw women questioning their assigned gender roles, didn't hit Britain until the 60's (as part of a wider social revolution) and until then it was widely accepted that a woman should put her marriage first (even if men didn't...) Where the CS girls were concerned, there's several mentions of girls who aren't going to work, because that would take away jobs from the women who need them. By marrying, girls like Julie would (theoretically!) no longer be needing to provide their own income, so perhaps it would be seen as selfish for them to still work.

Author:	CBW [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 8:54 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Do any of the Chalet School girls go on to be nurses at the San? I can't think of any

Author:	Alison H [ Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:12 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Someone in one of the St Briavel's books - Pamela? - wanted to become a nurse and mentioned the idea of going to work at the San, but she was never referred to after she left school. I think she was one of Gay Lambert's friends, so she'd have been in her 30s by the end of the series. I suppose she could have gone to work at the Welsh San. I think the only San nurse ever mentioned by name was Helen Graves, Phil Graves's sister who was the Matron there in Switzerland, but she wasn't an Old Girl.

Author:	Jennie [ Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:54 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
What really got my goat was near the end of 'And Co' when Charles cannot leave the hospital to go home with his family, and Jo turns to Daisy and tells her that she's happy to leave Chas in Tyrol because Laurie Rosomon is a doctor. Excuse me! Is she not talking to Dr. Venables, the medal winner? The paediatric expert?

Author:	MJKB [ Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:06 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Nightwing wrote: Though I have sometimes found the Grizel situation rather artificial - are we to assume that if she'd borrowed against her inheritance, to find her PE training, she would have been disinherited? Grizel's situation is the most realistic in the series and her character is the most complex and finely drawn. I have no difficulty in acception that she bound to lose out against her parents in the battle over her career. Her father is a cold, clinical dispassionate barrister, her step mother is cold, unfeeling and probably malicious. The tussle over Grizel's career choice evolves into a familial power struglle with the odds stacked heavily in favour of the parents who hold all the aces. I very much doubt if any bank at that time would be prepared to lend money against her inheritence. Both her age and her gender are against her and she is too proud a person to seek assistence from friends to secure a loan. I always thought highly of Hilda for lending Grizel the money and allowing her to become permantently independent of her b**** of a step mother. I only hope she choked with rage when she heard the news - its a pity EBD didn't fill the reader in on her reaction.

Author:	jennifer [ Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:16 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
MJKB wrote: Nightwing wrote: Though I have sometimes found the Grizel situation rather artificial - are we to assume that if she'd borrowed against her inheritance, to find her PE training, she would have been disinherited? Grizel's situation is the most realistic in the series and her character is the most complex and finely drawn. I have no difficulty in acception that she bound to lose out against her parents in the battle over her career. I can believe it too. At the point at which Grizel finished school, she would have two options - she could go along with her family's decrees, or she could break away. The cost of breaking away would be high. She would have to give up all financial support, which would leave her as a destitute 18 year old girl with a decent high school education and no practical training, aside from the music. She has no money for further training for an appropriate job, (nurse, PT teacher, secretary, accountant, dressmaker, typist etc), and no way of getting a loan. Given her parents' attitude, I would expect that she would be disinherited if she flouted them. She would probably be restricted to doing something like work as in a shop, a fairly low paying job. Her best option would be to follow through with the music, and be careful with her money. She could work for a few years, giving private lessons in her spare time, and save all she could. If she could save enough to do a book-keeper's course while teaching some lessons on the side, then she could have something to sustain her when she broke away. I am surprised that she didn't volunteer for war work, given her age and how much she hated teaching. Her parents couldn't really object to that, and she could learn a new skill at the same time.

Author:	Mel [ Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:04 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
I also think that the offer of the job at the Sonnalpe must have been life-saving for Grizel. The alternative would be to live at home at odds with father and stepmother with very little to do. Having said that, Madge must have given her the job out of kindness, because surely the tiny Annexe didn't need a music mistress?

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:55 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
It's never gone into very much - and possibly wasn't thought out very much? - but the only staff at the Annexe seemed to be Juliet, Grizel, I think Gertrud for a while, and Madge on a visiting basis. As most of the girls there were aged 12 and under, presumably - maybe not? - there wouldn't have been as much specialist knowledge of things like history and geography needed as there would at the main school, so I wonder if Grizel taught other subjects too.

