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Taylor Pust

Professor Watkins

English 137.13

16 November 2017

Housewife to Feminist

Although women and men are both conceived and nurtured the same way when they are

born, the two genders take a complete turn once they reach adolescence and adulthood. Men

have always been free to do what they want and, most importantly, be who they want. Nobody

questioned their actions because they were viewed as superior to everyone else. Women, on the

other hand, were expected to follow one path: marry at an early age and have children. They

were not expected to get a job or even obtain an education. Not only were they not encouraged

to do tasks such as these, but it was simply frowned upon if they did. By following this path,

they were required to suppress their true desires in order to be who society wanted them to be.

After many decades, women started to realize that they were worth more than what men

believed, so they decided to stand up for themselves and take action to change how they were

perceived in society. Transitioning from the 1950s to the 1960s, women went from partaking in

the housewife lifestyle to being inspired by the Feminist and Hippie Movements. Other

important milestones included the Miss America protest, divorce, and the creation of birth

control because they all allowed women demonstrate their rights as American citizens.

World War II was an extremely difficult time period for the United States. Sixteen

million American men had to be uprooted from their homes in order to go serve in the war

(Grenkevich, 2017). With the man of almost every household leaving, a surplus of jobs needed

to be filled so that America could win the war. At first, America struggled with what they were
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going to do because men were the only ones who had ever worked in the industrial labor

industry. Without any other options, women rose to the occasion and filled any spot that they

could assist in. In order to encourage women to enter the workforce, the Rosie the Riveter

campaign was started. Rosie the Riveter was a cultural icon that represented all women who

worked in factories and shipyards during WWII. Essentially, this icon represents feminism and

the economic power women were able to hold. It made women feel powerful by showing them a

picture of a strong, determined woman, which explains why a majority of women stated that it

gave them a new-found confidence that helped them realize they could do anything a man could

do (A&E Television Networks, 2010). During this time, women represented 65% of the

industry’s total workforce, which was a huge increase compared to the 1% in years past (A&E

Television Networks, 2010). Despite the unequal pay, women began to feel as though they were

somewhat equal to men because they were working alongside them with the same goal of

winning the war (Gender Equality, 2015). They would not forget how this made them feel, even

when it would soon be taken away, because it was something powerful that they had never

experienced before.

With World War II coming to a close, a period of enlightenment also came to a close for

women. During the war, a total of 350,000 women were able to work outside of their homes,

and the majority reported that they thoroughly enjoyed these opportunities even though they did

not last very long (Khan Academy, 2017). These few years were a huge change for women

because they were never encouraged to be anything other than a housewife. While women were

able to get a sense of job equality, it was soon taken away from them immediately after the war.

Just as a feminist movement could have taken off, the perceptions of women reverted back to the

way it was pre-war. When the men came back from war, they all expected that everything would
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go back to “normal” (Khan Academy, 2017). By normal, I mean that men expected women to

fulfill their sole purposes of being a caring mother, a diligent housemaker, and an obedient wife

(Coob, 2015). Men believed labor was a “one-time thing” for women because they could never

handle it on a long-term basis. A multitude of women were angry, but they did not believe they

had the power to challenge the status quo alone (Khan Academy, 2017). Although they allowed

men to have their jobs back, they did not extinguish the thought of creating an environment

where females were able to do everything a male could do without being shamed for it.

During the 1950s, if women dreamed of anything other than being a mother and a

housewife, they were looked at as absurd. During this time, many women did not publicly

question their status because it was something that had been a tradition, or one may even say a

duty, in previous decades. The purpose of a housewife was specifically to manage the home by

buying goods for the family, up keeping the house, making clothes, and caring for the children.

