To think many have a stereotyped idea of women in the 1050's?

[abacucat]

I have bought a copy of the magazine Housewife from 1950 at my local charity shop out of curiosity. It is really interesting. The articles include -

• recipes
• dressmaking instruction
• how to make a tea tray
• some funny stories
• poems to read aloud
• reviews of new published books
• an article about whether you should have a pram or get your toddler to walk - article recommends a pram and your toddler walking sometimes
• DIY - replacing a broken wall switch
• an article about the importance of doing things every day for yourself and not just being a mother and housewife
• gardening tips
• an article about bird watching
• things to see in London this month
• How shopping centres are planned by architects and planners
• A light hearted article about what to wear if you are serving on a committee

Some of these fit into our stereotype views of 1950's housewives, but some clearly don't. The magazine makes women who are housewives sound like they are capable women with lots of skills and interests.

It sounds great - like WI stuff which my mother runs and was always a single working mum and a feminist campaigner

My nan had 5 kids in the 50s and worked full time continuously as a book keeper.
My grandad worked nights and in the holidays my mum, as a 8 year old had to take her 3 younger sisters out for the day around London so he could sleep.
Not all women were sahm. My nan was also a fab dressmaker. She made all the girls clothes and her own.

When I was 11 (top Juniors) our teacher asked how many of our mothers worked.
My mother did bookkeeping at home and I was still left with the impression that working mothers were a Bad Thing. This was about 1962.

You should read the Diary of a Provincial Lady. Written in the 1930s/40s about a 'middle class' housewife. It is both of its time and yet in many ways could have been written today.

I once joined the National Womens Register. It was founded for housewives who were very bored with the narrowness of their lives- keeping house and childcare and having no intellectual outlets. I think they were for turgid, boring women, incspable of finding their own joy or intellectual pursuits. I walked out of the AGM full of boring, worthy, turgid women in the noughties. I'd rather have acrylucs and go to a spa (and that doesn't float my boat) than have truck with that lot.

The article about growing mushrooms to make money fits withe the idea that any money made should be "pin money". Certainly my MIL who would be in her 90s if still alive, never worked outside the home once married, but always worked from home dressmaking, selling eggs, buying and selling antique furniture, etc.

Pineapple: People have a weird concept of the 1950s based on media. Women in my family always worked back then, had to as they were not wealthy. Had to have a great knowledge of both domestic and work-related skills.

Yes.

Back in the 1950s my mum had just left her abusive first husband and was setting up as a single parent, supporting herself and buying a house from her teacher's salary (couldn't get a mortgage of course, without husband or father to sign, but fortunately a well-off friend made her a private loan which she repaid; she couldn't rent because of the stigma against divorcees).

My mum made the interesting point that it was probably easier for her in the 1950s than it would have been a decade later. Following WWII, a lot of women with children were left widowed, so for the first 10, 15 years after the war, there was a lot of readily available means-tested childcare. That supply dried up in the 1960s. (My mum reckoned this was a matter of moral judgement: widows were seen as deserving of help, divorcees weren't.)

Back in the 1950s my grandmother was a shop manager and very knowledgeable about the fashion industry. She too was a single mother (my paternal grandfather had done a runner back when my dad was a kid) and she brought up my father and supported the elderly rellies out of her salary.

I don't know - remember the Daily Mail carried this headline about housewife Dorothy Hodgkin in 1964 (notable work in B12, penicillin, insulin):

Oxford Housewife Wins Nobel

while the Telegraph wrote:

British woman wins Nobel Prize – £18,750 prize to mother of three.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/12/google-doodle-honours-biochemist-dorothy-hodgkin

I am not at all surprised that middle class women who stayed home in the 1950s had interests. I don't think that anyone imagined that they were nanny/housemaids without a thought to anything but laundry or diapers.

But my God, imagine being someone with ambition and grit and imagination and brains who was told that they couldn't do anything but grow mushrooms for pin money and look forward to an occasional trip to a gallery. Imagine having all your skills and gifts focused not on law or medicine or ideas or politics or managing teams of people or figuring out problems--but just on bird watching and wall switches.

If that's what motivates you, you can still do that. I don't denigrate it. But so, so many women were stuck.

