Women's Roles in The 50's  In the 50's, a woman
was married with children she stayed home to raise them. If she was single she worked to support herself. Teaching,
nursing, and office work as clerks and secretaries were held mostly by single working women. Most married women didn't have to work outside the home because families
could survive financially on the husband's income alone. And families back in the 50's seemed content
with a little less. Kids weren't as demanding, families saved and typically only bought things they could afford.
As more people began using credit to purchase more and more things, the need for
more income increased. Now families needed two incomes, and the women's movement was right there to nudge (push) women out
into the workforce, so it all worked...especially for business growth. Not so much for kids according to studies. The more women worked outside the home, the more families spent. They bought bigger houses, new
and second cars every year or two, color televisions, travel, clothing, furniture and more. The economy grew and all was well.
Home prices went sky high over the next forty years and the cost of a new car was as much as many home prices in the
50's. Greedy computer billionaires learned how to create buzz around their newest products and younger families are now waiting
to buy them, credit card in hand....every few months. Yes,
I remember the 50's fondly, even though it wasn't perfect. Back then,
a loaf of bread cost .14cents, the life expentancy for women was 71.1 and a man's life expentancy was 65.6. The median salary
was a bit over $2,000. Truman approved the production of the hydrogen bomb and sent our troops to Korea. A precurser
to the rebellious 60's, the Immigragtion and Naturalization Act was passed, removing ethnic and racial barriers for citizenship.
Segregation was ruled unconstitutional in the mid fifties too. In 1958 Explorer 1 was launched and became the first satellite
the U.S. sent into orbit. Alaska and Hawaii became states. The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, The Ed Sullivan show
were hot entertainment for many American Families. My family fit the mold of the American Dream in many ways, broke it in others.... My mother
put my father through school, as did many wives in the 50's. She dressed like June Cleaver, raised three children, kept the
house neat and orderly and prepared the meals... but she was also a great conversationalist because she was interested
in current events, politics, history, economics and business. My father was the breadwinner, a professional man
and head of the house. There was never any doubt about that. He was honest in business and charitable. He gave
us a good work ethic, taught us how to earn respect by example and how to respect others. He valued my mother's
opinion on everything and all of their decisions were joint. I attribute most of their success to that attribute. That's where they broke the mold because in the fifties things in most households were different. And a woman's role in the 50's was 'textbook'...which is not an exaggeration. The Home Economics
Text Book, HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE penned around 1954 was deemed the blueprint for success. Young high school
girls were taught that they weren't as good in math as the boys. They were more likely to excel in English, sewing and Home
Economics. Being a good wife and mother while helping her husband climb the corporate ladder was a woman's role and a
most laudable goal. 1.
Have dinner ready. “This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about
his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed.”
2. Prepare yourself. “Touch up your makeup, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking.
He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a
lift.” 3. Make sure your home is clean. 4. Prepare your children. 5. Minimize all noise. “At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer, dishwasher,
or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.
Be happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad he is home.” Make the evening his. Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of
entertainment. Instead, try to understand his world
of strain and pressure, his need to be home and relax.
Most of these suggestions are important for a good relationship
to some degree, especially when both partners are considerate and giving, and most women today implement at least
a few of these suggestions to create a loving environment in their homes, but during the 50’s, this was every woman’s
ultimate goal…please your husband with no expectations. Put your own interest aside.
If you did have
any problems everyone assumed it was your fault. Betty Friedman, author of THE FEMININE MISTIQUE wrote “The
problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction,
a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with
it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children,
chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question--"Is
this all?" …“By the end of the nineteen-fifties,
the average marriage age of women in America dropped to 20, and was still dropping. Fourteen million girls were engaged by
17. The proportion of women attending college in comparison with men dropped fro m 47 per cent in 1920 to 35 per cent in 1958.
