The 1950s Housewife: The Rise of the Modern Supermom

1419 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

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...

... middle of paper ...

...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

Show More
Related

  • Stephanie Coontz's What We Really Miss about the 1950s

    560 Words  | 2 Pages

    After viewing an episode of I Love Lucy, positive aspects of family and financial issues can be clearly seen in the 1950s. The Ricardo's are middle class, Ricky works as a club band leader and Lucy stays home and `poured all her energies into their nuclear family.' (37) This is a positive side of the 1950s because compared to a few decades before, `women quit their jobs as soon as they became pregnant,' (36) and concentrated more on raising children. These families were much more stable and made almost `60 percent of kids were born into male breadwinner-female homemaker families,' (37) which is a important factor for children to have a good childhood.

    Read More

  • Homemaker to Superwomen: The Evolution of Betsy Rath

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Fifties Society Summary

    593 Words  | 2 Pages

    It was expected of women to get married, have children, buy a suburban home and do housework. The video, “A Word to the Wives” displays what Betty Friedan calls, “the feminine mystique”. The video presents the dilemma of a woman who is not happy because she does not have the newest house. Her friend has all the new “necessities” in order to successfully complete housework. Women were defined by what they had, not by who they were. Friedan’s research found that despite fulfilling the “feminine mystique”, when women were questioned they realized they were not truly satisfied with their life. The woman in the video would not of been fulfilled by buying a new house, or object. Women were deprived of the need to put their skills and talents to a purpose. The video, “Are You Popular” also shows the expectations of women.. It promotes that appearance, serving others, and rewarding men with “women” gifts such as baking is how to be popular. It condones girls for “parking in cars” but accepts men who do the same thing. Women must earn the approval of men, and men must earn women by doing thing women are “incapable” of. The repression of women in the 50’s is what eventually causes the “outbreak” of feminism in the 60’s. The idolism of the “female mystique” covered the sexism against women in the

    Read More

  • The Role Of Domesticity In The 1950's

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Childless Couples on Television

    643 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Women in the early 1950s family were weak, secondary characters, and as such were usually dominated by their husbands and their own conceptions of marriage” (Hastings, 1974). Certain episodes of these shows always tried to prove that women should stay at home. When I Love Lucy came out with a woman as the main star, they still had her stay at home, cooking and cleaning, but still made her seem useless. “Women characters frequently were shown as less mature and less capable human-beings and their husbands often took a quasi-parental role by scolding them” (Hastings, 1974).

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in the 1950's Compared to Gender Roles Portrayed in Rebel Without a Cause

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Happy Days In The 1950's

    762 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1950s seemed to have brought families of all different kinds together and spend quality time with each other. Fathers were the head of the home out working all day to supply money for his family while the children were at school and his wife was at home. The children were gone all day just like their father but they were learning and obtaining a good education from school. The mother was a stay at home housewife doing all different chores, maintenances around the house, and preparing food for the

    Read More

  • Women In Suburbanization

    1456 Words  | 3 Pages

    Actually the blasts of the 1950s highly affected various ladies; books and magazine articles ("Don't Be Afraid to Marry Young," "Cooking To Me Is Poetry," " Femininity Begins At Home ") encouraged ladies to leave the workforce and spotlight on their parts as spouses and moms. The possibility that a ladies' most imperative role was to hold up under and back kids wasn't new yet it began to create a considerable measure of disillusionment among ladies who yearned for a better life. (In her 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique," ladies' rights promoter Betty Friedan contended that suburbia were "covering ladies alive."). This discontent, in this way, added to the restart of the feminist movement in the

    Read More

  • Working Women In The 1950s

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Lack of Women's role in society in the 1950s

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 to 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.

    Read More

  • Talcott Parsons And Bales: Leader Of The 1950s-Nuclear Family

    1505 Words  | 4 Pages

    However, social conditions made it less feasible for families to live this way. As the 1960s approached and consumption was in high demand, women were yet again, forced to join the work force; but only a quarter of the women joined the workforce, whereas in the 1990s about “two-thirds of women who had children were in the work force (Coontz 55). Coontz (1997) explains how by 1973, “real wages were falling for young families, and by the late 1970s, government effectiveness had decreased (Coontz 54). It was because of economic factors that the nuclear bread-winning family could only be a lifestyle a few can afford. Nonetheless, women joining the workforce created a new understanding of women-hood, changed women’s status in society, and created conflict within the household. Women did not have the time to complete all the household tasks which contributed to the increased divorce rates, but left women happier due to the fact that they had that ultimate

    Read More

  • Women in the Workplace

    2059 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the 1950s, women comprised less than one third of the labor force (Berger, 4) (See Appendix B). Women had their place in the workforce, yet it was not very influencial. Women had to fight to hold their positions while confro...

    Read More

  • Cat On A Hot Tin Roof Analysis

    1443 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 1950s, the stereotypical female was expected to fill a role that was awfully repressive and constrictive. Many standards were placed on women

    Read More

  • The 1950s Woman

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pill, the. People & events: mrs. America: women's roles in the 1950s. Retrieved January 25,

    Read More

  • How Our World is Changing

    1511 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about The 1950s Housewife: The Rise of the Modern Supermom

Open Document