For a large portion of recorded western history, women have been constantly hindered in every aspect of life because of their recurrent, societal projected, subordinate position to men. The position of women in America, however, experienced an immense revitalization in the 1940s. World War II brought upon profound social changes in America, most notably affecting the lives of women. As a result America’s women flooded the workforce in order to support both their homes and the American military currently overseas. This colossal shift in the labor force allowed for similarly immense changes in American socioeconomics. After the men returned from the war, many women remained in the work force, contributing a significant percentage to their home’s …show more content…
income. Increased socioeconomic mobility brought about great shifts in the societal roles of women.
The radical, socioeconomic changes of the 1940s essentially ignited and revolutionized gender roles of women in the 1950s and 1960s. Women, for the first time in American history, became full time workers, while simultaneously maintaining their traditional roles of mother and wife. Edith Hamberger exemplified the reformation roles women took on in the 1950s.
In the 1950s and 60s, women maintained a variety of gender roles, most notably work, motherhood and marriage. With the start of the Cold War in the 1950s, family life became extremely important in the United States. A strong family life was seen as a way to combat communism at home (Catalano 2002). This new ideal placed an emphasis on women's roles as mothers, wives and on their duty to tend to the household. In addition, many women began to work. As a result, women began to balance their roles at home with their roles at work. In the years following the war, a great deal was expected of women. Parents expected their daughters to marry very early. Edith, for example, married her husband,
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Irving, at the early age of 20. For women in the 1950s, marriage was a time of passage. Once married, a woman would be bombarded with a plethora of roles that she was expected to fulfill. Many women became determined to obtain a stable job with a paying salary, resulting from the many changes that took place during the 1940s, including increased socioeconomic mobility. In some cases a husband even expected his wife to find work after they had married, usually only until she had given birth. American culture did not particularly encourage women to work. This did not prevent women from working, however, by 1960, 31% of married women were employed (Waite, 1976). Shortly after Edith had married Irving, she had found a job as a secretary, in order to help support herself and her new husband. Once Edith became pregnant and gave birth to her only son, Richard, Edith quit her job as a secretary and focused on life as a mother and on raising Richard. The 1950s “encouraged the exclusive investment of women in the motherhood,” several factors are most likely responsible for this emphasis (McClain et al 1991), the main factor most likely was the start of the cold war and societal ideals to have a strong family life. Emphasized motherhood may have also been an attempt by men to once again take control of the workforce after being replaced by women during World War II. A stress on motherhood may have simply been a result of the baby boom, and a need to repopulate America after World War II. “Motherhood, as a role, has undergone a series of redefinitions throughout history, with the 1950s in the United States a time of particularly intense emphasis on traditional values of home and family. Women in this postwar period were encouraged to bear and raise children, be good wives, and leave full-time jobs to the war veterans,” this explains why many women still did not have full-time jobs after marriage (McClain et al 1991). “But even in this family-focused era, not all women were satisfied with domesticity as the sole focus of their lives,” as a result, a number of women still acquired full time jobs after marriage (McClain et al 1991). Edith focused six years of her life on motherhood until her son was old enough to attend school after that she pursued a full time job. In the first couple years of her job, Edith was earning more than her husband, with an income of $5,000 a year. Edith exemplifies the unspoken need and role for women in the workplace during the 1950s and 60s, despite a society that largely emphasized the traditional roles of women. Women had a great deal of responsibility and a variety of gender roles in the 1950s and 60s.
Despite the contribution of women during World War II, the years following the war were still marked by an emphasis on the traditional roles of women. Women were expected to be good wives and mothers. The 1950s, however, was the first time mothers were working full time, balancing their life at home with their life at work. Even though women were still discriminated against in many ways, the 50s began to show a reformation in the roles of women. Women began entering the workforce, maintaining a stable salary and supporting their families. For the first time, there was a possibility that a woman could achieve great success in the workplace and with it, great respect. There was, however, still a great need for reform. Ultimately, “the groundwork for the women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s was laid in the 1940s and 1950s,” (More 2011). Essentially, the change in socioeconomics in the 1940s, and the reformed gender roles of women in the 50s paved the way for future feminist revitalization
movements.
During the time of 1940-1945 a big whole opened up in the industrial labor force because of the men enlisting. World War II was a hard time for the United States and knowing that it would be hard on their work force, they realized they needed the woman to do their part and help in any way they can. Whether it is in the armed forces or at home the women showed they could help out. In the United States armed forces about 350,000 women served at home and abroad. The woman’s work force in the United States increased from 27 percent to nearly 37percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married woman worked outside the home. This paper will show the way the United States got the woman into these positions was through propaganda from
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.
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.
