Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 08-06-2008, 09:46 PM
 
72 posts, read 226,679 times
Reputation: 41

Advertisements

I read somewhere that in 1957, 80% of Americans considered singles to be sick and neurotic and immoral, this is a high percentage, that sounds kind of harsh to say that about them, but that figure dropped to 36% in 1986 and stayed at that level since then (30%-40%.) But in the previous decades, singles were accepted and even encouraged and levels for this stood at between 5% and 20%. What happened in the 1950s? Why did we become more negative towards the singles and the childless and the gays to start treating them like a monster or something.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 08-06-2008, 09:56 PM
 
Location: somewhere in the south
403 posts, read 1,578,487 times
Reputation: 287
Wow, that is high, I do remember that getting married in the 1950s had a lot of pressure attached to it, and I remember people used to talk about single people too, in a bad way.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-07-2008, 04:15 AM
 
Location: Tolland County- Northeastern CT
4,462 posts, read 7,995,624 times
Reputation: 1237
or they where a 'fairy' or a 'dyke'........
those terms where used by the populace back then for gay people- the terms are not ones I use.......
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-07-2008, 08:24 AM
 
Location: DC Area, for now
3,517 posts, read 13,244,091 times
Reputation: 2192
Maybe it was a societal backlash over the 1940's and women's new found independence during that decade? A bullying thing to get women back into the baby mode and acceptance of the stereotypical man rules the house mode.

Ya know, once you taste freedom...

Might be something to that given the very high numbers of singles (straight and otherwise) in current society when women are perfectly capable of earning their own good living.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-07-2008, 10:57 AM
 
Location: Happy wherever I am - Florida now
3,360 posts, read 12,247,256 times
Reputation: 3908
I think it had something to do with the war. So many men were lost (died in it) that society didn't want to see those remaining left single as there weren't enough men to go around.

The same sentiment didn't hold true for women. They just seemed to be pitied if they were single.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-07-2008, 11:19 AM
 
Location: Southern Ca
756 posts, read 2,571,480 times
Reputation: 262
Quote:
Originally Posted by bby07 View Post
I read somewhere that in 1957, 80% of Americans considered singles to be sick and neurotic and immoral, this is a high percentage, that sounds kind of harsh to say that about them, but that figure dropped to 36% in 1986 and stayed at that level since then (30%-40%.) But in the previous decades, singles were accepted and even encouraged and levels for this stood at between 5% and 20%. What happened in the 1950s? Why did we become more negative towards the singles and the childless and the gays to start treating them like a monster or something.
what does being "gay" have to do with your study on singles???
are you assuming the stereotype for 'singles' found in the 1957 study actually means "gays"......?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:29 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top