Had they exchanged security for their chance at breaking the glass ceiling? It seemed so. A century earlier, women had fought
for higher education; now the reason girls went to college to get a husband. By the mid-fifties, 60 per cent dropped
out of college to marry. The other reason was they perceived education to be a barrier for getting her man. After all, a man's
ego was fragile. So fragile that women even feigned losing at golf or tennis. Colleges may have built dormitories
for "married students," but those students were usually husbands, not their wives. The wives' jobs were
to work and put their husband through school or care for their new baby. Things were
fine...until many women realized that her interests and goals were not being met, or husbands, after
reaching their professional goals tossed the wives and family aside. It was a rude awakening for many women who
were abandoned with few to no job skills outside their home-making skills. But, times they were a changing. The hedy 60's and free love, women's lib and political
activism was snapping at their heels. DESPITE THE FACT THAT BY TODAY'S STANDARD WOMEN RARELY LOOKED
OUTSIDE THEIR HOMES FOR FULFILLMENT, THERE IS A LOT MORE FUN TO REMEMBER ABOUT THE 50's SO TAKE A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE . SOME
FUN MEMORIES OF THE 50'S Comments made in the year
1955!
(That's 55 years ago!)
I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way
they are, it's going
to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20.00.
'Have you seen the new cars coming out next year?
It
won't be long before $2,000.00 will only buy a
used one.
'If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going
to quit.
A quarter a pack is ridiculous.
'Did you hear the post office is thinking about
charging a
dime just to mail a letter?
If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help
at the store. '
When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29cents a gallon?
Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage.
I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more ever
since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL or DAMN
in it.
'I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the
century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas .
'Did you see where some
baseball player just signed a
contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll
be making more than the President.
'I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric.
They are even making electric type- writers now.
'It's too bad things are so tough nowadays, I see where a few
married women are having to work to make ends meet.
It won't be long before young couples are going to have to
hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.
'I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the
door to a whole lot of foreign business.
'Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the
government
takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress.
'The drive-in
restaurant is convenient in nice weather,
But I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.
There is no sense
going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend, it costs nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel.
No one can
afford to be sick anymore, at $35.00 a day in the hospital it's too rich for my blood.
'If they think I'll pay
50 cents for a hair cut, forget it.'
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The 60's Roles for Women WOMEN ROLES IN THE 60’S This
was the age of youth and millions of post-war babies were now tweens or teen-agers getting ready to make their mark in the
world. By the mid 60’s young women wore mini skirts, hot pants, peasant skirts and granny skirts. They burned their
bras, poofed their hair, or wore it long and straight, started college, exchanged the moral and religious values they'd been
taught at home for their professors' values and protested the war. College campuses became the forum for political debate
about everything from the Vietnam war to civil rights and zero population. They questioned their mothers' roles as helpmates,
burned their bras, left home for San Francisco, turned off to the establishment and turned on to drugs and free love.
The free love' concept was great for single men but had tragic costs for young women. After all, the men only wanted
sex. The idea of taking responsibility for the outcome of their trists flew in the face of this free love concept. This lack
of commitment towards these women in the 60's left hundreds of thousands of children fatherless and without financial support.
It was a heady, tumultuous time for women. Everything and everyone was undergoing change. Even art, books and architecture
reflected political and social changes taking place in the U.S.. To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic and one of my favorites
highlighted a small town hero and how he and his young family coped with racial inequities in the south. Architecture was
undergoing a refinement of Modernism and a more streamlined contemporary look emerged during the 60's. In 1966 NOW (National
Organization of Women) created their Statement of Purpose. Women were told they could have anything, and didn't need a man
in their lives. They should flee the idea of home and family and become career women. And along with this new attitude, the
world was also introduced to Phyllis Schlafly. And so began the war between career and home. Traditional roles were simultaneously
being bombarded and defended. Women certainly had more choices in the late 60's and 70's, but if you made the wrong choice...
to marry, have children and become a stay-at-home-mom, you were considered a traitor to the women’s rights movement.
This created a rift between women, and one we are still trying to bridge.
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