Sexy Old Librarians

Boring, old, visually impaired, socially inept bookworms usually turn into librarians.  So do sexy, vintage, cat-eye-glasses-wearing, brunettes (never blondes unless they are made out of plastic).  We either need to sex it up ourselves or people will do it for us in Photoshop.  American librarians have been plagued with image problems since the creation of public libraries in the nineteenth century.  Originally, librarianship was championed as an ideal profession for women by none other than the infamous Melvil Dewey (of the Dewey Decimal System that we've all come to not really know or love).

Dewey thought that women would be great for the job because, being women in the nineteenth century, they would put up with a lot more shit than men, plus they would love sitting for long periods of time using his racist cataloging system (there have been some improvements to this, but it's still pretty pro-Western, White, Christian). He was also known to fondle and grope his female students; so it's no wonder that maybe some of the backlash from this was that women wanted to be taken seriously and not seen as sex objects.

Dewey is a creep

It's also amazing that so many women were able to elicit change in a profession and society that were designed to "keep them out of trouble" (old Dewey again).  In 1893, less than twenty years after the founding of public libraries and  librarianship in America, the World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago and featured a Women's Building that showcased a library of women's literature and  was staffed by female librarians (handpicked by Dewey - gross, but still cool that they were able to exhibit women's literary achievements and history at a time when this wasn't widely viewed as relevant).

By the 1920s female librarians were seen as progressive, and picked up steam again in the 1970s when civil rights movements had taken shape and equal opportunity employment and pay were at stake.  In 1969 a group of female librarians petitioned to form the Social Responsibilities Round Table Task Force (SRRT) on the Status of Women in Librarianship at the American Library Association.  These women were not taken seriously until a few years later, when they finally rounded up enough disenchanted female librarians who reported dissatisfaction and disgust with discrimination and sexism within the ALA and librarianship. 

Today, librarianship is not just for women (and hasn’t been since it began), although the stereotype persists.  Media outlets and pop culture in general continue to tout women librarians as either sexy or old (although Nancy Perl continues to be awesome despite what toy makers have deemed her action figure super powers to be).  While male librarians tend to be completely forgotten in general society (women still make up 82% of professional librarians).  There is one documented sexy old guy who was a librarian:  “Cassanova the famous 18th-century lothario ended his life as a librarian. Librarians could use that to sex up their image” (The Know-It-All).  See? That should make male librarians feel good about their own stereotypes.

So while the typecast persists, librarians press onward, bringing books, DVDs, and tattoos to the public every day (except Sundays at some libraries) for free. How’s that for sexy?

Ladies in Libraries

I recently read A Strange Stirring by Stephanie Coontz, a book that breaks down Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique, and describes the clash of cultures between working and non-working women in the 1950s and early 1960s.  She describes the feelings of inferiority and lack of completeness that middle class homemakers felt at the time that The Feminine Mystique was published.  As someone who has never known a world where we are expected not to join the workforce and actively kept out of it, I was surprised at how relevant I found Coontz’s summary of the infamous book. 

As a woman who is studying and a part of a profession that is predominantly made up of, and led by women, I am proud to be a woman who works.  But I know that this is still not the case for women in many fields today.   In archiving the history of my local library, the North Hollywood Regional Branch, I was struck by the fact that when the branch opened in 1929, it was operated completely by women.   In looking further into the history of librarians in Los Angeles, many of the City Librarians have been women, dating as far back as 1880.  But they too have struggled in a society that was dominated by men, especially those men who served on the library board. 

From 1947 – 1990 there were 2 City Librarians in Los Angeles and both were male.  This was during the time that Friedan was speaking to educated middle-class homemakers.  Women who had the intellectual training and ability to be a vital part of the workforce were told that they should not want to join the ranks of the professional class.  Many of these were the same women who had been productive in the workforce during World War II, furthering the blow to these women’s egos and sense of self.  Meanwhile, millions of women at this time needed to work out of economic necessity, furthering the divide between working women and wives and stay-at-home wives.

It was during this time, from the late 1950s throughout the 1960s, often called the public library’s “golden era” due to increased federal funding for public services that the library prospered.  The increased demand for librarians brought many professional women back into a workforce that has historically been female led, as well as female-friendly to those the library served.  The public library has traditionally been a safe space for un-biased learning.  In an era when a woman’s education about the world most certainly ended after high school, or college for some, it was a space for continued enlightenment.

The public library continues that tradition today.  It is a place to seek answers to questions without shame or embarrassment.  It is a place for facts in a world where women’s choices are often relegated based on fear.  It is a cultural place in neighborhoods and communities where women who are full-time mothers deserve to spend time with their children during the day.  It is a space for book discussions and for activism with neighbors and friends.  In my experience, I have witnessed the public library as a place for all women, whether behind the reference desk or standing in front of it, to further literacy and intellect regardless of working status.