Introduction
This interview session is done with grandmother M. M. L. I conducted this session on October 28th, 2022, face to face. I met L. at the community nursing home where I previously volunteered. Even though the facility is fully staffed with wonderful and skilled employees, their busy schedules do not always allow them to interact with the residents personally. In the beginning, all we did was sit and chat until L. wanted me to listen to her stories. However, on the day of the meeting, I came prepared with questions to guide our discussion.
L. was born in Manhattan, New York, on June 24th, 1941. She has nine siblings, seven younger brothers, and a sister. L. completed her eight years of basic education in 1958 and later joined the Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School in New York and graduated in 1964. The interviewee worked as a secretary for two years until she left the workforce to start a family. She became preoccupied at home taking care of her five children for several years until all of them were old enough to go to school. At this point, L. experienced obstacles in rejoining the workforce; however, her breakthrough came when she was employed as a secretary for nearly two decades at the nursing home where she is currently a resident.
Between 1940 and 1965, when L. was born, social life in the United States was defined by conformity with traditional gender roles. The gender inequalities experienced during this period spearheaded the feminist movements that inspired the fight for change and revolutionized the roles that young girls and women could play in society. However, before then, they were still considered caregivers, with the sole responsibility of rearing children and being happy homemakers doing chores while young boys and men went to school, played, or worked. In this case, due to their gender orientation, most females during this era were unappreciated because many people believed it was unacceptable for a woman to have paid work outside the home. As a result, most of them found it difficult to break free from these traditional gender roles and expectations they had been subjected to for years. These norms had a negative impact on girls’ learning opportunities and future career prospects. 1940 to 1965 were eras of conformity when women were subjected to strict gender roles.
The Expectations for a Young Girl in the Community
In the 1940s, young girls’ experience was very challenging for their mental growth and development. L. was not only enrolled in elementary school way after her younger brothers but also, there were times she had to skip classes to look after her siblings when her mother was running errands. Therefore, this indicates that many families and cultures during this period tended to favor education for boys. Although L. was fortunate to attend school, it was not typical for most teenage girls in this era. They were often prevented from joining school even when they were eager to learn.
In L.’s community, most parents and educators had narrow expectations for girls whose destiny was marriage, bearing children, starting families, and becoming homekeepers. In this case, females were encouraged to help with housework, care for younger and older family members, and prepare themselves for responsibilities during adulthood. The traditional gender expectations nurtured young girls like L. to care for others and shelve their ambitions. Therefore, there was no value in educating a lassie since society believed it was unnecessary for their primary roles in life as caregivers. Even for a child such as L., who did not start school until she was much older, cultural practices like child marriage were still rampant and could halt their education unexpectedly.
The Main Gender Roles Experienced During Childhood
Parents influence the behaviors of girls by subjecting specific gender norms on them at a tender age. These rigid ideologies were intended to shape and influence children’s beliefs, conduct, and the ability for social acceptance. For middle-class girls, such as L., parents strengthened proper feminine behavior by teaching their daughters to sew, knit, perform fancy needlework, make beds, and take care of their younger siblings. This distinct division of labor between the sexes was key in defining masculine and feminine identities. In this case, parents would gift their girls needle books and wax dolls decorated with human hair, aimed to build nurturing and femininity skills and encourage solitary play (Mintz, 2004, p. 84). As indicated by the respondent, the onset of puberty was typically followed by sanctions and significant pressure to conform to hegemonic gender-based identities and roles. Individuals who challenged or defied those norms would face ridicule, disapproval, stigmatization, exclusion, or even punishment.
Events That Influenced Girls to Conform to Gender Expectations
Gender roles in the 1940s and 1960s were significantly reinforced by the events following World War II. The mass media and popular culture emphasized messages about customary gender expectations. Following the end of this great warfare, a significant number of ladies who were in the employment sector during the conflict were replaced by returning soldiers. The central message displayed by major television stations encouraged women to give up their careers and assume their previous domestic roles. This was reinforced by propaganda, showing that the nuclear family made the United States superior to the Soviet Union. As L. indicates, American families were displayed to be perfect, with males employed outside households and women as happy homemakers (Grieve, 2018, p. 4). In this case, they were shown blissfully doing their domestic chores in their delicate dresses and feminine hairstyles as they enjoyed the benefits of democracy and capitalism. The campaigns were intended to paint the dismays in the lives of communist women who were presented in gunnysack outfits, as they labored in drab factories while their young ones were left unattended in the streets.
During this Cold War era, a significant portion of the United States population, referred to as the baby boomers, were born. This demographic trend, in turn, solidified girls’ and women’s identities as caregivers, future homemakers, and mothers (Kobayashi, 2018). As L. emphasizes, popular television shows also portrayed ideals of typical families, and many young girls at the time desired to attain that perfection. The main theme of commercial series presented in the 1940s to the 1960s showed women to be more contented executing domestic duties and caring for their children.
