Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, with no idea why this particular memory popped into my mind some sixty years after the event. Still, once a thought turns up, I tend to make use of it, hence another nostalgia post for the Maine Crime Writers’ blog.
I was sixteen when I started my senior year in high school and one of the youngest in my class. We’d moved into a brand new building the previous school year and acquired, along with it, a fair number of new, young, energetic teachers. They were in their early twenties, which made a few of them only three or four years older than the oldest members of the class of 1965. That certainly made a change, and I suspect most of my classmates far preferred young blood to the rather nasty old biddies who, in particular, taught almost all the required sections of math and history. But I digress.
Gym class was mandatory. We had nice new locker rooms, new playing fields, new equipment, and something we’d never had in the old building—facilities for taking showers after gym class. In our senior year, the powers that be decided that showering after exercising and working up a sweat should be mandatory. We were told there had been complaints about the smell of that sweat in the classes that followed phys. ed., and that using deodorant wouldn’t be sufficient to eradicate the problem.
According to our graduation program, there were fifty-three girls in our class. There were probably three sections of physical education, although I won’t swear to that. There were at least two sections. Anyway, as I recall, almost all of us shared the same reaction to this mandate—no way! Why? Because using the showers in question would mean showering with the rest of the girls in each section of gym class. As a group. Naked.
yearbook photo of some of us fooling around with the laundry basket after gym class (that’s me in the white blouse)
It may sound quaint in 2024, but in 1964-5, at least in our quiet rural community, modesty was more common then exhibitionism. We were sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls who weren’t allowed to wear skirts above mid-knee to classes and weren’t permitted to wear slacks in school at all. I wouldn’t say we were overly concerned about body shaming, although I can think of at least one girl in my class who would gleefully have pointed out flaws in the rest of us, but speaking for myself, I was a “late bloomer” and self-conscious about my lack of cleavage. I know I wasn’t the only one wearing a padded bra, but there’s a big difference between being seen in your underwear in the locker room by other girls and stripping down to the skin to shower with a large group of them.
To our gym teacher’s surprise, the senior girls, en masse, refused to comply. It wasn’t an organized revolt, but it didn’t take us long to realize there were advantages to sticking together. During that entire school year, only one or two members of our class compromised, and then only to make use of the one private shower available. However insignificant our gym class rebellion may seem, especially compared to demonstrations over much more serious matters that were taking place throughout the 1960s, for us it was a learning experience. Eventually, the mandate to shower was withdrawn.
I suspect that even our gym teacher (who happened to be married to the older brother of one of our classmates) might have had a grudging respect for our stand. By the time we took the candid photos for the yearbook (shown below with yearbook caption), she was happy to go along with the fun.
Still, there might have been consequences. At the time all this started, many of us were in the process of applying to colleges, colleges that were going to look at our grades, and at one point we were warned that our behavior could result in an F in physical education.
There were some nervous moments when the next report cards came out. An F was traditionally marked in red. When I opened mine, that color leapt out at me. Then, as I recall, I laughed. All of us who rebelled received the same grade—a D written extra large and in red ink.
Fortunately, those D’s had no effect on academic standing. Nine of us were among the top ten graduates in our class.
So ends my tale of youthful rebellion. What issues, silly or serious (but silly preferred), do you remember feeling strongly about during your high school years?
Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.
As part of the class that was first to go 7 through 12 in the new school l can say it was an issue on the boys side no rebellion on mass. Didn’t even hear of the event on the girls side or know it was a new rule. I always found it strange the showers had full plate glass and veiwing window for coaches office. Always nice showering with a coach learing at you!
I don’t remember if there was a viewing window from the coach’s office into the girls’ shower, but that would have felt creepy then and seems even more so now.
I was in high school from 66-70. We lacked a shower mandate – and I don’t remember anyone ever making use of the showers -but we did have to wear these hokey uniforms. White blouses, heavy cotton jumpers, and matching bloomers. My graduating class was assigned blue. It didn’t help that it was one of my favorite colors.
If I remember right we had one-piece outfits with a short sleeved snap-up top and modest shorts for the bottom half. They were white–not the easiest thing to keep clean–and NOT flattering to anybody. Of course, not being athletically inclined, I wasn’t all the fond of phys ed in the first place, but the uniform didn’t help.
Gym suits! They were the worst, weren’t they? Uncomfortable, unflattering and the boys didn’t have any such uniform requirement.
This post reminded me of the rebellion my protagonist in “Don’t Say It” sparked over the inequity between how boy athletes and girl athletes were treated in the late 1960s, as well as a similar rebellion over not being able to wear pants to school. If I could go back in time, I’d have even longer hair, with purple streaks, wear a feather boa and have multiple piercings.
I probably wouldn’t even have remembered the business about girls only being allowed to wear skirts or dresses in school, except that one of our classmates was sent home to change because she wore slacks to graduation practice! Talk about carrying things too far. And it was one of the young teachers who sent her home, too.
Read on, John!
I was an editor of my high school newspaper in the mid-1970s, and we did a big investigative series about the disparities in support (practice space, uniforms, equipment) between girls and boys athletic teams. The stories rocked my town, and brought results! Perhaps I’ll write about it here one day.
Sounds like a plan!
OMG, Kathy! It’s MaryAnn Doty, class of 1964! This article makes me giggle! I wanted to be Phys Ed teacher, and so, needed an A in Phys Ed my senior year. The only way I could accomplish this was to take a shower after class. NOT happening with my class.. I was tormented and spied on by my classmates!! I did accomplish an A in Gym,, thanks to my friend, Derry Ruth
! God bless her! sometimes.. I just chuckle on Facebook through posts like yours. Thank you! youmade my heart smile!
Hi, MaryAnn. Thanks so much for commenting. And now I have to wonder if our rebellion might have taken place my junior year, when you were a senior. I couldn’t remember for certain and went with the ’64-’65 school year because that’s when some of us on the yearbook staff (Mary Lou, me, Eileen, and others) took the photos and added the caption. It could have been either year. I’m so glad things worked out for you. Mrs. Ruth was the best, despite the difference of opinion about showers.
I graduated high school in 1994.
In junior high we were required to shower after each and every gym class in both the seventh and eighth grades. The worst part of it was the design of the showers.
There were twenty shower stalls, but they didn’t have any curtains.
There were forty girls in each gym class, and since there were only twenty shower stalls we had to always go into the stalls two girls at a time.
We were not allowed to choose who we were going to share the shower with. It was on a daily rotating schedule which meant that we had to share the shower with every other girl in the gym class many times each.
On days when you were sharing the shower with a friend it was less awkward. But on the days when we had to share the shower with a girl that you didn’t like, or she didn’t like you, that was the worst. And being crammed into a cramped stall with another girl meant that it was impossible to not accidentally rub up against each other
We would have been better off if there weren’t any stalls. The stalls didn’t have curtains, so everyone could see into the stalls anyway. And we had to shower with everyone in the class anyway.
In high school we were still required to shower after each gym class, but we didn’t have any stalls. The worst part about that was that there were still only twenty shower heads on the walls and around forty to fifty girls in the class. So that always left around twenty to maybe twenty five of us having to stand there in the nude watching to see when a shower head would become available.
At least by high school most of us had gotten over the embarrassment of being nude in front of our female classmates.