Women's Lib -- a trip through a woman's magazine from 1971

I admit it. I'm a child of the 70s. To me, that means macrame, bell-bottoms, disco, and -- of course -- Women's Lib. I came of age just when Gloria Steinem was telling women to burn their bras, the Equal Rights Amendment was being debated, and author Germaine Greer invented "The Female Eunuch":

I recently inherited a stack of women's magazines from the 1970s from my husband's aunt, to use in collages. I thumbed through them, nostalgic and a bit horrified. A copy of McCall's Magazine from 1971 is a perfect time capsule of changing social conventions and conflicting priorities for women.

An advice column addressed typical "dilemmas of the '70s"

And readers were told that "Ms." is an acceptable title for today's woman (by a male congressman):

Ads in the magazine told women "they'd come a long way, baby!" But they still needed to worry about being feminine.

Yes, this is exactly how every woman felt in 1971!

Women needed courage for every domestic situation:

Probably the most interesting thing in the magazine were results of a survey asking readers about women's liberation. They certainly still had a long way to go....

Finally, an ad that made me smile...and wince.