And for those who had to work then, at a job rather than a career, imagine being told you couldn't have your own credit card (without your husband's approval); that your wages would be less then those of men with the same experience doing the same damn job; that once you got pregnant you had to give up what you had done (not choose to, not face high nursery fees, but that you were fucking fired). That while you were on the job you had to put up with whatever was thrown your way, because there was no concept of sexual harassment or discrimination.

I'm sorry OP, I know you mean well, but I can't fucking stand posts like this. It isn't about the individual situationI'm sure there were tens of thousands of happy housewives in the 50sbut about the systems, laws, and institutions. You want to grow pin money mushrooms? Vaya con dios. You don't have any other outlet for that great big human brain in you? It's a nightmare.

I know women were oppressed, I am under no illusions.

But have you seen todays magazines aimed at housewives? They do assume they are idiots.

But this isn’t a magazine from the 1950s, it’s a magazine from 1950, and I think there’s quite a big difference. There was still rationing and many of these women would have been working during the war and probably still getting used to being back in the kitchen, with their menfolk returned (or not 🙁), possibly damaged, disrupting everything all over again.

I reckon 5 years down the line women’s place being in the kitchen would have been more firmly established.

I also think that a lot of our views of women in the 50s is based on America.

Most magazines today assume everyone who is reading them are idiots. It's the general dumbing down of pop culture. I don't think Men's Health (US men's version of Cosmo) is full of articles about poetry and city planning.

The only exceptions are magazines that make an enormous (and often smug) fuss about not treating their readers like idiots.

My gran (born in 1923 and married in 1948) went to university, travelled and taught around the world then taught back at home in Scotland becoming a head teacher then later a school inspector. She did a second degree in her 60s.
She had 2 children and was also a ministers wife. She had plenty of female contemporaries.
The term 1950s housewife is quite offensive tbh. Not all women in the 1950s were oppressed and indeed not all housewife's are oppressed anyway.

I once bought a 1950s annual from a jumble sale - wish I still had it
It was designed for teenage girls and had agony aunt pages and careers advice as well as fashion and beauty
The careers advice was quite stereotypical as in teaching nursing secretary etc, but there was an expectation that education and a career were important and achievable
I particularly remember a fashion article about accessories black with navy was a real no no and it included gloves and hats as well as bags and shoes
It must have been early 50s as the illustrations were very Norman Hartnell and Dior’s new look

Kaytee87
My Gran was born in 1903 and almost unheard of then went to university and also became a teacher
Sadly she had to resign in 1930 when she got married as married women weren’t allowed!
When war break out in 1939 and many men enlisted there were shortages in many professions including teaching and she went back, eventually becoming headteacher
She retired in 1963 just before I was born, but was still fondly remembered when I became a pupil at her old school a few years later

It's assumed by many that women felt downtrodden and oppressed in the 50s. People just lived their lives with what they knew.
Women didn't have the rights and opportunities they have today but they didn't have the stresses women have today either. In some ways they were more content.
I'm not sure women are any happier today.

Also many families didn't have washing machines, fridges or even vacuum cleaners, so more time was spent doing the laundry, food shopping and general housework. Most families didn't own a car, let alone 2 cars, and there is a limit on the amount of shopping one person can carry home at one time.

I wonder sometimes if the strict discipline / borderline neglect of some children was because they were resented by their mothers.

You haven't read any the pre feminist literature if you assume all women were content.

You haven't read any the pre feminist literature if you assume all women were content

I don't assume all women were content. I said in some ways, they were. I think it's assumed today that they were all dissatisfied.
I've read pre feminists literature, I was around in the 60s when things started to change and I've also seen women being conned into thinking our lives are so much better today when in fact, women have far more stress, demands and pressure on them than ever.

Ok I’ll try again. I have only recently learnt why all my family holidays and those of my cousins were all spent in the same part of England. That’s because my dad and his siblings had the suspicion that their sister was being battered by her husband and they wanted to be physically near and show their support to her (and have him see it).
It was never spoken about.
She was a nurse before marriage but was dependent on her husband from then on, and being a single parent was even more stigmatised then than now.

Printed matter was more upmarket though I do agree. Comparing the same paper or magazine then and now shows a higher academic content then. The target market was different.

OP, I have three copies of Housewife from my Granny. A bit earlier than yours as they are from the 40s so more wartime stuff, but I was surprised by how readable they are even now.

OneEpisodeI don't think that single parents are stigmatised nowadays. But certainly in the 1950s they were few and far between, and to be an unmarried mother was a shameful occurrence.