Gender Roles
Despite the progressive role women took on during the war, post war America looked very different. After the war society began to emphasis having babies and establishing families. With the return of the soldiers many women put down their welders and rivet guns and returned to their traditional role as a homemaker. To be fair the amount of women who continued to work after the war was more than the number that had held jobs before the war, but overall most women returned to their homes to raise children and the run the household, while their husbands earned the money.
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The ideal modern woman married, cooked and cared for her family, and kept herself busy by joining the local PTA and leading a troop of Campfire girls. She entertained guests in her family suburban house and worked out on the trampoline to keep her Size 12 figure ." |
Some women did contribute to the household income by working part time perhaps selling make-up or Tupperware door- to -door on weekends. Mary-Kay make up and Tupperware parties became ways that women could earn money and continue to hold onto their traditional role of wife and mother. Magazines and media endorsed these gender roles. “Better Homes and Garden” magazine told women “set [your] sights on a happy home, a host of friends and a bright future through the success of HIS job.” Everywhere that women looked there were stereotypes of what the “perfect” women should be like and with the introduction of television in the 1950s, it became easier and easier to get women and men to buy into these stereotypes.
The ideal 1950s man was the provider, protector and the boss of the house. " |
Men were also encouraged by society to take up the traditional role of “bread winner” and “king of the castle”. Men were expected to hold a job that paid enough to support his family to live comfortably. He was measured by the type of job he had, how much he got paid, home ownership and how happy and wonderful his family appeared to be. Men of the 1950s were judged and expected to play their part just as fully as women were expected to play theirs.
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