1950s Women Research Paper

708 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay On Women In The 1950 S

Contention (Introduction): At the beginning of the 1950's women faced the expectation that they must become a housewife. Towards the end of the 1960’s, women started to believe that o The influence of the media played a vast role in preventing women from achieving the American Dream. o They were destined to be housewives, who helped look after the children while their husbands were at work. during World War 2 there were some Influence of the Media:
Contention (Paragraph 2): Media during the 1950’s played a huge role in depicting women as housewives and preventing them from achieving the American Dream. It slowly started to open up opportunities for the women at the end of the 1960’s. o Television was not merely entertainment. It was a teacher, offering lessons in what was acceptable …show more content…

Expectations on Appearance and the Society
Contention (Paragraph 3): The society which surrounded women of the 1950’s and 1960’s illustrated that there was a stereotypical ‘ideal woman’, most women felt the need to be like this to ‘belong in the society’. o Advertisements from the 1940s and 50s depicted skinny women as being hopeless in romantic pursuits, noting that gaining weight was their only hope to attract a man. o An article titled 'Men wouldn't look at me when I was Skinny' advertised that after gaining 10 Pounds it was a new and easier way to attract Men and have all the dates that a women would want. o 'Super-rich yeast, is ironized with 3 special kinds of iron which strengthen the blood, and add energy.'
Day after day, watch flat chest develop, skinny limbs round out attractively. Skin clears to beauty, new health comes- you're an entirely new person. o In the 1960's, women had the idea it was better being skinnier (department store buyers reported that most women had shrunk 3 or 4 dress sizes), more feminine (30% of women dyed their hair blonde), and much

Show More
Related

  • The Evolving Role of Women in American History

    2170 Words  | 5 Pages

    The role of American women has changed significantly from the time the nation was born, to the modern era of the 1950s and 1960s. Many people, "... believed that women's talent and energies ... would be put to the better [use] in the new republic." (Clinton 3) Clearly showing that society has seen the importance of the women's talents and that their skills can be very useful, exploited this and thus, the change of the women's role was inevitable. Society has understood that the roles of women played an important role on all parts of life.

    Read More

  • American Womanhood Dbq Analysis

    686 Words  | 2 Pages

    For over centuries, society had established the societal standard of the women. This societal standard pictured the ideal American woman running the household and taking care of the children while her husband provided for the family. However, between 1770 and 1860, this societal standard began to tear at the seams. Throughout this time period, women began to search for a new ideal of American womanhood by questioning and breaking the barriers society had placed upon them.

    Read More

  • Women Roles in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Sir Gawain

    1357 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women were also led on to believe that housewifery and motherhood were the only two occupations available to them. In most girls’ lives, ...

    Read More

  • Women In The 1940's

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the early 1900’s, women who were married main jobs were to care for her family, manage their houses, and do housework. That is where the word housewife was come from. During the 1940's, women's roles and expectations in society were changing quickly and a lot. Before, women had very limited say in society. Since unemployment was so high during the Great Depression, most people were against women working because they saw it as women taking jobs from men that needed to work. Women were often stereotyped to stay home, have babies, and to be a good wife and mother. Advertisements often targeted women, showing them in the kitchen, talking with children, serving dinner, cleaning, and them with the joy of a clean house or the latest kitchen appliance.

    Read More

  • Working Women In The 1950s

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    During WWII, women took over the work force, and had such inspirations as Rosie the Riveter. This created a generation of women who wanted more out of life than birthing children, and keeping a nice home for their husband. The end of the war, however, brought with it a decrease of working women. In the 1950’s the rate of working women had slightly rebounded to 29% following the post-war decrease in 1945. These women were well rounded, working outside the home, and still having dinner on the table by 5PM.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In The 1950s

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    The world was a very different place sixty years ago. The men came home from the war to take back the work force from the women and sent the women back into the home to follow traditional domestic roles. All aspects of life had to be cookie cutter perfect, to include the gender roles. The roles of both genders have been portrayed by the BBC Television show, Call the Midwife, as they use to be in the 1950’s. The men were the breadwinners of their family by working arduous hours, protect their family and home, and have zero contact with feminine things and activities; the women were expected to get married early, always look their best, and never indulge in their aspirations for a career outside of the home unless they were single.

    Read More

  • Homemaker to Superwomen: The Evolution of Betsy Rath

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    Though the idea becoming a wife and mother was the most common occupation for women in the 1950’s and by no means was it simple. Women experienced immense pressure to act and be a certain way. The conformity of the 1950’s frowned upon things that weren’t apart of the established way of doing things. In the movie The Man in the Gray Flannel S...