Author:	MJKB [ Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:53 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Alison H wrote: As most of the girls there were aged 12 and under, presumably - maybe not? - there wouldn't have been as much specialist knowledge of things like history and geography needed as there would at the main school, so I wonder if Grizel taught other subjects too. It's never gone into very much - and possibly wasn't thought out very much? - but the only staff at the Annexe seemed to be Juliet, Grizel, I think Gertrud for a while, and Madge on a visiting basis. As most of the girls there were aged 12 and under, presumably - maybe not? - there wouldn't have been as much specialist knowledge of things like history and geography needed as there would at the main school, so I wonder if Grizel taught other subjects too. I'm sure she did. Grizel, if memory serves me right, was a good all rounder. She was good at maths and I'm sure she'd have had little difficulty in teaching subjects like Geography, Science, History etc would at Junior level. I'd like to know a bit more about Grizel and Diera's business in NZ. It's sure to have been a life more suited to Grizel's temperment than teaching. Pity things turned out the way they did vis a vis Diera and Tony(?). Still, it was good that Grizel came into her reward.

Author:	Millie [ Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:13 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
I think EBD's attitude and portrayal of career-oriented and ambitious girls is pretty progressive, considering when she was writing. However, it has to be remembered that it would have been essential for some of the older girls to talk about the careers they wanted to pursue when they left school as it was only natural that some talk would take place of their futures and it would probably not have been considered appropriate for them (particularly later in the series when most of the main characters are English) to talk about men and future relationships or marriage. So that may explain some of the talk about careers.

Author:	MJKB [ Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
EBD was an excellent example herself of an independent and ambitious woman. From what I've read, life was not too easy for Elinor. In her early childhood, before the mother met her second husband, money must have been scarce. She may have had to finance her own way through teacher training. When her step father died, the care of her mother fell to her. It is highly to her credit that she opened up her own school and still managed a prolific writing career. She was a far greater role model to her readers than, say, Enid Blyton.

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
MJKB wrote: She was a far greater role model to her readers than, say, Enid Blyton. And no awkward daughters to write memoirs about how distant and cold you were! (I believe one of EB's daughters wrote that she didn't realise until she was six that the woman who gave her her Saturday penny was actually her mother...) Though of course that may well be one of those misogynistic Working Mother from Hell myths, I've never read the memoir in question. But one part of me enjoys the idea of Phil or Cecil writing a hostile Mommy Dearest 'My Mother Was Josephine M Bettany' memoir!

Author:	jennifer [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 4:10 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
MJKB wrote: EBD was an excellent example herself of an independent and ambitious woman. From what I've read, life was not too easy for Elinor. In her early childhood, before the mother met her second husband, money must have been scarce. She may have had to finance her own way through teacher training. When her step father died, the care of her mother fell to her. It is highly to her credit that she opened up her own school and still managed a prolific writing career. She was a far greater role model to her readers than, say, Enid Blyton. And it might be why she she held up the ideal of the strong, masterful doctor-husband. Her life sounds like it was difficult, and without anyone to support and help her. Having someone come along and offer to take care of you may have seemed like a idyllic situation.

Author:	Tor [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:03 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
That is something I have always thought (well, as an adult!) was probably the case with EBD. She does have a thing for the masterful male!

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:46 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
I'd agree completely with this reading. But I don't think it's even just the masterful doctor husbands. EBD continually writes about girls and women collapsing from strain, about the relief of someone 'butting in' and completely transforming difficult lives, about thinking you're alone and then finding a ready-made family, or someone who can take the weight off your shoulders. And there's nearly an erotics of being told that you need a total rest on medical grounds, and being packed off to bed by a doctor or Matey, who take even the most basic decisions off your hands, make you sleep, and feed you delicious little meals on trays! I think the the fact this is comes up so often, and that someone ordering you about for the good of your health is simply presented as so appealing by EBD, suggests she had to be terribly self-reliant in her own life, and hadn't the luxury of taking to her bed, in the knowledge that someone would manage things in her absence... It might also explain why she presents bossiness in such a positive light - at some level lots of parts of the CS read as if written by someone who would adore Joey and Jack to breeze into her life and solve all her problems! ETA: I mean, I often think EBD's masterful doctor husbands should have a restraining order slapped on them for Excessive Syringe Use, but I can see their SLOC-type appeal for an author who had to make it through on her own in tough circumstances.

Author:	Tor [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:08 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
So true! And thinking on a bit more, it might also explain the dichotomy (as seen by me, anyway) that appears to exist in EBDs writing between the corporal and spiritual world. AS Sunglass says, there is so much emphasis on human intervention to remove the weight and respnsibilities of evryday troubles, but reliance on a more distant God to either explain the above (i.e. it is God who saved a patient through the brilliant doctors), or to call on for strength. In Future, I was really struck by Jack's explanation to Melanie about the storm and lightening effectively having nothing to do with God, and that she was silly for thinking as such. He basically implied God was too far removed from the world for such things, and that science should be used to interpret the workings of the world as a general rule. Sensible, but kind of at odds with the other CS mantra of pray, and perhaps God will answer and avert some daily activity. Not so at odds with the final aspect of CS-style faith which is saying thank you to God is more important/better/appropriate than asking for something, as this again implies a certain distance between the everyday and the sublime/deity. Which is a long way round to me saying that EBD, whose faith we know was very important to her, seems to have felt that it alone did not answer the day-to-day needs of self reliance, and wished for some human intervention. What is interesting, of course, is that she often presents the CS as rich in human support, but with characters learning to ask for more religious support - presumably the opposite scenario to her own attaches multiple assumption warnings!

