In the 1950s the United States and the Soviets had a war in Korea. North Korea was with the Soviets and South Korea was with the United States. After, the war the United States and Russia were in what is called a cold war. When the korean war finished soldiers went back home and since they had not seen their wives for a very long time they consumed their love for one another often which is why they are called the Baby Boomers generation. Also, when the men came back they took the jobs that women had taken, when the men went off to war. This changed the role of women. It made women become housewives, which meant they had to listen to their husbands, they had to stay at home, take care of the kids, and well what a typical housewife does. But women were not really happy with this change. The image of a happy housewife in the 1950s was not accurate because many women were not really satisfied with just …show more content…
This demonstrates that women in the 1950s were not happy with being housewives, they wanted to do more as Friedan writes. Which implies that the image of being a happy housewife was not accurate because women were not satisfied with just doing the work at home they wanted to do more, they wanted to have an actual purpose in life not just clean and take care of their husband and kids. Also, document A shows how women were supposed to be perfect wives, although no one is perfect and how women were left at home, alone. This shows how women in the 1950s were not really happy with being a housewife because they had to everything that the husband wanted and they had to do it right. Women were technically viewed as servants, the only difference is they were not getting paid. So the image of a happy housewife was not accurate because women were not given their rightful place in the
For a long time ago, women just did anything at home: clean the house, wash clothes, cook the meals, and work outside the house and nutrient their children. Then they followed to order from their husband at home, and listen to the words of their husband. In addition, they made many little things in the military: wash clothes, serve the meals, and fix the clothes. The next things that it was convinced me when women had their own value in society. They began to raise their own worth and sense of themselves to build their country even though no one explained to them. People can consider that they endured very much but they did not still accept
“Women in the early 1950s family were weak, secondary characters, and as such were usually dominated by their husbands and their own conceptions of marriage” (Hastings, 1974). Certain episodes of these shows always tried to prove that women should stay at home. When I Love Lucy came out with a woman as the main star, they still had her stay at home, cooking and cleaning, but still made her seem useless. “Women characters frequently were shown as less mature and less capable human-beings and their husbands often took a quasi-parental role by scolding them” (Hastings, 1974).
Like stated earlier, gender roles in the 50’s were very strict and narrow-minded. That being said, women were extremely limited in their role in society. First of all, women were expected to be homemakers. By homemaker, I mean the women w...
The 1950s seemed to have brought families of all different kinds together and spend quality time with each other. Fathers were the head of the home out working all day to supply money for his family while the children were at school and his wife was at home. The children were gone all day just like their father but they were learning and obtaining a good education from school. The mother was a stay at home housewife doing all different chores, maintenances around the house, and preparing food for the
Some historians have argued that 1950s America marked a step back for the advancement that women made during WWII. What contributed to this “return to domesticity” and do you believe that the the decade was good or bad for women? The end of World War II was the main contributing factor to the “return to domesticity”. During the war, women played a vital role in the workforce because all of the men had to go fight overseas and leave their jobs. This forced women to work in factories and volunteer for wartime measures.
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.
Actually the blasts of the 1950s highly affected various ladies; books and magazine articles ("Don't Be Afraid to Marry Young," "Cooking To Me Is Poetry," " Femininity Begins At Home ") encouraged ladies to leave the workforce and spotlight on their parts as spouses and moms. The possibility that a ladies' most imperative role was to hold up under and back kids wasn't new yet it began to create a considerable measure of disillusionment among ladies who yearned for a better life. (In her 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique," ladies' rights promoter Betty Friedan contended that suburbia were "covering ladies alive."). This discontent, in this way, added to the restart of the feminist movement in the
They were mostly in charge of raising children and keeping the house clean and properly functioning. They were mostly financially dependent on their husbands because it was it was considered odd for them to earn money themselves. When factories and new machines begin to revolutionize the American economy, women's roles were changed entirely. The Marketing Revolution creates opportunities for women to earn their own wages and buy things, like clothes and food, which they may not have been able to buy previously themselves without the permission of their husbands to use their money. Women were trying to change the views of gender roles that was implied in society. Most of these women had left their families and worked to achieve a future for themselves while only a small portion of them decided to stay with family back
With the beginnings of the cold war the media and propaganda machine was instrumental in the idea of the nuclear family and how that made America and democracy superior to the “evils” of the Soviet Union and Communism; with this in mind the main goal of the 50’s women was to get married. The women of the time were becoming wives in their late teens and early twenties. Even if a women went to college it was assumed that she was there to meet her future husband. Generally a woman’s economic survival was dependent on men and employment opportunities were minimal.
Wake-up, make breakfast, wake the children, make sure everyone eats enough before work/school, kiss each out the door either off to school or to work, load the dishwasher, start a load of clothes, fold a load of clothes, put clothes away, vacuum, sweep the kitchen floor, walk the dog, run some errands, arrive home before the kids, unload the dishwasher and start dinner, etc. The daily routine of a 1950’s house wife can be grueling. There’s so much to do cram in to one day, however, the routine become monotonous. In fact, it becomes extremely cookie cutter after a while and the only thing one can think to ask is—why? And who—as in, who makes these rules for the house wife? Why must a woman clean and cook all day if they stay home while their
However, social conditions made it less feasible for families to live this way. As the 1960s approached and consumption was in high demand, women were yet again, forced to join the work force; but only a quarter of the women joined the workforce, whereas in the 1990s about “two-thirds of women who had children were in the work force (Coontz 55). Coontz (1997) explains how by 1973, “real wages were falling for young families, and by the late 1970s, government effectiveness had decreased (Coontz 54). It was because of economic factors that the nuclear bread-winning family could only be a lifestyle a few can afford. Nonetheless, women joining the workforce created a new understanding of women-hood, changed women’s status in society, and created conflict within the household. Women did not have the time to complete all the household tasks which contributed to the increased divorce rates, but left women happier due to the fact that they had that ultimate
The women of the 1950s struggled to fit into the mold that the American culture wanted them to be in. Women were meant to be the caretakers of the family and were expected to do whatever it would take to make sure that everything was perfect for their husbands. In a magazine article from Housekeeping Monthly that came out in 1955, there are a list of things that a woman must strive to do in order to be the ideal wife. This includes things such
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.
Furthermore, education was treated as a bar to marriage. During the decade housewifery tasks were glorified as a "proof of a complete woman." Becoming good wife was the dream of all young women. Such stereotype was shown everywhere on TV, in advertising and in the movies. There were loving couples, embracing under the trees of the new suburban house with 3 or 4 children in the playground. That was the picture of the happy family of the 50's.
369) Women were supposed to be happy and content at home taking care of her family. In the late 1950's, many women began to feel they needed more, and so a movement was started.