Discontent with Gender roles (DP IB History: SL): Revision Note

Summary

• This note will examine how discontent fuelled the emergence of the second-wave feminist movement in America in the 1960s

• One key reason was dissatisfaction with domestic life, as many women felt frustrated by the expectation that they should only be wives and mothers, with limited opportunities beyond the home

• Women faced discrimination in employment, education and pay, highlighting clear inequalities between men and women

• The ‘first wave’ of feminism in the USA had ended with the ratification of the 19th Amendment on the 18th August 1920, which granted women the right to vote

• This ‘second wave’ focused on structural inequalities in a patriarchal society, including employment, sexuality and family roles

Gender roles

• In the post-war United States, many women were expected to embrace the role of wife, mother and homemaker

• By the 1960s, increasing numbers of women began to question this expectation

  • This led to dissatisfaction with traditional gender roles and helped to spark the second-wave feminist movement

• Governments and media in the USA promoted the “nuclear family ideal” in the late 1940s–1950s

  • Women were expected to prioritise marriage, child-rearing and housework

• Women’s magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal (1950s–60s) consistently portrayed women as fulfilled housewives

  • Advertising campaigns (e.g. household appliances) showed women as happy domestic figures

Why did this cause discontent?

• Women who felt unhappy believed they were personally failing and it increased internal conflict

  • This strengthened the desire to challenge societal expectations

• Women had no socially accepted alternative identity other than being a housewife

• It created pressure to conform

  • This caused dissatisfaction when the reality did not match the ideal

• It led to a sense of being trapped in a prescribed role

Historiography

Betty Friedan

The Feminine Mystique (1963)

• Friedan argued that many middle-class American women experienced deep dissatisfaction with domestic life, which she famously described as “the problem that has no name.”

• She suggested that women were unfulfilled by the expectation to remain housewives despite higher education and capabilities

Lack of freedom

• Women experienced a lack of personal autonomy and freedom, despite living in increasingly democratic and affluent societies

  • Many women had little control over major life decisions

  • They were still expected to marry young (the average marriage age in the US dropped to around 20 in the 1950s)

  • There was also a social stigma against remaining single or childless

  • Legal and financial restrictions reinforced this

    • For example, women struggled to obtain credit or bank accounts independently before 1974

• The Post-war period saw a rise in female education, with increasing university attendance in the 1950s–60s

  • Expectations to focus solely on home and family ignored women’s education and capabilities

    • This intensified women's frustration

• Companies frequently fired or forced women to resign upon getting married

  • This was known as a ‘marriage bar’

• Betty Friedan conducted surveys of Smith College graduates (1957)

• The survey documented women feeling a loss of identity and a lack of purpose beyond serving their husbands and children

  • This showed that dissatisfaction was widespread rather than an ‘individual failure’ and that it was rooted in the social structure

Why did this cause discontent?

• The increase in female education highlighted a contradiction

  • Women were told they were free citizens, but lacked real freedom

• It produced frustration among educated women who expected independence and self-fulfilment

• It created a mismatch between ability and opportunity, which led to feelings of wasted potential and intellectual stagnation

  • This was particularly important in mobilising middle-class feminist activism

Lower-class women and the “double burden”

• Lower-class women faced a “double burden” (work and domestic responsibilities)

  • This exposed inequality within the housewife ideal

• Unlike middle-class women, working-class women often had to work outside the home due to financial strain

  • These jobs were usually low-paid service jobs, including factory work or cleaning

  • Women were still expected to maintain full domestic responsibilities

Why did this cause discontent?

• This highlighted class inequality within gender roles and a dissatisfaction with the housewife ideal

• Working-class women had economic responsibility and domestic burden, receiving low wages and little recognition for their work

• This reinforced the perception that society exploited women’s labour both inside and outside the home

Isolation of suburban life

• After 1945, there was a rapid expansion of suburbs in the USA

  • For example, Levittown (late 1940s–1950s)

  • These were mass-produced housing developments designed for nuclear families

• The suburbs were geographically separated from city centres (where jobs, culture, and politics were located)

• They were designed around car travel

  • Many women initially lacked access to cars

  • This meant that women were confined to domestic chores in the house and taking care of the children for long periods

• This reinforced women's dependence on their husbands, not just financially but also socially.

• Women had limited access to employment, education and social interaction, including extended family and community

Why did this cause discontent?

• This isolation increased feelings of loneliness and a lack of intellectual/social stimulation

• It reinforced a sense of being trapped in repetitive, invisible labour

• Discontent was not just about work or law, but the everyday lived experience