Aside from the approach taken by Elaine Tyler May and Jessica Weiss, Alan Petigny argues in his book The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965 against the traditional narrative of the 1950s being the years of conservative values, religious resurgence, and family orientation. Instead, Peking argues that American social norms remained conservative during the 1950s, however, personal values and behavior underwent a significant process of liberalization between 1941 and 1965. This is a similar view shared by Jessica Weiss. In making the case for the “dramatic liberation of values during the Truman and Eisenhower years,” Peking points to the “emergence of the Permissive Turn.” Essentially, this position argues that “during the latter half of …show more content…
That because of the government, “all of the social sciences received…an injection of adrenaline, as well as money.” That “the increasing respect accorded to physiologists, sociologists, economists, and social workers enabled a battery of experts to better challenge the traditional or religious view of the way life should be ordered.” That people stopped consulting the bible, or asking what would their parents do when it came to moral authority, instead they started to ask “what do the experts say?” The expansion of higher education was also another factor facilitating “more liberal attitudes during the 1950s.” That this altered “the way Americans thought about a host of sensitive issues, including attitudes toward psychology, sex, religious faith, and the role of women in society.” On the subject regarding the transformation of gender roles, Petigny reaches the same conclusion that Jessica Weiss did: “The Husband may have persisted in his traditional role of breadwinner, but his status as the ‘head of the household’ was clearly undermined by the increased democratization of the husband wife relationship.” This is not a surprise since Petigny uses the same study used by Weiss. The study found that “Wives dominating family decision just as often as husbands (22 percent of …show more content…
They bring missing components in the offered narratives. Because of this, they moved the subject from the local to the national level and vice versa. Some of their themes overlap, but at the same, each narrative brings a fresh viewpoint to the dialogue. When read together, one can have a clear sense in how much the historiographic view of 1950s and the transformation of gender roles has and continues to change. May, Weiss, and Petigny have all composed impressive and unique books that will have an enduring effect on the historiography of the 1950s and the American family. The monographs sway the reader with the extent of their inquiry and the comprehensive range of their examination. These studies demonstrate that the history behind the transformation of gender roles during the postwar period is migrating to an area that not only abandons the 1950s clichés, but also questions popular assumptions of this period. These three maneuver above the narrative of the 1950s as a time of conformity and embracement of “traditional values.” Not only do they show the various paths for the transformation of gender roles in postwar America, but also demonstrate the basic and important relation between the government and the general public. They remind us that the 1950s is simply a decade that is connected to the past, as well as its future, and not simply a static period of unchanged dynamics. Realized and composed thirty
John Bodar, “Unruly Adults: Social Change and Mass Culture in the 1950s”, OAH Magazine of History 26 no. 4 (2012): 22.
A main theme in this small town’s culture is the issue of gender and the division of roles between the two. Not uncommon for the 1950’s, many women were taught from a young age to find a good man, who could provide for them and a family, settle down and have children – the ideal “happy family.” As Harry states after singing the showstopper “Kids,” “I have the All-American family: A great wife, 2 wonderful kids and a good job.”
Elaine Tyler May's Homeward Bound weaves two traditional narratives of the fifties -- suburban domesticity and rampant anticommunism -- into one compelling historical argument. Aiming to ascertain why, unlike both their parents and children, postwar Americans turned to marriage and parenthood with such enthusiasm and commitment, May discovers that cold war ideology and the domestic revival [were] two sides of the same coin: postwar Americans' intense need to feel liberated from the past and secure in the future. (May, p. 5-6, 10) According to May, "domestic containment" was an outgrowth of the fears and aspirations unleashed after the war -- Within the home, potentially dangerous social forces of the new age might be tamed, where they could contribute to the secure and fulfilling life to which postwar women and men aspired.(May, p. 14) Moreover, the therapeutic emphases of fifties psychologists and intellectuals offered private and personal solutions to social problems. The family was the arena in which that adaptation was expected to occur; the home was the environment in which people could feel good about themselves. In this way, domestic containment and its therapeutic corollary undermined the potential for political activism and reinforced the chilling effects of anticommunism and the cold war consensus.(May, p.14)
Evans, Sara M. "Sons, Daughters, and Patriarchy: Gender And The 1968 Generation." American Historical Review 114.2 (2009): 331-347. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19
In the late1960’s American politics were shifting at a National level with liberalism being less supported as its politics were perceived as flawed, both by people on the left who thought that liberalism was not as effective as more radical political enterprises and by conservatives who believed that liberal politics were ostensibly crippling the American economy.
