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.
I dont think anyone agreed it was the worst. The OP never explained why he came to that conclusion.
And yes overall, economically, and being a catalyst for technological advances and civil rights but for individuals, woman, and minorities life could still be very stifling and oppressive.
i don't disagree with you. i do think we should view the 50s as a starting point. not the swamp some want it to be.
i can give you that. but seriously the 50s was the beginning the most important societal changes the world has ever seen...
Sure it was, and people who think everything is fine now, there is no sexism or racism or discrimination of any kind would do well to remember that we aren’t even one generation removed from the days when all that stuff was not only socially acceptable but legally protected.
There’s a discrepancy between the thread title “were the 50’s that bad for women” and the post “was it the worst?”
The answer to one is “yes” and the answer to the other is “lol no, women have been treated like crap since caveman days but with each decade it sucks slightly less”.
Me as a child of the 50's having a stay at home mom, she did cook from scratch, most of the time, so I got that. and I got the benefit of being able to be raised by my mom and not daycare like is common nowadays. Eating home made - made from scratch food - is so much more delicious than the microwaved stuff I tend to make.. I wish I had learned how to bake pies, a turkey, and a roast and some other fancy food. I do make a few things but I wish I had learned to appreciate it more. My grandma really made all the good homemade Polish food but I was a picky eater so I missed that opportunity to enjoy cooking more.
A person above posted that the housewife of the 1950's got to have all her chores done by an earlier time of day, so she got to sit down and enjoy her evening. This was true for me. My mom did the laundry, cooking, etc by 5:00 and so we got to enjoy dinner together.
however, I know my mom put up with some things because she felt she had to and it was not enjoyable im sure. she was too afraid to be on her own and divorce was a huge scarlet letter.
Well that a relief that she got to actually sit down and eat dinner with the rest of you. It was a great life after all.
i don't disagree with you. i do think we should view the 50s as a starting point. not the swamp some want it to be.
And I don't think anyone is wanting it to be a swamp, they are just sharing actual stories of their life experiences or those observed or told to them by those women who actually lived it. Any period being a starting point for change does not mean it was good for those living it.
Maybe not, but the '50s were not the halcyon days that people "remember". There were still wars, recessions, strikes, layoffs, plant closures and the normal stuff.
There was only one war, which the U.S. was involved in, the Korean war which ended in 1953.
Yes. And the 60s. And even the 70s. I lived through some of that. If you didn't mind being a piece of meat in the eyes of a lot of employers, male workers and even some husbands, then it wasn't bad at all. Women were supposed to dress pretty, have babies and make their husbands happy. So glad "traditional" has changed.
Of course, not everyone had experiences like that, and I'm sure many women were happy and were treated well.
Many wedding vows still had the word “obey” right through the 1960s and into the 1970s. Of course, that was only included in the woman’s vow.
DH and I went to see the priest ahead of the ceremony as there was no way I was saying that. DH thought the very idea was hilarious. Luckily we had a pretty cool priest who readily agreed to a change in wording.
I had friends who just left out those words during the ceremony and the priest or minister ignored the omission.
Well that a relief that she got to actually sit down and eat dinner with the rest of you. It was a great life after all.
I asked my mother and several of her sisters what their favorite decade was. They said the 1950s. One sister said, "Without a doubt." And they were all adults during the '50s, not children.
My mom went out with several neighborhood wives at night to dinner and/or the movies. They took turns driving (yes, they did have driver's licenses and a car). They were not stuck at home as the myth claims.
The 50s are very often portrayed as the worst decade for women in all of history, but was it? Yes, I understand things were a lot more "traditional" back then but do the 50s for women really deserve all the hate it gets?
What? The worst decade for women in all of history? Worse than the 1930s? Or, for that matter, the 1830s?
Worse than the WWI and WWII era? This must be a joke!
But the counterpoint here is what happens if the man dies or gets disabled and the woman is left to her own devices to raise five kids.
Women were much more at the mercy of their husband's ability to earn in those days. And if the marriage was untenable they still had little choice but to grin in bear it in the majority of situations.
This was the ugly underbelly of the 1950s. And as I stated earlier, life still happened in the 1950s. Not everybody was the Cleavers.
But it's the reverse today. Divorce is far too common and many times it's over silly things like the wife frequently burns the toast or the husband watches too much TV.
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.
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.
