Advice for Young Women in 1930

“Maybe youth is flaming," says flapper Fannie, "because hose is only used for display purposes.” – From “Girligags”

Dorothy Dix’s Letter Box

What Is There to Make a Woman Glad in Marriage?

Dear Miss Dix—I don’t agree with you that it is impossible to hand out a patented formula for making a girl attractive to men. There is an old, attested recipe that my mother used when she was a girl, and she taught it to me and I have handed it down to my daughter, and it still works in this modern day just as it did in the old mid-Victorian period because all men of all ages are alike. For a conversational line tell 'em that they are great and wonderful and big boys. 

Learn how to do things—how to swim, play tennis, golf and so on. And especially how to dance. Find out what a boy’s favorite sport is and get him to teach it to you. Learn how to do it well enough to keep him interested, but never get proficient enough to beat him. Don’t ever try to be brilliant or show off before a man. Keep the spotlight on him. And always surround an unattractive girl with plenty of other girls who have it. They will draw the man and the homely sister gels the left-overs. Try this rule, it never fails. – The Flapper Mother of a Flapper Daughter 

Answer: These are words of gold framed in silver which every girl who wishes to make a hit with men should hang over her dressing table, for, as my correspondent says, men are pretty much of a muchness as far as their taste is concerned and the poor fish are still caught with the same bail that the lady fishermen have used from generation to generation. Doubtless the first thing that Eve said to Adam as she rolled her eyes, at him and gave him the once over was to exclaim about how big and strong and wonderful be was and tell him that she fell for him the first time that she saw him. And Adam, lent an attentive ear, as every man has ever done ever since when a woman talked to him about himself and decided in his own mind that she was a young person of superior taste and judgment and so entertaining that he could go on listening to her forever. 

Nor do men want to discuss high-browed subjects with women. When they talk about the Einstein theory and the modern movements in literature and art and politics, they want to talk with other men. And no woman makes a greater mistake than in trying to be humorous with men. Men don’t like funny women. Nor women who laugh too much. They always have an uneasy suspicion that she is laughing at them. Therefore, the woman who is a good talker with men talks to them about themselves to the exclusion of any other topic. She is the human questionnaire. She asks them minutely about their childhood, about how they succeeded in business, about their golf or their car, and she listens with bated breath while they tell the stories of their lives and how they pulled off a deal or sold a bit of goods or w hat Mr. Hoover should do about prohibition. 

Then, in this day, girls have to be up and doing. Gone are the halcyon times when men sought out the shrinking violet. Now a maiden has to be not only a sunflower but one who takes the precaution of planting herself right in a man’s way so that he stumbles over her if she gets noticed. In other words, she has to be Sally on the spot. That is why so many girls who do not need to support themselves are going into business. They don't sit at home and suck their thumbs and wait for some fairy prince to come riding by and save them. They go down inlo the offices where the good chances are and where they have the opportunity of plying their arts and wiles on men at close range. Many girls who are homely avoid being seen out with pretty girls because they fear comparisons. This is a mistake. 

Every plain girl should hunt up the best-looking girl she can find for a running mate, because the pretty girl will attract the boys and that will give her a chance to do her stuff. For beauties do not always wear well on closer acquaintance. Nearly always they are egotistic and selfish and like to show their power by ordering men about, and this does not make a hit with the sex that likes to have the kowtowing done to it. So here is where Little Plain Face gets in her deadly work. She is so much sweeter, so much less self-centered, so willing and anxious to be pleased and so appreciative of every attention that oftener than not she wins out instead of the beauty. So perhaps the formula for a girl making herself popular with men can be summed up into me phrase: keep a man pleased with himself and he will be pleased with you. – Dorothy Dix, 1930

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