Joanna Russ, "pretty as a movie star" at 15

[Extollager]

Maybe I can send a scan eventually...

Just now I picked up, at a discard table, a copy of Stookie Allen's Keen Teens, or, 101 Ways to Make Money (New York: Emerson Books, 1955), and happened to open right to page 30:

With hand-written lettering and comic book-style art that seem to be imitating Ripley's Believe It or Not, the book profiles "SMARTIE! As pretty as any movie star, this kid is a scientist -- a good one. Recently, she won a scholarship in the Big Science Clubs of America contest. Joanna is the youngest ever to win (15)! Joanna Russ She was voted one of the 40 best young scientists in America -- won a trip to Washington to meet the great men of science. Joanna developed a colored light that destroys undesirable fungi. She tutors other students in her school (Bronx, N. Y.)"

One of the drawings shows her apparently licking a fingertip (??!). The other shows her speaking to a distinguished-looking guy while holding paint and brush, saying in the dialogue balloon, "I'll paint Washington red, Pop!"

Given Russ's feminism, one wonders if this little book prompted a lot of her thinking at an impressionable age. The book features a number of other profiles of girls whose attractiveness is asserted and sometimes highlighted by the artwork, while some of the girls noticeably don't get this treatment.

 

[thatollie]

No need.
http://mylifeandprophecies.blogspot.com/2007/09/smarties.html

 

[purple_kathryn]

One must never forget your only value as a female is how attractive you are.

 

[Extollager]

No need.
http://mylifeandprophecies.blogspot.com/2007/09/smarties.html

Great! Thanks.

 

[Extollager]

One must never forget your only value as a female is how attractive you are.

I suppose one could take the stance that the intention was to say to girls who might think science was not for them, "Hey, you can be a girl and also pursue science."

But still!

 

[steve12553]

One must never forget your only value as a female is how attractive you are.

The 50s was a different world. I don't think you can hold the past accountable for lack of forward thinking. You can only take the good things and build on them.

 

[j d worthington]

There is also the attitude (still quite prevalent today, though fading) that the only reason a girl (or woman) would take up the sciences would be because she wasn't attractive enough to reel in a man.... This sort of thing, while perhaps sexist, is also one way to deflate such a fatuous notion by showing that, good-looking or not has nothing to do with it; the female members of the human race have no less capable brain than the males....

Of course such figures as Lisa Randall and Francesca Stavrakapoulou are also helping to blow that bit of nonsense sky high.....

 

[Extollager]

At its worst, the campaign to repress -- rather than educate as needed for appropriate contexts -- "sexist" comments etc. reminds me of a comment by the Australian character in the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy miniseries (I forget if it is in the novel, and haven't seen the movie), where Ricki says something like, "My daddy tried to beat the sin out of me. But he only beat it further in."