The 1950s Housewife: The Rise of the Modern Supermom

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Recommended: American society in the 1950s

During the 1950s, it was believed that creating a home and having children were one of the most important goals for most women. During their schooling years, most women attended college to get their "M.r.s." degree, or the reason most women went to college was to get married and not to earn a real degree (PBS.org, 2001, para. 3). Women also started working again, though they did not have equal benefits or pay to men. Women were also hired for jobs that tailored to their looks, not their skills (Coster, 2011, p. 35-36). They were also encouraged to have large families, but needed help when it came to managing their household. Hollywood created an image of an American mother who has a wholesome family that influenced the way women thought and behaved. Advertising and Hollywood created ideals for the perfect 1950s housewives that were unattainable. Television ads reinforced gender roles of women and the pressure of being the perfect mother and wife caused mental health issues for a lot of women during this time. During the 1950s, women had a part in education, the workforce, in the home, in television, and even in mental health that helped evolve the old 1950s mother to a new modern mother.
Most women in the 1950s attended school and college. Women usually went to school for the chance of meeting their future husband. To begin with, Coster (2011), the author of A New Deal for Women: Expanding Roles of Women 1938-1960, observed that most women married right after high school or during college and then dropped out after marrying. Women tended to think that it was more important to have a husband then an education (p. 27). Coster (2011) also commented that during the 1950s, 70 percent of women married by the age of 24. If a woman did n...

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...trieved January 25,

2014, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_mrs.html

1950s, the. (2010). Retrieved February 10, 2014, from history.com website:

http://www.history.com/topics/1950s

Teenage life in the 1950’s. (2009). Retrieved February 14, 2014, from Rewind the

Fifties website: http://www.loti.com/fifties_history/Teenage_Life_in_the_1950s.htm

Frigidaire refrigerator commercial 1950's. (n.d.). [Video file]. Retrieved from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_i0EQSYsfI

Vintage xerox sexist commercial (n.d.). [Video file]. Retrieved from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swyqrf1PZjg

Connelly, Joe (1957). [Video file]. Retrieved from

http://movies.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70087786&trkid=13462100&t=Leave%2Beaver%253A%2BSsn%2B1%253A%2BBeaver%2527s%2BCrush&tctx=-99%2C-99%2C65057aef-88ab-4cdf-9122-8c5e0330353a-2268289

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