Masculinity In The 1950s Essay

For young males in 1950s America, masculinity would be identifiable through “the shape of a man’s body,” in particular the “size of the waistline.” Physical prowess became a worry as traditional male jobs for the middle-class shifting into white-collar offices where physical exertion was a remote possibility. An individual worry of physical weight in the 1950s stemmed from societal concerns taught from the American government. Presidential administrations such as Kennedy and Eisenhower, had “fitness crusades” that emphasized to the American public that active lifestyles were a patriotic achievement, especially for young men whose potential lives as future soldiers in the Cold War necessitated peak prowess for a better American military. The

An oft unrecognized phenomena is that men too heard the “call for domesticity,” as social scientists and other “experts” wanted men to “play a greater role” within households, to gain a more influential and physical presence for their children alongside the continual role as head of the family. Men were urged to “partake in raising children,” that the domestic sphere should not be held entirely by the mother of the household. This was wholly in fear of the “overbearing” female figure creating “effeminate” sons that would then engage in sex-crimes such as homosexuality; such thought processes led family professionals to urge more fatherly influence in the life at home. Yet this “posed a dilemma” within fathers, as a balance between “work and home demands” grew more difficult to manage as focusing on the family would lower potential income and thus social status, while attention to career could neglect the children into deviant behaviors. Such contradictory messages in the 1950s were gladly received yet unable to properly be executed, and frustration built under the veneer of traditional American nuclear family until the 1960s, when divorce rates dramatically rose, proving the traditional family mores of the era as incapable of true implementation in any true American lifestyle. And when traditional authorities would not recognize this, the youth culture of the decade implemented one of the first true counter culture movements in