Age-old advice: How to attract the boys of 1941

We mine the Free Press archives for advice that still applies today (...or doesn’t)

Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Thursday, Sep. 26, 2019

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/09/2019 (2561 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Oct. 1, 1941: Some School-Days Advice for Teen-Agers

Boy Tells Girl by George Antheil

School has opened and you teenagers who attend want to have fun this year, don’t you? Well, line up and let your Uncle George give you a few lessons on how to attain it.

First impressions, of course, count a lot. So don’t go to school all dolled up in satin and lace and frizzy hair. Go to school looking like a wholesome schoolgirl. See that your grooming is perfect, that your clothes fit just right — not too loose or too tight, but sort of streamlined.

I know you are going to yell that you can’t afford good clothing. But the lovely lady at my house who knows about things says so. All you need, she says, is an immaculate blouse, a sweater, perhaps a skirt that has an even hem and sensible-looking shoes. You don’t need a lot of ruffles and gadgets, and if your hair is clean, you really don’t have to have a hairdo.

Don’t go in for exotic makeup and do go in for everything under control.

Then practise walking with a book on your head so you will get that nice schoolgirl walk — straight spine and head erect. Boys are attracted by grace of movement.

Then get a gay light in your eye. Gone is the day of the downcast eye and the nervous shyness. Don’t be bold, but let every male who sees you think of you as a swell girl he would like to meet because he bets you would be fun and good company.

Don’t sneer at the boys as something you don’t want to know or get that over-eager look of hunting boys. Boys don’t like that. Don’t scream and giggle and rush around or they will look after you and dub you “just another one of those silly girls” and pass you up.

Don’t gush over the other girls. Boys hate that, too. Don’t simper and don’t stride around as though you had masculine leanings. Just be a fair and sweet girl who is happy to be at school with other young people and who is frankly interested in everything that is going on in the young crowd.

Then when your class convenes, get busy and concentrate. The day is also past when boys go for the stupid, dumb girls. Be a 1941 modern schoolgirl and have plenty of fun because these are your halcyon days — if you only knew it.