Research Paper
As a result of the constantly glaring of the classic “housewife” from magazines such as Good Housekeeping and members of the government such as Governor Dalai Stevenson, women in he ass were expected to maintain a reserved lifestyle, which led to lonely dissatisfaction and an internal yearning for a different routine. After World War II and into the Cold War, “nuclear families” became the norm, with a working father, a housewife mother and their children. This idea spread and erupted into the ideal, picture-perfect family that all Americans should strive to have.
By the 1 sass, this model of a family had specific roles that each member had to follow, with one of important positions being the housewife mother. Television shows, books, magazines and various advertisements promoted this idea, suggesting what every woman should be and how every woman should ACTA. For instance, in 1956, Good Housekeeping wrote an article entitled, “Every Executive Needs a Perfect Wife”3. This article goes into detail via six points, explaining how each housewife should and shouldn’t act towards her husband.
One should have been friendly enough to entertain multiple guests and friends, active in the community, and centered her life and attention to her husband, her children ND her home. A “good housewife,” on the other hand, should not have shown signs of sadness or questioning, or dominance and ventured out into a “man’s” territory. This is the type of woman that Betty Friedman described in her book, The Feminine Mystique-?a reserved woman who lives to serve her husband, her children, and her family images. Women who did not meet these qualifications were outliers in society and “good housewives” were supposed to look down upon them with pity.
Those women who went to college for a degree instead of a husband, those women ho striver for a career of their own, or those women who acted unhappy, unfeminine, and anxious were all seen as different and unusual. A “good housewife” was taught how to cook, clean, and look presentable for her family and her community but mainly for her husband. They were taught not to be involved in careers or to strive for political rights, things that old feminists had fought for-?society viewed these arenas as part of the man’s world. Because the national model for women was to dress, act, and live this way, very few questioned it.
All of these perspectives contributed to the unnamed problem” that women suffered. A housewife was not to question, argue, or even talk about their unhappiness as it could affect her husband’s job. Therefore, society forced women to keep this side of their lives hidden. Governor Dalai Stevenson mentioned in his speech to Smith college women graduates that they were to, “watch for and arrest the constant gravitational pulls to which we are all exposed in our specialized, fragmented society’s. Basically, women are not to be tempted into the side of society that “widens the breach between means and ends.
Women of the ass went through the motions based off the average marriage age dropping and the of women who dropped out of college looking for a husband. Instead of working towards equality, as previous feminists had done, these women were settling to only please their husbands, not themselves. This “problem” that women then suffered from is unhappiness, disappointment, and a sense of loneliness. This life of constantly keeping up with this model popular media sources plastered everywhere, began to not seem so great or easy to do.
This everyday battle to internalize bad happenings and radical thoughts took a toll on the women of the ass. This situation reflects the “problem that has no name” that Betty Friedman described in her study (Friedman 1963). Betty Friedman’s unnamed problem among women of the ass developed with those women who desired to possess the flawless image Of a housewife. Across America, mass media and advertising brought a popular model of the picture-perfect nuclear family, but the return of very specific, detailed gender roles brought the slow downfall of the good housewife.
