The sex roles or our society have been changing from the dawn of time. What society feels to be acceptable in the eyes of the sexes, has changed due to media, the times, technological advances, and what a society as a whole feels necessary to survive and prosper. In the U.S, the sex roles have changed from what was perceived as acceptable in the 1950's, to the present day America. Society shifted from a family oriented way of thinking, to a more liberal, loose fitting definition of family.
In the 1950's, the U.S went through major shifts in the various sex roles held by both men and women. With the war going on, and the sudden decrease of men in and around the work force, women were called upon to do, what was once thought to be only work acceptable for a man to uphold. The once ever-popular ideal and role of the woman as a housewife, was socially changed to cater to the sudden loss of the main workforce, which in the 1950's prior to the war, was predominantly male. Once the war was over and the men began to once again flood the work force, society suddenly made it inappropriate for women to hold the jobs they once did. Through propaganda the women were brought out of the original housewife mode and into the work place, and through propaganda, the women were placed back in their homes.
Prior to the war, the woman's place was in the home. Her job was to be the housewife, mother and devoted wife, while the husband's job was to make the money and provide for his family. "Women in the work field" was not thought to be appropriate. The middle classes in the U.S, strived to be socially acceptable, and along those thoughts, it was the middle classes that were fed the information through media, to establish the social norms. As see...
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...n area. The youth is able to see both male and female handling similar, if not like, jobs, as well as taking responsibility for the family duties. The woman's role is no longer confined to the home an in the society today, it is finally possible for the women to come home to her husband.
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"American Decades" Reference Detroit: Gale Reesearch, 1994
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?
According to Steve Craig in Signs of Life in the USA, the economic structure of the television industry has a direct effect on the placement and content of all television programs and commercials. Craig is a professor in the department of radio, television, and film at the University of North Texas, Craig has written widely on television, radio history, and gender and media. His most recent book is Out of the Dark: A History of Radio and Rural America (2009). Craig talks about the analysis of four different television commercial, showing how advertisers carefully craft their ads to appeal, respectively, to male and female consumers. The gendered patterns in advertising that Craig outlines in his essay still exist today, in commercials of how a men and women are portrayed.
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 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;
Hartmann, Susan M. The Home Front and Beyond: American women in the 1940s. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982
Smuts, Robert W. Women and Work in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. Print.
However, when the war was over, and the men returned to their lives, society reverted back to as it had been not before the 1940s, but well before the 1900s. Women were expected to do nothing but please their husband. Women were not meant to have jobs or worry about anything that was occurrin...
Before World War II, women were seen as stay at home mothers. Not only d...
Gender roles changed a lot in this century and popular literature like LIFE magazine changed with it. At first women had a set role in the house, expected to tend to the house and children and not pursue careers of their own. Thirty years later men and women had changed the way they lived life as a gender. Popular magazine articles provided a good illustration of what we were like culturally seventy years ago, and how we have changed today.
“Women’s roles were constantly changing and have not stopped still to this day.” In the early 1900s many people expected women to be stay at home moms and let the husbands support them. But this all changes in the 1920s, women got the right to vote and began working from the result of work they have done in the war. Altogether in the 1920s women's roles have changed drastically.
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
Women showed their skill and ability to work, changing their role in society. “Women were hired for traditionally male occupations” (“Women in business”). After being hired for male jobs, women were portrayed differently and not as the average housewife. In 1944 women addressed the fact they do not get equal pay for equal work and to have working conditions improved (“Women in Society”). That included having childcare for working mothers. This prepared women to be more aggressive and be more demanding so society would accept them and so they could continue taking on these nontraditional roles after war (“Women in Society”). Working made women more demanding and they stood up themselves. It did take some convincing to have women join the workforce. The concept of working women was encouraged and advertised during the war because employment was necessary. Rosie the Riveter was also a shaped image and type of role model for women to follow (“Women in Society”). Women were comfortable being housewives before the demand for workers, but things had to change. Women’s viewpoint changed from staying home and taking care of the household, to them not wanting to be known as a housewifes anymore. “They demanded participation in the public arena and refused to accept the restrictions of traditional gender roles”(“Women in Society”). Women wanted to participate more in the community and contribute more to the country. Not only did they want to participate more in society, but they wanted to be viewed as equal to men in society. In 1944, women addressed the fact they do not get equal pay for equal work and to have working conditions improved. That included having childcare for working mothers. This prepared women to be more aggressive and be more demanding so society would accept them and to continue taking on these nontraditional roles after the war (“Women in Society”). After witnessing how they were able
Society created the role of gender and created an emphasis on the differences between the two genders. Alma Gottlieb states: “biological inevitability of the sex organs comes to stand for a perceived inevitability of social roles, expectations, and meanings” (Gottlieb, 167). Sex is the scientific acknowledgment that men and women are biologically different; gender stems from society’s formation of roles assigned to each sex and the emphasis of the differences between the two sexes. The creation of meanings centers on the expectations of the roles each sex should fill; society creates cultural norms that perpetuate these creations. Gender blurs the lines between the differences created by nature and those created by society (Gottlieb, 168); gender is the cultural expectations of sexes, with meaning assigned to the diff...
There has been a culture shift over the past century: gender roles in society are changing, and people are less and less conforming to the same traditional characteristics they are expected to fulfill. Now we have families with women breadwinners and stay at home dads. What caused these changes? Wars, feminism, metro sexuality, and the internet/media have contributed to the changes in gender roles in western culture specifically it was. Growing up in a time with all these challenges in what is the appropriate way and inappropriate way to act has left kids more than ever struggling to find where they fit into society.
Women's roles were confined to a small list of responsibilities. As a result, they were seen as a minority. Society convinced women that they weren't capable of performing any work outside of the home. They were to stay home to cook, clean, take care of the children, and any other aspect involving the home. This was their sole responsibility. There wasn't anything else they were allowed or expected to do. Unfortunately this frame of mind developed in women and until only recently has this mindset been challenged by the female gender.