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:38 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Tor wrote: And thinking on a bit more, it might also explain the dichotomy (as seen by me, anyway) that appears to exist in EBDs writing between the corporal and spiritual world. I was thinking about the same thing in relation to the bits of the 'Superstition' thread that talked about organised religion. It's clear her faith was crucial to EBD, and though I personally find it damages the later novels' realism that she makes virtually every character profoundly religious, it's hardly surprising in the context that her admirable doctor characters are religious - and I don't think there's necessarily any contradiction there. She certainly views science and religion as entirely compatible over and over again, What I do find odd is that she presents faith in all her adult characters as necessarily 'childlike' - and sees this childlike quality of the belief as good. She admires the 'child-like fatalism' of the Tyrolean peasants, but as we begin to see Joey and Jack and their circle talk more about their beliefs in the mid-period books and later, it strikes me as slightly strange that these highly-educated, well-travelled, sophisticated people's religious belief is presented as just as 'childlike' and fatalistic as the Tyrolean peasants. I don't think for one moment that being a medic and/or being highly educated, are incompatible with religious belief, but I do find it odd that, apart from moments when Jack combines religion and science to explain the storm to Melanie, his and Joey's faith seems to be pretty much exactly like that of the peasants around the Tiernsee...? To bring this back roughly OT, I'll take this back to EBD as ambitious woman having a hard time in her own life - presumably her Catholicism was primarily a touchstone of comfort, a moral SLOC, rather than some kind of philosophical attempt to understand the universe?

Author:	Tor [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Quote: To bring this back roughly OT, I'll take this back to EBD as ambitious woman having a hard time in her own life - presumably her Catholicism was primarily a touchstone of comfort, a moral SLOC, rather than some kind of philosophical attempt to understand the universe? Yep, that was what I was getting at, with the added bit that it didn't seem to be quite enough. And so, in some ways, it is almost tragic reading all of the 'happy endings' for characters who get whisked off their feet ('rescued' even) by a masterful male, and often drop their own career like a hot potato. If this is in anyway a wistful desire on the part of EBD, it implies that she was ambitious, and had a very successful career, but that she didn't really want it that much herself.

Author:	hac61 [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:22 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Sunglass wrote: What I do find odd is that she presents faith in all her adult characters as necessarily 'childlike' - and sees this childlike quality of the belief as good. The Bible teaches that we should "...become like little children..." so presumably having a child-like faith is good. hac

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:52 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
In some ways it must be very comforting to have that kind of "It's God's will" view of things. For example, Herr Braun, who is a businessman and property owner, not a "peasant", reacts to the damage done by the floods to his newly-decorated hotel by saying something along the lines of "It's God's will": whilst a lot of us (well, I would, anyway!) would have been ranting about how unfair it was, there's nothing you can do about bad weather and taking a "That's life" view of things may well be a better approach in some circumstances. I can understand the idea of EBD wanting someone to come along and take care of everything for her, too. Whilst it might sound weak, if you're on your own and trying to manage everything - she had publishers' deadlines to meet, she was running the Margaret Roper School at one point, and wasn't she also caring for her mother when her mother was elderly and unwell? - it's all too easy just to wish that someone'd come along and make it all better. And I know that praying is very important to some people, but on a practical basis it doesn't have the same effect as Joey or Hilda or whoever else sitting you down and helping you to sort your head out. Also, presumably because EBD didn't think people'd want to see Madge & co trotting off for appointments with their bank manager, accountant or solicitor, the men in the series are endowed with all-advising powers - Madge's immediate reaction to Captain Carrick's letter is to show it to Herr Marani. Ironically, the books start with Madge, a woman who is fairly young and who had not been brought up to have to expect to have to cope with things on her own, taking charge of events and making some major life-changing decisions. The first chapter's actually called "Madge decides". Dick, the man of the family, is presented as someone who just does as his sister tells him. Madge at that stage is a wonderful role model, especially compared with e.g. Sylvia Brown in Ballet Shoes who is in a similar position and seems to spend a lot of time wringing her hands and saying that she doesn't know what to do.

