1966: WOMEN Who Return to WORK | Six Sides of A Square | Voice of the People | BBC Archive

Documentary film Six Sides of A Square: A Woman's Place examines the changing roles of women and men in the home, and asks the question "have women really won equality?".
Mrs Jeannie Reid, a mother of three from Islington, has recently returned to work. She finds the experience of working as a manageress in a joke shop far more fulfilling than her previous life as a full time housewife.
Originally broadcast 29 March, 1966.
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[@tentringer4065]

Kristen Stewart has got the accent just right. Great performance.

[@catherinegarmon3027]

That's her!

[@helenamcauley3135]

Lol

[@iamaliveyoucantstopnow]

hahahahah

[@hilaryepstein6013]

Good for them and good for the husbands who helped with the housework - quite rare in the 60s I think with the "women's work" mentality.

[@RichyJFilms]

atlest the 1960s was better then todays crap :(

[@richardmattocks]

All housework done in the morning. That’s a well run home right there.

[@davedogge2280]

1. Does the house work by the end of the morning. 2. Wants to be Independent. 3. Works in a joke shop. 4. This woman is a superhero.

[@bombski5657]

When they say women started working in the 1960s and 70s they really mean rich women. Working class women have always had jobs and kept house.

[@RockDove5212]

This woman is clearly not rich. She's working class.

[@antman5474]

@@RockDove5212 But she has an electric iron and shoes.

[@TinLeadHammer]

@@RockDove5212 There are more than two classes in the U.K. She is probably lower middle.

[@melbromley929]

Exactly. My grandparents had 10 children. Not working was never an option.

[@MrsWilliamTheBloody]

Omg that cut from the whoopee cushion to the car horn 😅

[@HVS-gk7oo]

Great mentality, great teamwork between openminded spouses. More money and more freedom makes a happier home for both partners and the children will have a more secure future if they don't have to struggle on one income (it's not like the majority of the working class earned much even though they worked hard and long days). Happy wife, happy life etc.

[@TinLeadHammer]

More workforce means an employer can pick and choose and pay less. In the end, not much higher income for the family.

[@user-yq3nu5hd6n]

❤These flims memories Golden years back then 1960 Proper England ❤❤ Great people Great children ❤ British values and common sense No money But value always back then Beautiful ladies back then 1960 was my time north Newcastle ❤ Child happiness ❤❤

[@Carducci1959]

Bringing up 4 children in the 50s and 60s was a full-time job, my mother never had time to get bored, she never had a moment to herself. And her own mother didn't live around the corner so she couldn't just dump them onto her whenever she wanted to. I consider myself very fortunate to have been brought up by my mother and not by my grandparents or babysitters.

[@moominmay]

Not every mother in that era felt the same however. Also being kept busy with several young children doesn’t mean you don’t get bored with the routine over several years either. There would have been mental health as well as financial benefits for the woman once she is no longer defined forever in her peak years as just a housewife if she doesn’t want to be. Similarly there would have been some men who had excellent parenting and housekeeping skills but unfortunately societal stereotypes meant they had to permanently be working FT when it Amy have made both parents and therefore the children happier also if they played on their respective strengths I’m supporting their family. Also I don’t think it’s fair to describe leaving the children with grandparents/babysitters as being ‘dumped’. Most parents have a reason why they will employ such caring arrangements and just because your own similarly hardworking mother didn’t doesn’t mean it’s wrong to.

[@arricammarques1955]

Majority are to entitled to work & raise kids? Bloody hell, mate!

[@melbromley929]

My grandparents had 10 children and both of them worked.

[@Carducci1959]

@@melbromley929 Who took care of the 10 children?

[@joebryant5722]

Blimey!, what a woman. Sounds like she's fallen out of a time bubble from the future!!. You have to see it to believe it.

[@welshtoro3256]

"The times they are a changing" and the sense of frustration is obvious. When I was a kid in the 70's and 80's my father had a job which meant he was away five days a week. Even on weekends he was very busy. My mother had to do virtually everything on her own to bring up myself and my brother. There were no grandparents to help out either. Shopping, cleaning, cooking, bringing up the kids without much help. She came from a traditional working class background so that was accepted in the early years. My father sensed the frustration and encouraged my mum to become a mature student and do a degree in her mid 30's which she did. After that they had a much more equitable relationship.

[@ThailandFoodWalk]

I don't think they could even watch daytime tv because the channels didn't start up to later in the day. She couldn't go on the net because the internet was not available to the masses(only UNI connections) back then. So yeah, unless she had some good hobbies, or liked to read, she'd probably be twiddling her thumbs.

