With marriage rates at an all-time high amidst an extraordinary baby boom, remaining single was akin to social suicide for American women in the 1950s. Faced with the unprecedented pressure to conform to social norms, women were left with few options that centered on their own happiness. Was being the docile suburban housewife really the be-all and end-all for women in 1950s America? Or was it just a myth so perpetuated and subscribed to that it became ingrained in the social consciousness of mid-century Americans.
1950s America: Settling into the Post-War Stability
Having emerged from World War II as a victorious political and economic powerhouse, the United States ushered in an era of growth after a decade of hardship. War veterans returned home from the frontlines to a brand-new life waiting on the horizon. They enjoyed special veteran benefits that allowed them to fund their new suburban homes easily and secure employment and education opportunities. With higher wages and lower unemployment rates, the American economy saw low inflation rates and welcomed an era of mass consumerism. People were spending more on a wider variety of consumer products and enjoying more leisurely pursuits in a relatively peaceful society. At last, after enduring the interminable, dreadful war years, the American dream seemed to have finally come to fruition.
As the men came home from the war, women no longer had to fill in their positions in the workplace. With rising wages, many suburban households could afford to live on the paychecks of the sole male breadwinner. Many women went back to aspiring to be full-time homemakers as the post-war stability encouraged marriage and family planning. Idealized in the media and society, the perfect 1950s housewife became an unrealistic beacon of success few women could live up to. She was to look impeccable and enjoy maintaining the cleanliness of the house and caring for her husband and children, even if it meant putting their needs before her own.
The Perfect Nuclear Suburban Family
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As opposed to the decades that preceded and followed, the 1950s was a time of desiring stability. Together with the improving socio-economic conditions, many middle-class families, comprised mostly of white folks, were moving to the suburbs sprouting in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey to start a new life. These idealized communities boasted low crime rates and high standards of living, complete with the necessary amenities for groceries, leisure, and education.
These families typically featured a heterosexual couple married with two children. Described as a nuclear family, it was regarded as the perfect familial structure that became the norm in the 1950s. Before its gradual disintegration in the 1970s, the nuclear family was the ideal family unit in the social consciousness of Americans. Divorce rates decreased sharply, and fertility rates rose significantly from 1950 to 1965, lending strength to the argument that the nuclear family with a male breadwinner and a female homemaker was a winning formula.
Subscribing to this marital ideal and being family-centric thus became the celebrated American way of life. The US government rewarded these families with ample subsidies and financial support ranging from mortgages to tax benefits. On the flip side, those who were non-conformists fell through the cracks. For instance, unwed mothers, single parents, and gay people were barred from enjoying this type of social support and benefits.
Larger Forces at Work
The aggressive state promotion of the concept of a nuclear family bore deeper political considerations. With the increasingly concerning Cold War tensions, the US government believed that a strong nuclear family functioned as a safeguard against subversive and divisive forces in society. Adapted from the political term containment—a postwar policy to prevent the spread of communism—the notion of domestic containment began to take root. With carefully delineated gender roles where women maintained the household and men took home the paycheck, family values and stability were emphasized during a time of political upheavals. Mass media of the time propagated tropes such as the dangerous prison wife, aimed at discrediting women who shirked their domestic responsibilities for liberal pursuits.
Things That Did Not Age Well: Sexist Print Advertisements
Within and beyond the household, women of the 1950s were constantly reminded of their subservient status. Print advertisements scattered all over the media propagated the message that women were made to service men’s needs. These advertisements were obviously created to market and sell products to housewives. Yet the advertisers saw a compelling need to speak down to and insult their prospective customers. Archaic and dreadful as they may be to our modern ears, these advertisements did not seem to raise any eyebrows in a conservative and heteronormative society. Phrases such as “You mean a woman can open it?” were used to sell the new Alcoa Aluminium bottles that boasted an ease of use. Similarly, a Palmolive postage meter advertisement outrightly asked the question, “Is it always illegal to kill a woman?”
