I love Lucy!

Advertising during the 1950s often depicted women as failures in the kitchen and other house chores. For example, housewives were portrayed as being too stupid to even handle the basics of making a cup of coffee. Not only did ads depict women as being inferior to men but some of the most popular shows in the 1950s like the sitcom, I Love Lucy, were “built around the struggles of a housewife whose stupidity keeps getting her into scraps, which resulted in lectures and yes, even spankings from her husband , who basically treated her like an overgrown child” as mentioned by Amanda Marcotte in the article, Housewives didn’t

live in Bliss in the 50s.

Gender roles of the 1950s played a huge role in I Love Lucy as the main character, Lucy Ricardo, a typical 1950s housewife, who cooks, cleans, and takes care of her child. Lucy is also financially dependent of her husband. However, Lucy also has ambitions for fame and living a glamorous life in which leads her to seek ways where she could earn some money, but unfortunately fails every time she tries because she is portrayed as incompetent and inferior to men. Therefore, I Love Lucy intends to show the housewives viewers at home that they are better off not pursuing any hidden dreams or ambitions in which would lure them away from their traditional societal roles as housewives.

 

Below I have attached a video I found on YouTube portraying the societal norms in the 1950s from I love Lucy.  

Women's education in the 1950s

In the 1950s education played a huge role in gender construction, as the ratio of men to women going to college was 9:1. The number of women attending college was low because many women married soon after high school and for those who did pursue a college education eventually dropped out because they got married and even after they graduated from college many women did not obtain jobs because they planned to live as housewives.
Female students would take special courses that prepared them for home life such as cooking class, interior decoration and family finance. Many 1950s women looked at college as a good place to find a spouse. Many women attended colleges near men colleges where their main goal was to marry one of these men before they graduated.

Many women did not make it to college because in high school they were taking many home education courses in which would prepare them to be good housewives.  For example, if you click on this link:http://www.snopes.com/language/document/goodwife.asp you will find a list of ten steps on how to be a good wife found in a 1950s high school textbook. Basically, women were to taught to attend their husbands every need and facilitate their husbands lives in every way possible such as minimizing the noise in the house while he is at home and having dinner prepared before he arrives from work. Therefore, women were expected and encouraged before they even considered attending college to become housewives.

The film, Mona Lisa smile, accurately portrays the roles that college educated women were expected to fill in the 1950s. The film takes place in one of the most prestigious women’s college, Wellesley, where a feminist-liberal professor attempts to teach conservative 1950 Wellesley students to question their traditional societal roles. The film does this by depicting examples of how an educational institution like Wellesley allowed married students to take days off schools so they could attend their marital duties at home and how many students were expected to be married before and after graduation. Many of the women in this film married men who attended neighboring colleges and took many home education courses where they were taught how to be good housewives.

Above I have attached a video from the film, Mona Lisa Smile, portraying the societal roles that college students from Wellesley were expected to fill. 

The Mad housewife

The creators of the television series, Mad Men, did a great job in portraying the frustrations and unhappiness of upper middle class housewives in the 1950s when they created the character, Betty Draper. Even though, many television critics dislike Betty draper because they claim that her character is narcissistic and selfish, I sympathized with Betty Draper because she is trapped in the role of being a housewife. Like many white upper middle class housewives Betty received a college education before marriage and she was unable to pursue a career after college because immediately she married and had children. It is evident that Betty felt trapped in her role as a housewife because she struggled with depression. Betty also did not seem suited to being a parent because she was often very cold to her children. Betty’s marriage was also dysfunctional because her husband, Don Draper, was constantly cheating on her with other women, which was easily facilitated for him to do because he worked in the city while Betty was stuck at home in the suburbs.

It was also evident that Betty longed for a life outside her home because when she was offered a modeling job by one of her husband’s potential clients she showed great happiness, but as soon as she did not get the job her unhappiness and frustrations returned as she realized that she was not going to be anything else but a housewife. The writers of mad men also did a great job in portraying Betty’s frustration with her confined life as a housewife when Betty’s husband calls her by the nickname “Birdy”. The nickname “Birdy” is symbolic of her entrapment because many house birds live in cages. For example, when Betty’s hopes of modeling are destroyed she returns to her daily housewife routine, but her frustration and dissatisfaction with her life leads her to shoot some flying pigeons outside her home.

Below I have attached a video of the scene where Betty shoots some pigeons.

Advertisement in the 1950s

Advertisement in the 1950s targeted housewives as they depicted

women cleaning, cooking, doing the laundry for their husbands and children, and serving dinner. Therefore, Advertisement played a huge role in reinforcing the stereotypes of women’s role in the household.

These stereotypes emphasized that women should always wear make-up and dress up for their husbands at all times, which is why often in these ads women will wear make up, dresses and jewelry. As a result, many middle-class white women would conform to these roles of being housewives despite, the fact that many of these women received a college education.

Many of these ads would also belittle women as they often depicted women as being submissive and unable to think without the help of their husbands. Therefore, emphasizing that women were unable to work and that their only role in society was to be serve their husbands and children at home.