Retroflections

Recently I had foot surgery and was ensconced on my recliner, with my foot up, and hopped up on pain pills, trying to reduce my surgery-inflicted pain. There I lay with TV Land playing on the tube, wandering in and out of a drug-induced dream state. I kept catching these images of June Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver, and this got me thinking….

June Cleaver was the epitome of women on Prozac in the 50s. Though the introduction of the chemical lobotomy Prozac and its counterparts had not been invented quite yet, June Cleaver was truly on some sort of drug…or was she?

Poor woman, she was repressed, oppressed, and depressed which makes it hard to digest! She acted as if she was totally fulfilled in her role of the doting wife and mother. She spent her days cleaning the house, preparing meals, caring for her two boys, and never once broke a sweat. This woman seemed perfectly content in her kitchen, wearing an apron over her perfectly ironed dress.

This leads me to believe that June Cleaver was some sort of TV producers’ fantasy, and what a fantasy she was because every woman aspired to be like June Cleaver. These poor women did not know any better; they were prisoners of their own homes…or were they?

Yes it’s true. They had to do everything for their husbands I suppose because they were so helpless. After all, a man back then could not wash a dish, do his laundry, mop a floor, cook a meal, or even tend to his own children. He could toss a ball and play catch, but, truthfully, all men were good for in the 50s were to go to work and then come home and say, “Where’s my dinner.”

So when I start to think that poor June Cleaver was repressed and unable to do anything, I am reminded that she was the one who wore the pants in the house. I mean have you ever seen a man in the 50s cook three-square meals a day, make batches of oatmeal cookies, do the laundry, attend a PTA meeting, get the kids to school, clean the house, go to market, and not even get a wrinkle in his dress-white shirt? I highly doubt it!

So perhaps the 50s woman was not oppressed, and we should be impressed because the 50s man was so distressed if his woman could not do it for him. So hats off to all the June Cleaver’s, and Donna Reed’s, hats off to you for doing what no man in the 50s could do.