Women in 1950s Advertising: A Strengths Perspective

Women have been an integral part of society and culture throughout the world for the entirety of its history. This being said, women have not always been held in the brightest and most enabling of lights. With the advent of advertising, women have been portrayed in a variety of degrading tropes that repressed the freedom that many women began to publicly cry out for. The print advertisements of the 1950s have been portrayed as the worst of the offenders in objectifying women as unintelligent beings. Although I do support the thought that the advertisements of the 1950s were bad for putting forward the idea of women’s liberation, the ads of this time also helped to prepare for the second wave of feminism and the sexual revolution. It also promoted a positive look on being a woman, in addition to the negative, that promoted the gathering sense of identification throughout society in being a woman. Thus I am putting forward the additional idea that though the advertisements during this time were not all healthy views on womanhood, there were a great many that helped move women into the next 50 years, and that we could not be where we are today if we had not had the mass exposure of these ads in culture in the 1950s.

The two main tropes that are seen in advertisements of the 1950s are that of mother/matron/asexual being and of sexual deviant/object. These two tropes at first would seem to be not all that good for the way that society would view women. And true, they do promote a certain idea about women that isn’t very feasible and shouldn’t be counted upon. Even though this is true, these two tropes can be seen as positive reinforces of what makes women amazing as well as what fueled the coming changes in how society would come to ...

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...he female gender. Taking a closer look however, reveals a meaning and message that while probably not planned for, could have sparked the women of the 1950s to become uncomfortable with the way that their lives had turned, and to lead the way for the next cultural revolution of the times. The 1960s that followed would see many of the traditional values held by American women altered or discarded altogether, and would eventually lead to how women in America live today. While some stereotypes do still exist, possibly this generation can do what the generation that gave birth to the baby boomers did, and start our own revolution. Advertising is a large part of our everyday lives, so good or bad we take what we see in – it’s just what we do with it that counts, as the reaction to the ads of the 1950s taught us that sexist advertising can lead to great societal changes.