[@Randomguy66672]

I think you'll find the internet wasn't available to anyone back in the 60's 😂

[@ThailandFoodWalk]

@@Randomguy66672 Haha so predictable. Do the research!

[@milquetoasted]

@@ThailandFoodWalk Yeah there was internet in the 1960s but it was rubbish. Didn't even have cat memes.

[@ThailandFoodWalk]

@@milquetoasted Of course not it was mainly used for communications between Universities. Also, If you dig deeper into this you'll find that it was possibly set up by the military / Darpa organization orsomething like that. Shame about the cat memes though :-(

[@milquetoasted]

@@ThailandFoodWalk Yes, I know. I watched the Werner Herzog documentary Lol and Behold

[@madamesalamander16]

I had a good laugh at the quick cut from the set-upon whoopie cushion to the car horn! It would be a few years until Mel Brooks gave us the first fart in film. (Or TV, at the time.) Before that, it could be alluded to but the sound was not allowed!

[@thejoin4687]

It's funny to compare the things that got censored in bygone years. In George Formby songs, despite all the thinly veiled innuendos, the word "belly" was deemed unbroadcastable ("So I said to Nellie, "Now, rub your...ankle")

[@ctcurry1777]

These things alway remind me of Harry Enfields Mr Chumly Warner

[@Early100]

Ironing wool or acrylic sweaters though 😳😥 eek 😱 I love the top/dress she was wearing in the beginning. Happier more carefree times but maybe I’m wearing rose tinted glasses.

[@petergivenbless900]

I half expected her, having finished ironing the jumpers, to absentmindedly start ironing the curtains too!

[@Early100]

@@petergivenbless900 haha, wouldn’t be surprised 🫣🤣

[@unnamedchannel1237]

“ I hate being at home” her husband is a lucky man

[@mathlitmusic3687]

Yeah, those who "love to be at home all day " are a rather dull lot.

[@ashdjin8530]

Oh how times have changed

[@petergivenbless900]

Would have been funnier in the joke shop if, after removing the Hallowe'en mask, we got a shock response from the customer!

[@garyjamieson4672]

🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@antman5474]

The whoopee cushion got cancelled.

[@stevenmcdermott6565]

Sounds like a Young Dot Cotton

[@thejoin4687]

Ooh aah saaay

[@brigette3004]

The greatest lie ever told to women

[@heinkle1]

Why not make the whole episode available? Otherwise it is just gathering dust and was paid for by licence payers decades ago

[@mathlitmusic3687]

People are more likely to click on clips. It might not be worth it to upload all videos in the archives just for the sake of a dozen people willing to watch them.

[@moominmay]

@@mathlitmusic3687 I think you’d be surprised. After all there’s plenty of longer doc length videos that get many views on the same subject of past British social history. Come on BBC A, trial a few longer length videos for us!

[@mathlitmusic3687]

@@moominmay I wouldn't mind it personally. Though I do think it is a basic feature of human psychology that they click at shorter videos way more than long ones due to low time investment. Some longer documentaries do manage to garner high views but that's only a few out of many.

[@jasonayres]

And when the kids are teenagers, they'll rebel against.. 🤔Poor Gran.

[@sim6699]

She can dress up for her husband

[@moominmay]

Wow what backward thinking 😂

[@eemoogee160]

Partial independence...

[@BOZ_11]

"i'm independent, but for the roof over my head; that's my husband"

[@HVS-gk7oo]

Well, marriage is teamwork after all. One is supposed to support and help each other, and it has been proven that couples doing just that, are having happier relations.

[@jimmypenn]

@@HVS-gk7oo Well said , definitely .

[@antman5474]

Poor chap had to fetch his own slippers 🤨

[@lalakuma9]

Warning: incels in the comment section

[@leeriches8841]

There's no escaping them recently!

[@MuslimahOfTheWEST]

Yeah, what every kid needs... a mother that doesn't want to be a mother, and is absent from their home.

[@antman5474]

She does appear to be lacking maternal instinct somewhat.

[@mathlitmusic3687]

Seems your mother left you on the streets.

[@MH-ve5sz]

Better that she stay at home and resent them? She said she doesn’t like to be sitting around at home all day with nothing to do. She doesn’t hate being a mother.

[@sim6699]

That may be why divorce rates are through the roof in the west

[@mathlitmusic3687]

@@sim6699 Yeah, and that's a brilliant thing actually

[@fraternitas5117]

They will not be equal until 22 million Pakistineans come to England.

[@SimirJohnson]

Perhaps she should have spent more time at the beauty parlor and clothes shopping.

[@thejoin4687]

You prefer the Wagatha look?

[@Fsojack]

Damn that’s cold