Coontz, Stephanie. “What We Missed About the 1950s.” Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. 9th ed. Eds. Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. 27-43. Print.
Many parts of history show that the 1950’s was a time of great turbulence and unrest in both politics and social life. All this unrest was caused by major historical events, including the Red Scare/McCarthyism and the Cold War. However, although many aspects of life in the 50’s were in such disarray, gender roles were not one of those aspects. In fact, there was a very narrow, strict idea of what it meant to be a male and a female during this time. The following discusses what was considered proper gender roles in the 1950’s and how these roles vary compared to the gender roles portrayed in the 1955 movie, Rebel Without a Cause.
The 1950’s have received a reputation as an age of political, social and cultural conformity. This reputation is rightfully given, as with almost every aspect of life people were encouraged to conform to society. Conforming is not necessarily a negative thing for society, and the aspects of which people were encouraged to conform in the 1950’s have both negative and positive connotations.
The era of the 1950s was an iconic era in American history. The American dream of freedom, self empowerment, and success was growing. After world war 1, the ideals of american culture changed. The country saw the aftermath of the war in the countries of western Europe where communism was beginning to take hold, and the U.S tried to be the opposite. Marriage was propagated to be the opposite of the war torn families across the world, where women were working in factories and children fending for themselves with no home. The American “nuclear family” strived to be one where the father supported his family, the wife stayed home and provided for her children. Family became a national priority, and women were taught that a happy marriage and home
The 1950s seemed like a perfect decade. The rise of suburbs outside cities led to an expansion of the middle class, thus allowing more Americans to enjoy the luxuries of life. The rise of these suburbs also allowed the middle class to buy houses with land that used to only be owned by more wealthy inhabitants. Towns like Levittown-one of the first suburbs- were divided in such a way that every house looked the same (“Family Structures”). Any imperfections were looked upon as unfavorable to the community as a whole. Due to these values, people today think of the 1950s as a clean cut and model decade. This is a simplistic perception because underneath the surface, events that took place outside the United States actually had a direct effect on our own country’s history. The rise of Communism in Russia struck fear into the hearts of the American people because it seemed to challenge their supposedly superior way of life.
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.
The 1950s was a time when conformity held supreme in the culture at large. Issues such as women 's rights were thrown to the back as people tried to remain in the popular form of a family. These issues being put off only caused the prolonging of the tumultuous 1960s that would soon
As World War Two came to a close, a new American culture was developing all across the United States. Families were moving away from crowded cities into spacious suburban towns to help create a better life for them during and after the baby boom of the post-war era. Teenagers were starting to become independent by listing to their own music and not wearing the same style of clothing as their parents. Aside from the progress of society that was made during this time period, many people still did not discuss controversial issues such as divorce and sexual relations between young people. While many historians regard the 1950s as a time of true conservatism at its finest, it could really be considered a time of true progression in the American way of life.
Although the sixties were a decade in which the United States became a more open, more tolerant, and a freer country, in some ways it became less of these things. During the sixties, America intervened in other nations and efforts were made to stop the progress of the civil rights movement. Because of America’s foreign policy and Americans fight against the civil rights movement, it is clear that the sixties in America were not purely a decade of openness, tolerance, and freedom in the United States.
In Quan Li’s and Rafael Reuveny’s article Democracy and Environmental Degradation, the authors look at how democracy affects environmental degradation. Li and Reuveny decide to study this aspect of political science because of the small amount of research that has been done and because the conflicting findings in most of the previous studies (Li and Reuveny 935). In this article, they use six dependent variables that in their estimation best represent environmental degradation. The six dependent variables are CO2 emissions per capita, NOx emissions per capita, water pollution, rate of deforestation, area of land that is forested, and severe land degradation. The independent variable, democracy, was measured in two ways. The first was a continuous measurement that measured the democracy as an index. The other way was as a simple dummy variable, where democracy was coded as a 1 and an autocracy was coded 0. On top of this they used a host of control variables. In the study, they found that democracies tend to have less of an effect on environment than autocracies. However,...