Case Study : ' The Time ' Home Economics '

Women had the stereotype of being the homemaker which is a person whose main job is to take care of her family, home and children. Women were assumed to be homemakers with the primary responsibility for the children (Blair and Lenton 1). Traditionally, the job of a stay at home mother is done by women who have had to make them self’s approachable for marriage, stay at home, take care of the kids, cook and clean. Society benefited economically from high marriage rates because that led to an increase in production of family related goods, home construction, and furnishings. It was frown upon if women did not get married young, and a virgin. Women needed to get married in order to have unprotected intercourse because premarital sex was considered sinful. In the 1950s professional jobs were still largely closed off to women even after they had taken over the workforce when men left for World War II. It was common for companies not to want to hire women, and if they did provide employment for them they would pay them less than men. During that time there were too few women American lawyers, doctors, and engineers. Working women did not have a great salary, and were denied opportunities to advance. Their employers assumed they would quit their jobs as soon as they knew that had become pregnant. If women did work, they were stewardesses, secretaries, nurses and teachers. In addition, many women faced pressure from their families to stay home, and not work at all outside the home. In the 1950's, society encouraged, and pressured women to marry young because of the well-defined roles of that time. Women’s jobs were to serve as a homemaker and mother, so it was not deemed necessary for them to pursue a college degree. Most women were married after high school, and fell into their traditional gender roles right away. As stated in the American Journal of Sociology, “Women were

women had to stay at home to make household goods to use in the 1700s-1800s

The roles and expectations for women in the 1950s differed in many ways from today’s society. “Society placed high importance and many expectations on behavior at home as well as in public” (Colorado.edu). In the 1950s women were considered “housewives”. Women’s sole purpose was to maintain the home, take care of the children, provide meals, and be obedient wives. “Good wives” listened to their

Advertisements in the 50s started to glamorize being a house wife sending out the message that a woman’s role was in the home smiling, arms loaded with cooked food or women cleaning the house and portraying that the women in the advertisements were happy and content with this role in the home (Google Books, 2017)). A smiling house wife who was cooking and cleaning was a “Normal American Women’(1950s.weebly.com, 2017)) women in the 1950s were perceived as nothing more than the homemaker. It was quite unheard for a woman to go to college and receive an education, they were expected to be a stay at home wife and nothing more, they were seen as dedicated housewives who’s only goal in life were that of pleasing their husband. Society in the 1950s believed that women should not work as this would involve leaving the house and not placing attention on her family((Google Books, 2017)). Men in the 1950s had complete control over their wives with the

After being very one of few women to graduate from a college she struggled to find her role in society. Addams searching for her role in society, she did some soul searching and went on a trip with friend Ellen Gates Starr (social reformer and activist). On the trip to London, England they visited Toynbee Hall, a facility established to help the struggling families of the area. Addams and Starr were so fascinated on the way people of the Toynbee hall were helping the people in this institution. This is where Addams got the idea of making a settlement house that would help people in need of basic needs such as food, water, and shelter. Addams and Starr were set to establish one of these types of institutions in Chicago. In 1889 Addams and Starr both co-founded the Chicago Hull House. At this institution services were provided for immigrants and struggling families of the Chicago

An American pragmatist and feminist, Hull-House founder Jane Addams (1860-1935) came of age in time of increasing tensions and division between segments of the American society, a division that was reflected in debates about educational reform. In the midst of this diversity, Addams saw the profoundly interdependent nature of all social and political interaction, and she aligned her efforts to support, emphasize and increase this interdependence. Education was one of the ways she relied on to overcome class disparity, as well as to increase interaction between classes. Her theories about the interdependent nature of living in a democracy provided a backdrop for her educational theory. Education, she thought, needed to produce people who

Rarely did any ever make it into college, as higher education was generally only male accepting. With this setback, and the social stereotype that women are weak and need to be protected, limited them to working at home as a housewife, or completing “feminine” job for very little pay. By the 1900’s, these jobs included being teachers, nurses, housekeepers, and more. Overall, women relied on husbands

Some may assume that women had it easy in the 1950s and 1960s, that cooking, cleaning, and looking pretty is nothing compared to a man's long stressful day at work. The main goal for young adults after high school was to seek a husband to provide for her and have children with.After marriage, it was uncommon for women to work so being a full time housewife and tending to her home and kids was normal. Husbands would manage legal documents,bank accounts, and mortgages (The 1950s). Roles for the women in the household involved being on her feet most hours of the day. She would wake up before her husband and children so when they awoke their lunches would be packed and ready to go. When the children are off to school and her husband is off to work, the wife then will clean to make sure the

The resilience of women and the hardship of men were prominent during this time. However, women were still deeply grounded in their home life (Bolin, 74). Particularly women from middle-income families were left with job of being able to balance work and home life (Bolin, 74). Being a caregiver and taking care of the domestic needs of the home was very important. During this time tradition values were deeply routed in the home. Women made sure not let their home life consume them because their may focus was being a good wife and mother. This is a trend that has made its way even in today’s society. “Even now lack of adequate day-care (necessitating private baby-sitting service), low paying jobs for women, and the growth of technologies that open the door to and “electronic cottage industry”, indicate that women’s home production is a mutable but perhaps permanent response to women’s economic and social inequality under capitalism” (Hollingsworth, & Tyyska). The oppression in the past is shown to have made and imprint on society even to this day. Even though

History has proven that even in the early rural communities, along with the traditional role, women would do work outside with men on farms. At the end of the 19th century, in Canada, when factories started replacing the family as the main productive unit, women comprised of thirteen percent of the labor force (“Women in”). During WWI women replaced many men who had to join the army. After the WWII, during the great depression, women were hired to do men’s jobs (“Women in”). Even today women continue to contribute economically through their domestic and professional work. In fact, it has been found that a homemaker’s work alone is worth approximately 100,000 dollars in the job market (Moran). Their area of expertise varies from being a teacher, finance manager, cleaner, gardener, chef, driver, to personal child care provider (Moran). Women have proven their capability and shown their multi skills, but they are still the victim of gender wage

While Domesticity was an enticing and exciting change for the role of women, not all women

Jane Addams was an influential social reformist with fierce motivation to solve global issues. Born September 6th, 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois, Addams grew up in a household with eight siblings, attended Rockford University, and went on to attend the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia. The issues she addressed in her career following school were women’s suffrage and world peace. Among her work in sociology, activism, philosophy and literature were some great projects such as Democracy and Social Ethics, Newer Ideals of Peace, speeches for the League of Nations, and most famously, the establishment of the Hull House. The Hull House, in the middle of an immigrant neighborhood of Chicago, was a successful settlement house in which she catered

Foremost, the familial image has undertaken significant changes in regards to the ‘breadwinner’ and ‘homemaker’ roles within the family. In the latter of the 20th century, women’s participation in the labour force had been very little to non-existent, primarily because time allocations had been perceived as gender specific, that is, men were seen as the ‘breadwinner’, while women were viewed as the ‘homemaker’ (Seltzer, Bachrach, Bianchi, Bledsoe, Casper, Chase-Lansdale, Diprete, Hotz, Morgan, Sanders, & Thomas, 2005, pp.20). The ‘breadwinner’ role was to secure financial stability, while the

Around the beginning of the 20th century men and women had very specific gender roles. Women in the past were usually looked at as the homemaker types. Very few women had jobs of any type during this

In the 1920s-1940s, women were encouraged to step outside of the home and work, but on the other hand, women were also encouraged to be stay-at-home mothers. Women should stay at home if they have the ability to do so. However, women should not feel like they have to be isolated from the rest of the world with chores and children all day.