By Karen and Erica

We were struck by the juxtaposition of two stories we saw recently.

The first was about how American women in the 1950s were excited about the young Queen Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne. The second was about how some women working at the same time showed a knack for a life of crime. Is there a connection?

In the 1950s, American women, who had been welcomed into the working world when the men were away fighting, were being told it was time to go back home, to the suburbs, and raise children. It was a message not well received by every woman. Some, as the first article noted, were therefore very excited to see Elizabeth taking a really consequential role in the wider world.

At a time when women were, in many cases, expected to conform to traditional roles of a housewife and homemaker, Elizabeth was ascending the throne of a powerful country. In the words of one psychologist interviewed for a 1953 Los Angeles Times article, for the first time, “the women of America have found a heroine who makes them feel superior to men.”

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Even as the women’s liberation movement helped shift certain conversations, the queen continued to model an alternative path forward—one in which women could travel without their children, demonstrate their command of policy, be at the center of the photograph, take responsibility and even grow old in the public eye.

The other story had a decidedly different focus, though it also had to do with achieving women of the 1950s.

During that time, women were making headway in the big crime families. According to a review of a recent book, The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women, 

[Assunta Maresca] was a teenage eye-catcher, winner of a beauty pageant in her corner of southern Italy and known to all as Pupetta. Little Doll. She would make a dream wife for an up-and-coming mobster like Pasqualone, and not just because of her looks. Pupetta was herself born into a crime family known for its deftness with switchblades. She was skilled with a gun and boasted that she “could hit any target between the eyes”.

Ms. Maresca married an up-and-coming fellow in the Neapolitan crime family La Camorra, who was soon shot dead. She used her skills to execute the crime boss who had ordered her husband’s execution, and quickly became crime family royalty, known as Lady Camorra, achieving status in a sector of society not known for advocating the advancement of women. A number of other women followed her example, perhaps because, as the author notes, women in an organization like the Camorra are making far more progress climbing the ladder and being treated as equals than their law-abiding peers.

For better or worse, these enterprising women apparently laid the groundwork for today’s women of crime:

“[A] new generation of highly educated daughters” is “taking a more active role in drug trafficking, as accountants and sometimes even dealers. Having been educated abroad, they are often more tech savvy and culturally aware, which means they can help the criminal groups strategize on a more global level.”

We do not suggest any equivalence, moral or otherwise, between the late Queen of England and the late Lady Camorra. But both of these stories are about women who made the most of their opportunities once they had them, and who overcome obstacles that many women face in the workplace. Once barriers to entry are eliminated, women can do the job—any job—rather well. 

Good news. But—you shouldn’t have to be a queen, or a mobster, to get ahead.