Essentially, their purpose was to put everyone before themselves. There was intense pressure on

women to remain at home and tend to the children and the house duties. This was so important

in society that a book, titled United States Economics: How to be a Good Wife, was written to

tell woman how to be a ‘good’ housewife (Mikkelson, 2015). In fact, if a woman dreamed of

getting an education, men viewed her as uncanny and impractical. For this reason, only 5% of

women attended college during this time. This percentage is even smaller than it was in the

1920s (Lamb, 2011). This was due to women feeling the need to conform to what society

wanted them to be. Looking in from the outside, it was believed that women had everything they

could ever want: husbands with good jobs, children, a house, electronics, and gifts. However,

women would constantly be asking themselves, “Who am I?” because they were never given the

chance to fully explore their horizons and discover themselves (Lamb, 2011).
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This pressure to remain a one-dimensional character in society caused women to develop

mental disorders, which led to doctors overprescribing psychiatric drugs. Anytime a woman

would complain about feeling meaningless or about interpersonal stress, she would often be

treated as though she had anxiety. During this time period, the popular prescription drugs were

developed. A majority of housewives would consume “tranquilizer drugs” such as Librium and

Valium, in order to sooth anxiety and calm their frayed nerves (Gershon, 2016). Psychiatry

came under fire soon after this because many people were claiming that these drugs were

“suppressing individual freedom”, however, many women believed that their freedom was

already being suppressed in their life as a housewife. Because of this, they believed that the

drugs were actually helping them feel more in control than they ever were before (Gershon,

2016). Women began yearning to escape from their suppressed lives that were limited to taking

care of the home and family.

In the 1960s women’s power shifted from being internal to finally becoming an external

force that created strong, independent women. This movement began with the creation of a book

titled, Feminine Mystique. This book was written by Betty Friedan, and it made women realize

they were not alone, regarding their feelings. It sold over 1.4 million copies with its first

paperback printing, and women stated that it captured the frustration that they felt from being

trapped inside an unfulfilling life as a housewife (Dreier, 2013). Women especially related to the

book when it talked about how women felt as though they were losing their personalities because

they had no chance to express themselves in any regard (Dreier, 2013). Not only did this book

talk about the frustrations of housewives, but it also called women to action. Friedan

contradicted the accepted wisdom that women held the purpose of becoming housewives, and

instead, she encouraged women to fulfill their life outside the home and become someone that
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they wanted to be. This was shocking in society because women were not often told to be

anything other than a housewife. Some women even believed that this book was absurd because

they could not imagine going against what their husbands thought, and some were content with

simply being just a mother and a wife. For others, however, this book inspired them to step out

of the housewife role and become something that they truly wanted to be (Dreier, 2013). This

sweeping book prompted the second-wave of feminism in the United States, which called for

equality beyond the law and into the everyday lives of women.

For the first time, we saw women participating in movements for full equality. In 1966, a

foundation titled National Organization for Women (NOW) was formed. This organization was

founded by Betty Friedan. Friedan gathered feminists, liberals, Washington insiders, activists,

and everyday women to work for women’s equality. NOW was founded with the goal of taking

action to bring equality to all women by focusing on education, employment, and other women’s

issues (NOW, 2017). Thousands of women began joining this organization, along with many

others, to promote their equality. For many women, joining this organization was not an easy

step because they had to break the mold of society and contradict what others thought (NOW,

2017). Changing the attitudes of men and women did not happen overnight, which is why it was

not immediately a huge success. Year after year, more women joined these movements as they

realized that change was slowly becoming more and more acceptable in society. This explains

why the membership of NOW began with a couple of thousand members and then skyrocketed

to hundreds of thousands within 5 years (NOW, 2017). Women liked where the movement was

headed, so they were determined to keep going until changes were made (Lamb, 2011). These

women wanted to show society who they could become if they were truly allowed to flourish.
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During this time period of the Feminist Movement, the Hippie Movement was also taking

place. The two coincide because they were both about breaking the normal way of living.

Women in the 1960s stated that they loved the idea of rejecting the mainstream American way of

living because it meant they were able to be more than just a housewife (Lamb, 2011). They

were able to possibly take part in a career that they were truly passionate about. Women were

finally able to branch into different work fields, which explains why the women in the workforce

tripled from the 1950s to the 1960s, as seen in Figure 1 (Walsh, 2010). Women began to take

part in a myriad of new jobs, which helped them feel confident with their abilities and their

rights, which explains why the number of women in the workforce continued to climb each and

every year (Lamb, 2011). Men started to become more accepting and, gradually, came to believe

some of the basic goals of the sixties movement: equal pay for equal work and sharing of

responsibility for housework and childrearing (Walsh, 2010). Don’t get me wrong; it was in fact

an edgy time of transition, change, and confusion. Not all men were accepting of what was

happening. In fact, men were said to fear an intelligent woman because they were able to

disagree with him (Lamb, 2011). It was not expected to be a fast process because that would

require having the ability to change everyone’s views on women in a matter of days, but equality

was certainly becoming more and more widespread.

