Customary standards for gender norms were never simple in the 1940s, they were complex constructions that are formed from the political, social, and economic developments of a given period. With the Cold War presented, the chance for normalcy to return was highly difficult. Although, men had to work and support the family while women stay home to take care of the household- In return, women began to resist the norms of their society and try to achieve the new standard of femininity. Women today have more responsibilities besides just getting married and having kids. This is the altercation of the concept of “Pink Think”, and how it is misguided due to the limitation of women following an imaginary standard. All these concepts are the interpretation of Author Lynn Peril, who calls this mind set “Pink Think.” In today's society, many people have various view points on what proper behavior for a woman is. Some believe women should be able to join the military and join strenuous work forces along side with men without question opposed to others that have the mentality of women “staying in the kitchen” meaning stay home and take care of the kids and support the man by any means. At this moment, women everywhere are off to college and working, some with higher income than men, and they cannot stand the idea of being a stay-at-home mom.
In Lynn Peril's Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons, it entered the generation during the 1950s to the 1960s, the era of the Cold War. At the time, the fear of nuclear warfare with Soviet Russia was on everyone's mind, the idea that it could happen at anytime discomforted everyone. The whole Cold War scare became a culture change for America. For preparation, thanks to hyper suburbia, fam...
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...behavior for women and perhaps to masculine. A common misconception about feminism is that women should and only stay home, watch the kids, and support the man. A common phrase would be to “keep the women in the kitchen.” Today, you can find many women getting an education, reaching higher levels beyond college, and working high paying careers and some out producing men, in this case, staying home and becoming a house wife should not be an option. Women today are not only a pretty face. With women having power in our government, control of education and big name corporations. Regardless of gender, no one should follow the influence of something that would promote people to become less than who they are. Hard work and effort would be put to waste if women today allowed themselves to just stay at home instead of doing something with themselves and for the better good.
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...
Throughout history, women were challenged with inequality and discrimination within a patriarchal society such voting in presidential elections, owning property and having job opportunities. During the last century, there have been many achievements that guarantee women rights and equality. For example, the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920 and the Equal Employment Opportunities Law prohibited employers from discriminating against gender in 1988.1 In her essay, “Pink Think”, Lynn Peril argues about the pressure on women that follow the rules of femininity.2 She describes the word “Pink Think”, as ideas and attitudes of proper women behavior.2 Although there are still some aspects of “Pink Think” culture that is still recognized today, the shifts in cultural and political events in recent centuries have increased attention to women’s issues against social injustice. Nevertheless, Peril neglects the fact that women today are living in a totally different time than how she pictures it because of the newly evolved cultural attitudes of gender roles and identity, labor, and living the American Dream.
In the end, it is clear that in recent decades, the domestic ideology and cold war militance have risen and fallen together. Immediately after World War II, stable family life seemed necessary for national security, civil defense, and the struggle for supremacy over the Soviet Union. For a generation of young adults who grew up amid depression and war, domestic containment was a logical response to specific historical circumstances. It allowed them to pursue, in the midst of a tense and precarious world situation, the quest for a sexually-fulfilling, consumer-oriented personal life that was free from hardship. But the circumstances were different for their children, who broke the consensus surrounding the cold war and domestic containment. Whether the baby-boom children will ultimately be more successful than their parents in achieving fulfilling lives and a more just and tolerant world remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: gender, family, and national politics are still intertwined in the ongoing saga of postwar cultural change.
Lynn Peril writes a fascinating study of pink color and its historical connection to ideas and beliefs of femininity. Peril translates and defines Pink Think as collection of specific ideas, beliefs, and approaches of how and when is feminine behavior considered as proper. Throughout her book, Peril is pointing out various fundamental approaches and attitudes that are considered to be crucial for women achievements and accomplishments. Peril's Pink Think also advocates how greatest concern of femininity is related to women physical appearance (fashion and beauty) and their marriage (motherhood and housekeeper). Furthermore, Peril is demonstrating an evolution of femininity, and constant and intense impact of its norms and rules on women lives.
