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Marcia Gloster: Not Quite Benign
Updated: Aug 31, 2022
It seems simplistic in light of what has been transpiring since last fall (Harvey Weinstein et al, #metoo #timesup etc.), but a couple of years ago, when I was writing I Love You Today – my novel of New York in the 1960’s – a stunning article about women in advertising appeared in the New York Times. It was an interview with five women who, after years of silence, finally had the nerve to speak out; to relate how they had been harassed, discriminated against, and generally demeaned, not to mention being paid less than their male counterparts and passed over for promotions. Red-faced, the agencies cited, as well as several others, immediately announced they had set out to establish “new” guidelines. A couple even went so far as to promote a few women to jobs they should have had in the first place. At the time the piece was eye-opening. Today, it appears as just a blip on the radar of social commentary and current events.
I Love You Today is the story of a young woman who comes to 1960’s Manhattan to find a job in advertising. Refusing to become trapped as a secretary or receptionist, she perseveres and, after several months, finds the job she hoped for. Ironically, the story bears truth; some of it was based on my own experiences. In those years, and well beyond, it was what we, as women, were accustomed to and actually considered the norm: men spoke down to us, asked us to fetch coffee, paid us less, patted our behinds, and stage whispered obnoxious comments, all too frequently about various body parts. For the most part, we just laughed it off. What else could we do? Complain? To who, another man? As we continually said, “It’s just the way it is.”
That article, with its heartfelt interviews, made me open my eyes and take another look at the story I was writing. While the book wasn’t the place to comment on the current events of a latter era, it made me go back in and actually intensify the story. In retrospect, the events of the 60’s, though still clear in my mind, didn’t seem quite as benign as we treated them at the time. It also brought forth more memories, of not only dating, but of other interactions with men in the workplace; everything from expectations of quick sex to negotiating salaries and occasionally having to beg to be paid for freelance jobs.
Within the pages of I Love you Today, I told the story of a love and romance that blossomed too quickly and withered far too soon. At its core, it speaks to the mentality of the era, of men as well as women released as though from a cage of conservatism, conformity and, in many cases, propriety. Rob, the main male character, is catapulted from the restrictive suburban society of the 50s into the “mind-blowing” freedom of 60s New York. And, like most men of the era, with all the prejudices and viewpoints mentioned above. On the other hand, I portrayed Maddie as a young woman not only willing to take chances, but one resilient enough to make her way through the intricate male-dominated mazes of that decade and beyond. When I look back on how I wrote her, I’m proud. While she has her faults of loving while vainly trying to maintain a relationship with her cheating husband, she still stands strong.
About the Author...
After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design in the 1960s, Marcia Gloster built a career in New York City as an award-winning book designer and art director. A decade later, she founded and ran a boutique ad agency specializing in fashion. Her novel, I Love You Today, is the story of a young woman determined to succeed in the male-dominated worlds of publishing and advertising in the mid-1960s. Gloster is a member of the National Association of Women Artists and Studio Montclair and exhibits her paintings in the New York area. She has one daughter and lives in New York City and Verona, New Jersey, with her husband, James Ammeen. Her first book, 31 Days: A Memoir of Seduction, was published in 2014.
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