By the end of the sixties, women were increasingly questioning the stereotypes of being

the perfect woman. In 1968, a group of feminists decided to protest the Miss America pageant.

They wanted to end the idea that women were inferior because they did not live up to beauty

standards. They consistently cheered, “Freedom for women!” and “No more Miss America!”

They also threw away girdles, heels, hair curlers, and bras into garbage cans because they viewed

them as “instruments of female torture” (Freeman, 2017). Ten years prior, women would have
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never imagined doing something so radical such as this. Protesting against others in society

would have been unimaginable because it would have gone against what the men thought. Not

only were women expected to be a perfect housewife, but they were expected to be a perfect

person in general (Lamb, 2011). This put enormous pressure on women and made them be

perceived as pretty objects, rather than actual human beings (Freeman, 2017). However, by

women protesting this, it shows how they were truly transforming who they were. They were no

longer afraid to break away from the housewife image and be a new person (Dreier, 2013).

These women realized that they would rather fight for what they believed in and be criticized by

men for it opposed to consistently sitting back and watching their lives be controlled by men

(Ruggles, 2017). By doing this, they were able to actively participate in society and have an

influence on what others thought of them.

This new-found sense of self allowed women to realize they could be independent and

separate from men. They were finally able to break free from the paved pathway that others had

expected them to follow. As seen in Figure 2, divorce rates skyrocketed because of this. In the

1950s, only about 5% of couples got divorced. However, starting in the late 1960s, the divorce

rate jumped to 50% (Ruggles, 2017). This huge jump in divorce rates allowed women to break

away from men who were still holding them to this housewife image. Divorcing men was a time

of discovery for women because the majority of them had never been on their own before.

Previous to the 1950s, women and men got married in order to have stability, however, during

these feminist movements, women began to realize that marriage should occur mainly for

personal satisfaction (Ruggles, 2017). This allowed women to finally be able to put themselves

over others. Don’t get me wrong; many women stayed married and continued to have children.

Essentially, the choice to be married or not married was what women truly wanted, and it was
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slowly becoming more acceptable to do so. Many women avoided divorce all together by not

even getting married in the first place. Women were beginning to break this stereotype, which

created the idea that women did not always have to be a mother or even a housewife. Many of

them pursued an education to chase after dreams that have been concealed for so long (Lamb,

2011).

Another milestone for women in the 1960s was the creation of birth control. Since

women were realizing that they no longer had to get married, they were also reaching the

conclusion that sexual activity with a man did not automatically tie them to being the mother of a

nuclear family (Frost, 2015). Nuclear families were so common in the 1950s, that it was seen as

uncommon if you were a woman not in a nuclear family (Popescu, 2017). Women were able to

engage in sexual activity without having to plan a life for a child, which led to non-nuclear

families in the 1960s. Because of this independence, some women decided to not have children,

which led to a slight decrease in the number of births throughout the late 1960s (Frost, 2015).

While births began to decrease, the women taking part in jobs outside of the house began to

continually increase since they no longer had to stay home and care for children. Many women

cited birth control as “saving their career” because they were able to have a job instead of staying

home to tend to children (Frost, 2015). This contraceptive use of birth control was so popular

that two years after it was approved, over 1.2 million American women were on the pill. After

three years, that number almost doubles, to 2.3 million. In 1960, this number almost triples to

6.6 million women, as seen in Figure 3. Women believed that this increase of birth control use

can be attributed to all of the “independent” opportunities, such as working and being single, it

allowed women to have (Nikolchev, 2007).

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Not only did the introduction of birth control allow women to break free from a nuclear

family lifestyle, but it essentially prompted the sexual liberation in the 1960s (Popescu, 2017).