The 2010’s and the 1950’s were two very important decades for women and their roles in society. The 2010’s is the social media era, where everything is online and electronic. 1950 is often called the hip decade. This was the decade where house wives were summed up in two words, June Cleaver. Wives catered to their husbands and took care of his every need before considering their own needs. Their “uniforms” were starch-ironed dresses with a spotless apron over it, accented with a string of pearls around their necks and a slim figure all around even after bearing forth at least three children, and to complete the entire outfit a pair of kitten heels. But most importantly they held the family together (Stoneham).
During the late nineteenth century, the notion of ?separate spheres? dictated that the women?s world was limited to the home, taking care of domestic concerns. Women were considered to be in the private sphere of society. Men on the other hand were assigned the role of the public sphere, consisting in the participation of politics, law and economics. Women in the meantime were to preserve religious and moral ideals within the home, placing children on the proper path while applying valuable influence on men. The idea was that the typical middle class woman would teach children middle class values so that they too will enjoy the luxuries and benefits in the future that the middle class has to offer (Lecture, 10/17).
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.
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;
In her essay "Pink Think," Lynn Peril explains and criticizes “Pink Think” roles by showing that the world has changed and now women have more roles than ever before. With her argument, Lynn Peril describes the preconception of female, how feminine ideal affects women’s life, as well as claims that “Pink Think” or those prejudices should be modified.
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.
...ything men can do. Although, women are treated somewhat like there is still room for improvement. Women have the opportunity to take on masculine occupations however; society doesn’t fully accept the change of women in the work field. Women in the work field are supposed to be as equal as men yet, there are some aspects that have not changed such as, respect, power and pay. Women could maintain the same job as a man but, still make less than men. According to United States Census Bureau, women make seventy-seven cents that a man’s dollars. Overall, in a year women are losing money that they have worked for. However, society as a whole is composed of consumers, and if consumers are not willing to changer there ways of thought and allow women and men to become equal then women will always be less than a men. No matter if it’s the same job title, position or education.
Up until recently, the definition of what a man or a woman should be has been defined, with boundaries, by society; males should be strong, dominant figures and in the workplace providing for their families while females should be weak and submissive, dealing with cleaning, cooking and children. Any veering away from these definitions would have disrupted the balance of culture completely. A man playing housewife is absurd, and a woman being the sole provider for the family is bizarre. In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls” and Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Shiloh”, conflict arises when expectations based on gender are not fulfilled by the characters. According to “Boys and Girls”, there are certain things women should not be doing as defined by their gender.
Today women have more rights and are treated differently than before. Society back then didn 't see how valuable women were. They didn 't see that women are capable of many things. They have suffered the most and always will. Men should give women their space and freedom. Feminism fights for equality between men and women, in the short story “Of An Hour’’ the main character fails to meet her expectations and how feminist is today 's changed. Certainly, feminism has always been a dilemma in the society . “A lack of economic opportunities , and the absence of voice is one of them”(The Women 's Rights movement 1). Before no one believed in women as being something else. They would just see them as a housewife , they would have them
During World War II, a lot of America women became Rosy the Riveter. When the war ended and the men returned home, they wanted to return to the traditional ways but many women did not want to give up their jobs and the supply of money they were making. This created a huge shift in the role of women in society that is still taking effect today (Griffiths et al., 2015). The traditional gender roles are still believed to work by some functionalists (Shepard, 1993). Famed sociologists Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales believed that “Families… require one adult in an ‘instrumental’ role and another adult in an ‘expressive’ role. The husband-father, who usually assumes the instrumental role, is responsible for family in the occupational, political, and economic situations. In preforming the expressive role, the wife-mother is concerned with maintaining relationships within the family, taking care of children, and providing emotional security for all family members”(pg. 300). Even though this may have worked at one time, many sociologists do not believe with Parsons and Bales; they think that modern society treats people not based on their role, but their abilities. Many sociologists believe that the functionalist perspective is outdated and only explains how gender roles came to be, not what they
Throughout the 19th century, feminism played a huge role in society and women’s everyday lifestyle. Women had been living in a very restrictive society, and soon became tired of being told how they could and couldn’t live their lives. Soon, they all realized that they didn’t have to take it anymore, and as a whole they had enough power to make a change. That is when feminism started to change women’s roles in society. Before, women had little to no rights, while men, on the other hand, had all the rights. The feminist movement helped earn women the right to vote, but even then it wasn’t enough to get accepted into the workforce. They were given the strength to fight by the journey for equality and social justice. There has been known to be