Family Life Instructional Video Analysis

Following World War II, women of the 1950s spent most of their time in the home. After a large group of men returned home from the war, they began to start families. This period is referred to as The Baby Boom. The Baby Boom was a period in which 76.4 million babies were born between the years 1946 and 1964 (“Baby Boomers”). With so many babies born to these households, women had little choice other than to stay home with their children. The domestic life became extremely common for women of the 1950s. Women were to say home with the children and take care of the housework, including cooking, cleaning, laundry, and various other household chores. Although we can see through an analysis of the “Family Life Instructional Video,” women in the Post-War Era were proud of their domestic roles within their nuclear families, however when looking at works such as the “We Can Do It” poster and Anne Sexton’s poem “Her Kind” we can infer that the women of this era also desired to be viewed as strong, capable, and independent individuals. The Post World War II era consisted of many, what we would call today, “stay at home moms” living their domestic lives. This common way of life for women of the post-war era could be seen in advertisements during the mid-1900s. The “Two Ford Freedom” ad from 1955 shows a woman who does not have a job to attend, only her husband does. She is stuck at home during the day, doing her house duties, until the couple decides to invest in a second vehicle. This advertisement shows that most women of the Post-War era were not included in the work force, they were primarily responsible for house duties and the taking care of the family. However, as we see in this ad, the wife could also go out for appointments, shopping, and other activities, after their purchase of a second vehicle. The “Two Ford Freedom” ad also sheds light on the fact that the Post-War era was experiencing a boom in the economy. Women like the one in this ad were able to go on outings to shop and enjoy other leisure activities. It is also clear that the economy was experiencing an upturn because the family depicted in this ad, was able to afford an additional vehicle, something many families could not afford before or during World War II. Women of the Post World War II era were content with their domestic lives and began to take pride in their responsibilities. “By the mid-1950s, advertiser surveys reported on a growing tendency among women to find housework a medium of expression for their femininity and individuality” (Cultural Studies and the Long Fifties). Women were proud of their …show more content…
It became so bad, that society thought of women as incapable of doing anything other than housework, without relying on their husband. The sarcasm in the Del Monte Ketchup Ad from 1953 sheds light upon this issue of sexism during the Post-War era. The ad is captioned, “You mean a woman can open it?” implying that it is so easy, even a woman can open the bottle for themselves. This is how weak the society viewed women. We can only imagine the bitterness women of the era had towards such ads. This only added to the drive women had to overcome this idea of weakness and prove that they were independent and capable of much more than just …show more content…
Again, women were viewed as dependent on their husbands due to the breadwinner ideal. However, women did not accept such an image. Works like Anne Sexton’s poem, “Her Kind” depicts a strong, independent woman who is proud of her ability to be self-sufficient. The poem states, “I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods…A woman like that is misunderstood. I have been her kind.” The narrator is explaining how she has been independent and self-sufficient, and woman like her are misunderstood. Women of the Post World War II era were misunderstood by society, more specifically men. These women simply wished to escape the image of their weakness and dependency but men were not able to accept women as independent and did not welcome them to the