Author:	JayB [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:12 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Quote: And so, in some ways, it is almost tragic reading all of the 'happy endings' for characters who get whisked off their feet ('rescued' even) by a masterful male, and often drop their own career like a hot potato. If this is in anyway a wistful desire on the part of EBD, it implies that she was ambitious, and had a very successful career, but that she didn't really want it that much herself. EBD was of the generation where most girls expected to get married, rather than have careers (even though many wouldn't marry, even without taking the War into account). I expect she did think about it, wish for it, fantasise about it. But I wonder if she'd have liked the reality, once she'd established herself as a successful, independent career woman? Would she really have liked to have a masterful man striding into her study as she was trying to meet a deadline and telling her 'No, Elinor, you may not stay up to finish that chapter. You must go to bed now. Drink this hot milk....' (As a single woman living alone myself, I venture to suggest that what most single, professional women need is not a Jem or a Jack but an Anna!)

Author:	hac61 [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:15 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Alison H wrote: And I know that praying is very important to some people, but on a practical basis it doesn't have the same effect as Joey or Hilda or whoever else sitting you down and helping you to sort your head out. I heard this quote from some-one somewhere and it stuck in my mind: "Talking to God is fine but sometimes I need some-one with skin on." hac

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:22 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
JayB wrote: (As a single woman living alone myself, I venture to suggest that what most single, professional women need is not a Jem or a Jack but an Anna!) Yep, I could certainly do with an Anna!!

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 4:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
JayB wrote: But I wonder if she'd have liked the reality, once she'd established herself as a successful, independent career woman? Would she really have liked to have a masterful man striding into her study as she was trying to meet a deadline and telling her 'No, Elinor, you may not stay up to finish that chapter. You must go to bed now. Drink this hot milk....' (As a single woman living alone myself, I venture to suggest that what most single, professional women need is not a Jem or a Jack but an Anna!) I think you're absolutely right! I truly cannot accuse my partner of being anything like EBD's masterful doctors, but he does tend to drag me away from my desk at busy periods for the occasional meal or airing - he's been away for a couple of days, I'm up against a book deadline, and I have to say I've been enjoying the chance to skip meals and stay at my desk till the early hours with no one forcibly unplugging my laptop (or menacing me with sedatives...) On a related topic, I always rather enjoy the bit in Adrienne when Hilda theorises about marriage to Len: Quote: What matters more is if you’ve met a man you feel you could bear to spend the rest of your life with – seeing him at breakfast every morning, doing all his mending and cooking his meals, putting up with his whims and fancies – and that is a matter for both sides, let me tell you. Remember that marriage is for life. It makes marriage sound about as inviting as a life-sentence in some kind of Home Economics-obsessed prison! Given that virtually everywhere else EBD goes along with the prevalent view that marriage is a Woman's Happiest Duty etc, I always wonder if here, from the mouth of a successful, contented unmarried professional, we're getting a hint of another point of view, which perhaps EBD may also have agreed with, at times...?

Author:	MJKB [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:33 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
Sunglass wrote: Quote: What matters more is if you’ve met a man you feel you could bear to spend the rest of your life with – seeing him at breakfast every morning, doing all his mending and cooking his meals, putting up with his whims and fancies – and that is a matter for both sides, let me tell you. Remember that marriage is for life. It makes marriage sound about as inviting as a life-sentence in some kind of Home Economics-obsessed prison! Given that virtually everywhere else EBD goes along with the prevalent view that marriage is a Woman's Happiest Duty etc, I always wonder if here, from the mouth of a successful, contented unmarried professional, we're getting a hint of another point of view, which perhaps EBD may also have agreed with, at times...? I'm sure there were times in Elinor's life when even this picture of marriage looked inviting. At least it meant having someone to share the burdon of duty with. The daughter carer role is, in my view, one of the lonliest. It is also one of the least appreciated by society. It is only recently that the state has recognised how much it has been saved in service provision by these unsung heroines.

Author:	hac61 [ Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:35 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
MJKB wrote: The daughter carer role is, in my view, one of the lonliest. It is also one of the least appreciated by society. It is only recently that the state has recognised how much it has been saved in service provision by these unsung heroines. HA! If my memory serves me correctly full-time carers, not the paid variety, get a whole 48 pence an hour for saving the Government £18 Billion. That's how much they value us. /soapbox hac

Author:	MJKB [ Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:02 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Girls: Career-Orientated/ Ambitious Girls
hac61 wrote: If my memory serves me correctly full-time carers, not the paid variety, get a whole 48 pence an hour for saving the Government £18 Billion. That's how much they value us. /soapbox That's just appalling. I had thought that giving a carer's allowance was at least the first step in acknowledging the work done by the carer in the home, but I hadn't realised how insulting the 'contribution' was. Of course they know people are not going to withdraw the service to their loved ones so they have you over a barrel. What can one say?