know about boys

Insider Secrets About Boys

What Girls Want to Know About Boys
Unger and Berman
1962

Figuring out boys evidently is a topic for the ages. I remember my teenage daughter asking me why they are so stupid and I remember asking my mom the same thing back in the 1970s. So, here are all the questions you want to ask. Too bad a good chunk of the answers are pretty awful. In this book you can learn:

  • boys are much more emotionally “controlled” than girls
  • boys are aroused by just about anything and girls often don’t even know they are being “provocative”
  • boys are much more in touch with “reality” than girls because they will eventually have to support a family
  • boys need girls to hold them in check, sexually
  • boys like girls to be well groomed and have manners
  • boys think being feminine is the same as being helpless, and girls take advantage of that
Personal Adjustment Marriage and Family

Real Life is Marriage and Kids

Personal Adjustment
Marriage and Family Living
Landis
3rd Edition
1960

This gem turned up in a donation pile at our library and of course I had to wade through it. The photos were just perfect!

WorldCat doesn’t show any public or school libraries with this outdated book, but a handful of universities do have a copy. Given the number of editions published, this was evidently a popular choice for home ec or health curricula for high schools and possibly college.

Although clearly outdated, these authors do present equality-driven arguments such as the home is both the husband and wife’s responsibility and money should be managed together.  There is even a discussion of children of unwed mothers and children and legal standing that is quite enlightened for the time. This wasn’t as bad as I had thought, given the age of this edition.