Gender Barriers

“Perhaps my problem in marriage – and it is the problem of many women – was to want both intimacy and independence. It is a difficult line to walk, yet both needs are important to a marriage.”

-Hedy Lamarr, 1943

Lamarr's first marriage in 1933, at the age of 19, was to Friedrich Mandl, a wealthy Austrian arms manufacturer with ties to Hitler and Mussolini. Mandl was conducting research in weapons control systems and it was here that Lamarr would obtain knowledge of military technology such as guided torpedoes and radio controlled weapons. Yet, Mandl, obsessed with her, kept her from acting, holding her like a prisoner in their castle. Finding her marriage to Mandl eventually unbearable, Lamarr decided to flee her husband, obtaining a divorce in Paris. Although she was quite intelligent, she was often married for her beauty and fame, and had six husbands in her lifetime.

Women in the 1950's were perceived as nothing more than a simple housewife, doing anything for her husband no questions asked. Women's rights

“I like women and there are so many misconceptions about them that it makes me very angry. They say women love to gossip. I do not think they love to gossip as much as men do. They say women keep men waiting while they dress. I have never in my lifetime gone out with a man that I did not have to wait for him. They say women are fickle. I say it is more often a husband that deserts a wife than a wife that deserts a husband. They say women are poor conversationalists because they cannot be impersonal. I do not believe this either. I prefer to talk with women….It is men, I think, who are likely to limit their conversation to strictly business or personal matters.”

— Hedy Lamarr, 1940

“Hope and curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. That’s the way I was. The unknown was always so attractive to me… and still is.” - Hedy Lamarr, 1945