Women 's Influence On Women

Rewinding back to the 1950’s, I Love Lucy was one of the most popular sitcoms on television. There were two main characters and they happen to be married. The husband’s name was Ricky and the wife’s name is Lucy. Ricky is a talented singer and part of a band. On the other hand, his wife strives to be famous and share her talents with the world. Her husband claims that she has no talent and she would be better off staying at home to be a housewife. Throughout the show, Lucy finds herself getting into trouble as she often tries to perform at Tropicana, the place in which Ricky works.

The treatment of the male gender role is altogether different from that of the female gender role, and this issue has turned out to be important. Gender roles were extraordinarily changed in the 1950s, with the men returning from war and taking their occupations back. Females had, throughout World War II, taken men’s occupations while they had been away at war. After the war, numerous women needed to keep their occupations. Instead, a considerable amount of them got to be spouses and moms as the men returned from the war. For example, the male spouses were away at work for most the day while the wives would need to do a decent measure of the manual work around the house. The type of chores could have been cleaning, cooking, or other tasks the female spouses handled. These adjustments in the home might not have been viewed as positive but rather they were for women. Ladies truly advanced in the fifties with finding new openings for work and discovering their place in the world. Therefore, two articles explain further in detail about the

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

“were forced out of their wartime occupations and into the domesticity of the new American nuclear family, many women felt disenfranchised. Furthermore, the 1950s are often identified as the pinnacle of gender inequality as women were denigrated and portrayed as ‘stupid, submissive, purely domestic creatures’” (George, 2013).

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

First, what was the Culture of Female Domesticity of the 1950s/1960s? This time period saw the age for marriage dropping rapidly, a huge increase in birthrates, and a steady decrease in divorce rates. After World War II ended, men returned home expecting women to move aside as they regained their jobs that they had left behind. “These men also harbored fantasies of wifely submission as payment for their soldiering sacrifices” (Campbell, 65). Marjorie Ferguson points out what Betty Friedan has also argued, that the “purveyors of commodities were wary of an increase in female employment and believed that women’s appetites for goods and services were the mainstay of increased sales” (Ferguson, 34). Women were expected to care for their husbands and their children and also

I Love Lucy stared Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, who plays Mr. and Mrs. Ricardo and Vivian Vance and William Frawley who played Mr. and Mrs. Fertz their best friends and landlords. The show took place in an apartment building in New York City, and Lucy who is a naive and stubborn redhead always got herself and her husband into trouble. In the specific show I watched from season one out of six episode twenty-one titles New Neighbors. Lucy is curious about the neighbors who just moved in and she ends up snooping in their apartment and overhear them planning to blow up the capital and plotting her murder, but Lucy was unaware they were rehearsing a play. Thus, Lucy ends up getting Ricky, Fred, and Ethel involved, and they all end up in jail until the policeman reveals the neighbors are just actors. This one show conveys a commutative and family environment, with conservative information, unlike the shows of today. The society at in the 1950’s promoted high moral and family values through harmless comical

Aunts, uncles, grandparents, and other relatives moved into their own dwellings as the model for family became focused on a husband, wife, and their mutual children. Gender roles also changed. Women, who had enjoyed wartime jobs and a relative amount of independence while the men were away at war, were now encouraged to find their identity in caring for their families and homes. “The belief in family as the center of one’s life dictated that women accept their domestic role as the true expression of their womanhood (Larson 3).” Being a wife, and a mother, was all that a 1950s woman should desire. Women spent their days doting on their husbands and children, and doing housework. Despite the innovation of labor-saving appliances such as the washing machine or dishwasher, women spent more time doing chores than women of previous decades ever had. This was partially due to the increasingly demanding standards for cooking and cleaning, but also due to the recent lack of household help in 1950s homes. In the past, especially the Victorian era, many women had maids or nannies to lighten the burden of homemaking, but during the 50s housewives found themselves in charge of caring for both the family and the home (Larson

Although the idea of the stereotypical ‘Housewife’ during the 50s isn’t referred to much anymore, modern day woman are still receiving that similar treatment, now being sexualised

In the 1950’s, the inequality of gender conflicted women in the United States. A woman’s goal in life was to get married, have children, and to primarily take care of the house. An article by Christina Catalano called Shaping the American Woman: Feminism and Advertising in the 1950’s states that women were known for being, “...Stupid, submissive, purely domestic creatures.”(Catalano 45). Men on the other hand are viewed as the more superior gender. The life of a man consist of getting married and working. Although this may seem very little, men are free to do whatever they desire and are more free spirited during the 50’s whereas women are more cautious in what they do. A woman’s main goal is to attract a husband because if they

The 1950’s were cookie cutter; there was usually a working father, a homemaker mother, and a couple of kids. Although women were working and had jobs in the 1950’s, after WWII many women still stayed home being a house wife if the husband’s income could afford it. If women had jobs, and the job was unnecessary they were considered selfish. Having a husband at this time was more important than having a job or a degree. Marriage in the 1950’s was highly based around religion. Pre-marital sex was considered unacceptable, and women were married at ages as low as nineteen (People & Events, 1).

Women in the 50’s were expected to be a stay at home mother and wife. Their job was to stay home care for the children,

I Love Lucy was an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on CBS. The show, which was the first scripted television

In contrast to other shows at the time such as Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best Lucy’s show was a refreshing rendering of the American housewife. As the lecture from week two stated, most shows at the time focused on “cookie cutter” versions of the American middle class family. I Love Lucy showed that a woman could be messy, silly, scheming, emotional, and driven in addition to being a housewife. Her television persona was demonstrating a more realistic interpretation of what it meant be a loving equal half of a marriage while striving to make her dreams a reality.

Lucy is seen having only one friend throughout the film, a frail, lanky young man named Birdman. Both lacking the will for social engagement find comfort in one another’s presence. Despite her not being interested in Birdman’s romantic advances, Lucy is able to show some of her masked emotion in his presence. One day, in a light mannerism, she asks Birdman to marry her. He, knowing the offer contains no serious commitment, laughingly agrees. However, he is with his own vices. On a seemingly normal visit, Lucy walks in on Birdman overdosed. He lies in bed waiting for death to approach and whisk him away eternally. Lucy is present through his last moments, weeping in his arms, but does not call the authorities to notify of his death. Two weeks later, at the funeral, Lucy engages in conversations with one of her former boyfriends. Similarly, Lucy asks him to marry her as well, however, his reaction is in stark contrast to that of Birdman. He is a bag of mixed emotions; sour, taken aback, and frustrated at the simplest. This is one of the few short glimpses into her past life. Not letting