Growing up seeing their elder sisters and mothers dropping out of school or leaving their careers, many teenagers like L. conformed to the role of happy homemakers. In addition, a number of postwar games were intended to socialize girls and boys in proper gender roles (Mintz, 2004, p. 277). During this Cold War era, female toys progressed from baby dolls to fashion models, underlining wardrobes and hairstyles. On the other hand, imitation weapons and toy soldiers were common among boys. Therefore, this period came to be known as the child-centered decades, which saw the sales of children’s games increasing from $84 million in 1940 to $1.25 billion in the 1960s (Mintz, 2004, p. 277). For these reasons, Gender roles in this age were significantly reinforced during the Cold War when nuclear families in America were portrayed as a unit where everyone had a specified role.
Effects of Gender Roles on Males and Females
Most teenagers, regardless of gender, suffered from gender rigidity during this child-centered period. For example, boys silently endured pain due to the belief that expressing their emotions was unacceptable because real men were not supposed to show sissy-like behavior since it was a sign of weakness. In this case, “sissiness” was frowned upon because it made boys ineffective and, worst, led to impotence or homosexuality (Mintz, 2004, p. 281). For these reasons, young boys were oppressed by limiting ideas that controlled their behavior on what society allowed them to do, such as having specific interests, staying strong, stalwart, and wearing certain colors.
Young girls were also being stereotyped because society determined what they could do and their capabilities. Although males were also the victims of these circumstances, females suffered immensely under these gender traditions. The communities they lived in focused on their behaviors and appearances rather than achievements. For example, the older generation expressed an ambiguous attitude toward hoyden or tomboyish tendencies (Mintz, 2004, p. 85). Despite living in this age of conformity, when both boys and girls were required to adhere to strict gender roles, L. believes that the development of the feminist movement helped change things for everyone.
The main focus of feminism was to fight for equal opportunities for both genders. In this regard, the social movement enabled people to stand in solidarity with one another, question traditional social structures responsible for creating gender inequalities, and determine how to socialize girls and boys in society effectively. Feminism showed young women and girls that they were intelligent and capable of doing almost anything their male counterparts could achieve. As Mintz (2004) indicates, girls in school were three and a half years ahead of boys in writing and reading, respectively (364). On the other hand, males were perceived to be compassionate, sensitive, and gentle. This is because, for years, young boys were conditioned to pull girls’ hair, and adolescents treated girls as sex objects (Mintz, 2004, p. 379). Therefore, the supporters of the course believed that all people are human and should be allowed to express their own abilities and sexuality rather than using subjectively assigned gender roles.
Girls’ Aspirations from 1945 to 1965
Harmful traditions, dictated mainly by unequal gender norms, exposed females to poor education, economic, and health outcomes. Conforming to the established rules rendered girls and women unequal in social and intimate relationships, implying they were not able to negotiate and make decisions about their lives and bodies (Roy, 2022, p. 17). As L. indicates, the situation negatively influenced her chances of pursuing other career opportunities. As girls aged, they were supposed to shelve their ambitions and channel their efforts into genteel interests, such as dancing and piano playing (Mintz, 2004, p. 85). Therefore, people in this era never expected so much from girls; they were designed to depend upon men when they got older.
Despite the increased educational opportunities after World War II and full employment in the 1960s, young girls’ career options were restricted by the ostensibly social view that their place would be in the household. Mothers helped reinforce these conformity norms by explaining the life realities to their 12-year-old daughters about these social expectations (Mintz, 2004, p. 86). As L. reveals, this was confirmed through a young age of marriage and motherhood. In this case, many girls dropped out of school at the age of 15 and, after at least some underwent a brief training period, entered the workforce only to quit once they got married.
Conclusion
Based on L.’s interview responses, the challenges individuals faced in their childhood were more at the social level. This is because the 1940s to 1960s were periods of child-centeredness and happy homemakers. In this case, popular culture and television stations emphasized messages about traditional gender roles, which caused women to shelve their career ambitions and assume their domestic roles of taking care and rearing children. Young girls, such as L. at the time, were also encouraged to idolize their mothers by staying at home if the family could afford it. Although the interviewee was fortunate to go through college education during the challenging era, she believes that unequal gender norms exposed them to poor education and economic and health outcomes. Though 1940 and 1965 were eras of conformity with social expectations, they were also periods of transformation when discontent with the status quo was developing.
References
Grieve, V.M. (2018). Little cold warriors: American childhood in the 1950s.Oxford University Press.
Kobayashi, E. M. (2018). Health via consumption: The idealized representation of housewives, mothers, and wives in household economics manuals and magazine advertisements in O Cruzeiro and Manchete, 1940-1960*. SciELO, 25(3), 743–761. Web.
Mintz, S. (2004). Huck’s raft: A history of American childhood. Harvard University Press
Roy, U. (2022). In Transit: The changing nature of cities, suburbs and modes of communication in cold war America. International Journal of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies, 10(3), 13-18. Web.
Questionnaire
- What were the expectations for a young girl in the community you grew up in Manhattan?
- What were the main gender roles you experienced during your childhood?
- What other factors or events do you feel influenced girls in your generation to easily conform to gender expectations in the 1940s and 1960s?
- Do you think there is a difference in the effects of gender roles in males and females?
- What were your aspirations as a child?