For the first time women were working in the industries of America. As husbands and fathers, sons and brothers shipped out to fight in Europe and the Pacific, millions of women marched into factories, offices, and military bases to work in paying jobs and in roles reserved for men in peacetime. Women were making a living that was not comparable to anything they had seen before. They were dependent on themselves; for once they could support the household. Most of the work in industry was related to the war, such as radios for airplanes and shells for guns. Peggy Terry, a young woman who worked at a shell-loading plant in Kentucky, tells of the money that was to be made from industrial work (108). “We made a fabulous sum of thirty-two dollars a week. To us that was an absolute miracle. Before that, we made nothing (108)." Sarah Killingsworth worked in a defense plant. " All I wanted to do was get in the factory, because they were payin more than what I'd been makin. Which was forty dollars a week, which was pretty good considering I'd been makin about twenty dollars a week. When I left Tennessee I was only makin two-fifty a week, so that was quite a jump (114)." Terry had never been able to provide for herself as she was able to during the war. " Now we'd have money to buy shoes and a dress and pay rent and get some food on the table. We were just happy to have work (108).” These women exemplify the turn around from the peacetime to wartime atmosphere on the home front. The depression had repressed them to poverty like living conditions. The war had enabled them to have what would be luxury as compared to life before.
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...
During WWII, women took over the work force, and had such inspirations as Rosie the Riveter. This created a generation of women who wanted more out of life than birthing children, and keeping a nice home for their husband. The end of the war, however, brought with it a decrease of working women. In the 1950’s the rate of working women had slightly rebounded to 29% following the post-war decrease in 1945. These women were well rounded, working outside the home, and still having dinner on the table by 5PM.
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;
Many factors affected the changes in women’s employment. The change that occurred went through three major phases: the prewar period in the early 1940s, the war years from 1942-1944, and the post war years from around 1945-1949. The labor shortage that occurred as men entered the military propelled a large increase in women’s entrance into employment during the war. Men's return to the civilian workforce at the end of the war caused the sudden drop to prewar levels. The cause of the sudden decline during post war years of women in the paid workforce is unclear. Many questions are left unanswered: What brought women into the war industry, ...
During America’s involvement in World War Two, which spanned from 1941 until 1945, many men went off to fight overseas. This left a gap in the defense plants that built wartime materials, such as tanks and other machines for battle. As a result, women began to enter the workforce at astonishing rates, filling the roles left behind by the men. As stated by Cynthia Harrison, “By March of [1944], almost one-third of all women over the age of fourteen were in the labor force, and the numbers of women in industry had increased almost 500 percent. For the first time in history, women were in the exact same place as their male counterparts had been, even working the same jobs. The women were not dependent upon men, as the men were overseas and far from influence upon their wives.
also managed to prove that they could do the jobs just as well as men
During the Great War and the huge amount of men that were deployed created the need to employ women in hospitals, factories, and offices. When the war ended the women would return home or do more traditional jobs such as teaching or shop work. “Also in the 1920s the number of women working raised by fifty percent.” They usually didn’t work if they were married because they were still sticking to the role of being stay at home moms while the husband worked and took care of the family financially. But among the single women there was a huge increase in employment. “Women were still not getting payed near as equally as men and were expected to quit their jobs if they married or pregnant.” Although women were still not getting payed as equally it was still a huge change for the women's
In the 1960’s women were still seen as trophies and were beginning to be accepted into the work industry. They were still homemakers, raised the family, and made sure their husbands were happy. That was the social norms for women during that time period. They were not held to high work expectations like men were. But something amazing happened that would change women 's lives for centuries; it was the 1970’s. The 60’s put the equality movement in motion but 70’s was a time of reform where women were finally able to control their own paths. Not only was the 70’s a historical marker for the fiftieth anniversary for women suffrage, it was also a marker for the drastic change of different social norms, the changes of the American Dream, and the
In every war the women had stepped up to try to help the men who were off to fight, but the more agrarian societies of the revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and even World War I meant that most stepped up to do the work on the farm. In World War II, it was just as likely that the wives and mothers were stepping up to take a place in a factory as in the fields. While America was still primarily agrarian, the factories needed for warfare had brought the women to take their husband’s and son’s and boyfriend’s places. And while some women followed their husbands to the battlefront in the Civil War, and a few even enlisted as men, World War II brought a whole new experience as a huge war machine needed the men at the fronts for ...
Women were drawn into the work place in the 1960's when the economy expanded and rising consumer aspirations fueled the desire of many families for a second income. By 1960, 30.5 percent of all wives worked and the number of women graduating from college grew. (Echols, 400) Women soon found they were being treated differently and paid less then their male co-workers.