    Read More

  • Women In The 1950's

    1715 Words  | 4 Pages

    The social perception of women has drastically changed since the 1950’s. The social role of women during the 1950’s was restrictive and repressed in many ways. Society during that time placed high importance on expectations of behavior in the way women conducted themselves in home life as well as in public. At home the wife was tasked with the role of being an obedient wife, caring mother, and homemaker. Women publicly were expected to form groups and bond over tea with a slice of cake. All the while government was pushing this idealize roll for women in a society “dominated” by men. However, during this time a percentage of women were finding their way into the work force of men. “Women were searching their places in a society led by men;

    Read More

  • Media's Influence on Women's Body Image Evolution

    1121 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women have been facing crisis of body image since the dawn of man, for competition in breeding purposes, however women came under great scrutiny because of this. Often through history, they have been at the same level of livestock, treated poorly. Creating a rise in the early 1900’s to create the movement about pushing for the equality of women in the United States; it was after then when media first started adopting an ideal image of women in American culture, when marketing research found the use of images of ideal women in their campaigns made for higher sales.

    Read More

  • The Need for Diversity in the Fashion Industry

    1415 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...th the modern era defining beautiful as having less weight. (WiseGeek, n.d.) Another argument is that thin is a feminist issue and they just use this as a headline grabber because 39.4 million of Americans suffer from obesity and the British NHS survey of Disordered Eating noted 620 hospital treatments for anorexia or bulimia (with some patients registered twice or more) for 2005 to 2006 as opposed to 17,458 for the same period for obesity. They also argue that more material is being saved when models are thinner and clothes look more elegant and drapes effortlessly on skinnier models. Most models and designers argue that models are not supposed to eat and they are meant to be skinny to sell more clothes or make them look more appealing.

    Read More

  • Women In The 1950s Essay

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1950s was a time when American life seemed to be in an ideal model for what family should be. People were portrayed as being happy and content with their lives by the meadia. Women and children were seen as being kind and courteous to the other members of society while when the day ended they were all there to support the man of the house. All of this was just a mirage for what was happening under the surface in the minds of everyone during that time as seen through the women, children, and men of this time struggled to fit into the mold that society had made for them.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes Vs. Skinny Girls

    402 Words  | 1 Pages

    Did you know that skinny girls weren't considered beautiful until the 1970's? Think about the classic movie starlets for a minute. Some of the most beautiful women of all time, women like Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, weren't skinny at all.

    Read More

  • The Lack of Women's role in society in the 1950s

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    Due to the idealization of domesticity in media, there was a significantly stagnant period of time for women’s rights between 1945 and 1959. Women took over the roles for men in the workplace who were fighting abroad during the early 1940s, and a strong, feminist movement rose in the 1960s. However, in between these time periods, there was a time in which women returned to the home, focusing their attention on taking care of the children and waiting on their husband’s every need. This was perpetuated due to the increasing popularity of media’s involvement in the lives of housewives, such as the increasing sales of televisions and the increase in the number of sexist toys. During America’s involvement in World War Two, which spanned from 1941 until 1945, many men went off to fight overseas.

    Read More

  • Women In The 70's Essay

    1385 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 1960’s women were still seen as trophies and were beginning to be accepted into the work industry. They were still homemakers, raised the family, and made sure their husbands were happy. That was the social norms for women during that time period. They were not held to high work expectations like men were. But something amazing happened that would change women 's lives for centuries; it was the 1970’s. The 60’s put the equality movement in motion but 70’s was a time of reform where women were finally able to control their own paths. Not only was the 70’s a historical marker for the fiftieth anniversary for women suffrage, it was also a marker for the drastic change of different social norms, the changes of the American Dream, and the

    Read More

  • Effects Of Photoshop On Society

    1744 Words  | 4 Pages

    Skinny was not the most beautiful thing to people, and it was not as big of an issue as it is now. So where did the ideals change from curvy being beautiful to skin-and-bones skinny being beautiful? In the 1960 's, popular figures like Twiggy promoted being skinny as beautiful, around the same time the Barbie doll became popular with young girls (Bahadur). Sure, many people are actually born skinny. But some are born big-boned and cannot help that they are that way - and they should not have to worry about it. However, we as a society have changed these ideals because we are constantly exposed to the media 's rendition of what being beautiful should mean and accepting it. The fact that being bigger used to mean that someone was wealthy just goes to show that our culture has completely thrown this principle away. But, however appalling the issue may be, there are solutions to this terrible problem that is still on the rise and hope that it will get better. Instead of letting these vulnerable people look at magazine covers and wish they were in different skin, our duty as a society is to promote the embracement of beauty and self-confidence in everyone. Motivational speakers, many of which have had their own share of self-esteem issues in the past, need to be brought to the surface and get their messages out in the open even more than they already are. Jessica

    Read More

More about 1950s Women Research Paper

Open Document