Women were able to live with men without being married, something that was unthinkable in the

1950s. Not only that, but they were allowed to have intercourse simply for satisfaction. This

goes against everything the Protestant and Catholic religions believed in, but women began to

feel a power that they had not had in a very long while (Tucker, 1997). Because of this, the

Catholics and Protestants using birth control doubled from the 1950s to the 1960s (The Birth

Control Pill, 2001). Women began to have sex for pleasure, and that acted as a source of power

that shook the nation (Popescu, 2017). Previous to this time, if women had sexual encounters

outside of marriage, they would have been expelled from facilities and shunned in society. By

this, I mean that friendships may have been broken or women may have been discouraged to

attend social activities in their town. During this sexual liberation however, women began

admitting that they enjoyed sexual relationships outside of marriage (Popescu, 2017). Women

believed that this sexual liberation allowed them to truly make their own decisions and

demonstrate their rights as American citizens (Frost, 2015).

The evolution from housewife to feminist was certainly not an easy one, nor was it a fast

one. American women went from being perceived as a perfect housewife to slowly shifting how

they were viewed in society. The Feminist Movement and Hippie Movement were transitioning

periods that allowed women to break the mainstream way of living, which inspired women to do

something with their lives that they were passionate about. Birth control and the sexual

liberation changed how women viewed the nuclear family and allowed them to explore options

other than being a mother and a wife. The journey to get to where the women were from the

1950s to the 1960s was not easy. It took years upon years and movements upon movements. In
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today’s society, women’s equality is still not completely finished. Now, it is our turn to

complete what these women so bravely started so many decades ago, and get women’s equality

to one-hundred percent.

Number of Women using Birth Control

1960 1.2

1962 2.3

1.2
1965 6.6

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Amount of Women (in millions)
2.3
Figure 1: Women in the workforce tripled Figure 3: The number
Seriesof
1 women on birth
from the 1950s to the 1960s. control in 1960, 1962, and 1965. meta- chart.com

6.6

Figure 2: The divorce rates jumped from 5% in the 1950s (left) to 50% in the 1960s (right).
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References

“American Women and World War II.” World War II, Khan Academy, 2017,
www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-history/period-7/apush-us-wwii/a/american-
women-and-world-war-ii.

Coob, Robbix. A Woman's Role in the 1950s. 17 Nov. 2015,

www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/1025/women1950s.pdf.

“Demographics.” The Birth Control Pill, The Birth Control Pill. 2001,
thepill.umwblogs.org/impact/demographics/.

Dreier, Peter. “The Feminine Mystique and Women's Equality -- 50 Years Later.” The
Huffington Post, 18 Feb. 2013, www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/the-feminine-
mystique-betty-friedan_b_2712355.html.

Freeman, Jo. “No More Miss America! (1968-1969).” The 1969 Miss America Protest- Atlantic
City, 2017, www.jofreeman.com/photos/MissAm1969.html.

Frost, Jennifer. “Economic Advancement.” Birth Control Had Expanded Opportunity for
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swtygender.blogspot.com/p/comparison-on-opinion.html.

Gershon, Livia. “How anxiety got rebranded as depression.” Jstor Daily, 27 Dec. 2016,
https://daily.jstor.org/how-anxiety-got-rebranded-as-depression/.

Grenkevich, Leonid D. “WWII Facts & Figures.” World War II Foundation, 24 Oct. 2017,
www.wwiifoundation.org/students/wwii-facts-figures/.

History.com Staff. “American Women in World War II.” History.com, A&E Television
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ii.

Nikolchev, Alexandra. “A Brief History of the Birth Control Pill.” PBS, Public Broadcasting
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birth-control-pill/480/.

Lamb, Vanessa. The 1950’s and the 1960’s and the American Woman : the transition from the
”housewife” to the feminist. History. 2011. <dumas-00680821>
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Mikkelson, David. “How to Be a Good Wife.” Snopes, 14 Aug. 2016,

www.snopes.com/history/document/goodwife.asp.

“National Organization for Women |.” National Organization for Women, NOW, 2017,
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www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/rosie-the-riveter.

Ruggles, Steven. “THE RISE OF DIVORCE AND SEPARATION IN THE UNITED STATES,
1880–1990.” Demography, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2017,
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Tucker, Carol. “The 1950s – Powerful Years for Religion.” USC News, June 1997,
news.usc.edu/25835/The-1950s-Powerful-Years-for-Religion/.

Walsh, Kenneth T. “The 1960s: A Decade of Change for Women.” U.S. News & World Report,
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