The 1950s Housewife and The Problem That Has No Name
Millions of women lived their lives in the image of those pretty pictures of the American sub-urban housewife kissing their husbands goodbye in front of the picture window, depositing their stationwagonsful of children at school, and smiling as they ran the new electric waxer over the spotless kitchen floor… Their only dream was to be perfect wives and mothers; their highest ambition is to have five children and a beautiful house, their only fight to get and keep their husbands.
The Feminine Mystique (1963)
A landmark book published in 1963 by American author Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique delved into “the problem that has no name.” Referring to the widespread dissatisfaction and disillusionment experienced by stay-at-home mothers in the 1950s, the book challenged the prevailing assumption that homemaking made women feel complete. It argued that while society and mass media painted an idyllic picture of happy housewives basking in the glory of keeping the home clean and husbands happy, the reality was different. Going through the daily humdrum, these housewives were often bored, dissatisfied, depressed, and anxious. Growing numbers of such women were seeking psychiatric help, only to be dismissed with unhelpful suggestions.
Following the book’s publication, it invited backlash from a handful of women who felt that Friedan’s work threatened their stability, devalued their labor, and disrespected their intelligence. However, the book was widely celebrated for having resonated with a whole generation of American women trapped in a perceived suburban bliss propagated in the 1950s. Offering a compelling insight into the silenced, tormented voices of housewives, The Feminine Mystique became one of the most influential publications in the 1960s. It was later credited with igniting the Second Wave of feminism in the United States, which saw women vocalizing their grievances against the gender and power imbalance and advocating for more equality.
Venturing Into the Workforce
Despite the glorification of the happy homemaker, some women in the 1950s chose to put their kitchen aprons away and venture into the workforce. In 1950, women, numbering about 18.5 million, constituted 33.9% of the labor force in the United States. While career options were rather limited, women found employment as teachers, nurses, secretaries, and factory workers among others. Those who were more highly educated also secured jobs in emerging fields such as engineering and pharmaceutical science.
Clerical work was one area in which many women took an interest. In 1957, a company called Kelly Girls rose to prominence for supplying temporary help filling in administrative gaps to offices. Tens of thousands of women were able to perform roles such as answering calls, typing letters, and other office functions in corporate offices nationwide. By 1962, the number of Kelly Girls, as these temporary employees came to be known, was said to have surpassed a whopping 60,000.
The Experiences of African American Women
The twinned forces of domesticity and consumerism targeted predominantly middle-class White American women in the 1950s. With representation and diversity non-existent at the time, their African American counterparts did not enjoy the same level of luxury and stability. Many of these African American women had to work outside of the home out of economic necessity and were not part of the prosperity equation. Some entered the teaching and nursing professions, while others worked as domestic helpers in middle and upper-class homes of White people. However, most African American women in the 1950s could only survive on low wages—typically about 40% lower than those of White women—in overwhelmingly segregated industries such as manufacturing and retail trade.
The End of the Idyllic 1950s America
The 1950s is best remembered as a time when political strife was precariously balanced by perceived domestic and social stability. Much to the displeasure of their 1920s counterparts, American women gave up their hard-fought freedom and rights for a life of domesticity. A good number of them had been sold into the state-enforced belief that a blissful marriage and a tidy household were the keys to long-term happiness. Yet embedded in the picture-perfect ideal of suburbia and domesticity were inexplicable feelings of depression, anxiety, and meaninglessness experienced by tens of thousands of housewives across America.
Suddenly, the picture was not as perfect as it had been depicted by the media and the state. Supporting this argument was the glaring, often dismissed, predicament of African American women who had not been privileged to enjoy the middle-class, suburban lifestyle of the white community. As the 1950s came to a close, so did conformity. These underlying tensions would soon boil over, powering the dual forces of change, with the Civil Rights Movement and Second Wave Feminism defining the 1960s.
