Tonight’s reading kind of complicated last nights reading, although some parts of it reinforced it, like the idea of television portraying the perfect family etc. Anyway, last nights reading was more about the birth of the nuclear family and the “American Dream” all the expectations surrounding those ideas, whereas tonight’s reading was about the downfall of the nuclear family and “perfect” suburban mother.
A new development that was explained in tonight’s reading was the unhappiness of married women. Although TV shows depicted perfect happy families, the packet said that a lot of marriages ended in divorce, or if they didn’t, the wives were very unhappy. I think this was because society had pressured everyone to get married pronto; the goal of a woman was supposed to be to get married, have children, and be a good mother. This forced woman to marry quickly, and they probably ended up marrying people they didn’t really love, or who they weren’t compatible with. True life example: My mom was a child/teenager in the 50s, and she said that her parents expected her to go to college to find a man. And she did, and ended up getting married at like, 21 or 22, and she was unhappy with the marriage and it failed.
Another change was the idea of the father figure. The father figure used to be a strong commanding person, who controlled the household and the money. But in the 50s the father figure began to change into a “bumbling dad” as the packet put it, who was kind of silly and friendly, and this idea was reinforced by the media.
The final main development that I noticed was the creation of the “youth culture.” I was really surprised when the reading started talking about it, because I realized that up until now we haven’t read much about what teenagers were doing, and I didn’t even notice that we weren’t. I guess it is strange to think that a youth culture kind of sprung up suddenly, since now youth culture is such a huge part of our society, and it is totally normal, whereas back then, it was new and strange.
A parallel to today that I noticed was people’s attitudes toward sex. The youth culture was more open about sex, and there was Playboy, which “urged men to regard women was delectable sex objects and to prefer an irresponsible bachelorhood to the responsibilities of marriage and a family,” (201). I thought this was interesting, because now the idea of a bachelor is really common.
There is a sentence in the packet that I have a question about. It says “Postwar social analysts tended to downplay the tensions and stresses in American family life…” So this is another “why?” question (sorry). Why do you think these tensions were downplayed, and the perfect family idea was pushed forward?
I thought that this was a really good reading, it solidified a lot of things for me, in a readable, non-boring style.
I think that the parrallels to our life is a really interesting thing as well. before seeing this question I asked my mom how many hours of housework she thought she did this week while thinking about the 60-80 we saw in the reading. She said that she thought she did somewhere between 25-30, adding though that she did far less than her mother, on the other hand we have a far less clean house. I hope my mom doesnt mind that I am sharing this, but I thought that it was interesting that she added this comparison in her estimate. She did not even add the fact that she works in her comparison, which seemed to imply something to me, that though she worked she was still expected to do the housework. I mean these are just my unvalidated(real word?) opinions, but I found it all interesting.
On to the reading though....I think that the hideous "live your gender" quote sums up all the issues in the chapter. It is clear that woman were looking for more, that another movement was at hand. The author talks about overall displeasure, saying, "The result was a deep sense of ambivilance and internal turmoil toward both homemaking and career." on 195 I liked this quote a lot because I think that it answered my question today to some extent. It gave me the full explanation I was looking for, a great sumerization of women's problems.
Another part I found really interesting was the idea of leaving behind the city life. Diversity is so important nowadays, but diversity was a sort of plague back in the 50s, how is this important to the womens movement?
I really liked this reading! I thought it was really well-written and "readable" as Zach said. I think what is so interesting about it is that it addresses issues about the 50's that I had never heard before. I mean now it seems obvious that there would be a sense of dissatisfaction with the gender roles of the era but, before this reading I didn't know how bad things actually were.
As far as complicating or reinforcing last night's reading/today's discussion, I think that it definitely complicates things. I mean when you think of the 1950's that image of the nuclear family comes to mind. I think of "I Love Lucy" and "Leave it to Beaver" and the sort of lifestyle portrayed in those sitcoms, and this reading really proved that those images were quite unrealistic. In today's discussion, we mentioned women's role as submissive and family oriented, a woman's job was to be the perfect wife, mother, and housewife. This reading focused on those images, and how they were different from the realities, which is something important about the 50’s that often gets overlooked. For example, television is the 1950’s became extremely influential to how people saw normalcy and gender roles were determined based on the way television characters lived. The truth however, is that no one was REALLY living like those people on the sitcoms, I mean to some extent they were, many people had the same family structure, and the ideology was the same. The difference was that in reality, people were unhappy living in the nuclear family bubble. Women were unhappy that they were confined to housework and raising children, and men were unhappy that they were disconnected from family life and served primarily as the financial support for the family.
To answer Rachel’s question, I think that our vision of the 50’s gets clouded by images of the “Leave it to Beaver” lifestyle. I think that the reality of American life at this time gets blended with these idealistic visions. It’s easier to say that everyone is living happily and ignore the “stresses”, and it is much harder to acknowledge that people are unhappy and have to fix the problem.
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:49 am Post subject: Reply
I noticed when I was reading that it talked about some of the ideas that we talked about in class. I know that it mentioned that men were supposed to be the breadwinner which I didn’t really understand until I asked someone what it meant but it also mentioned that women were supposed to be the homemakers. It also mentioned the blue-collar family which I said it was their wayIt of saying the “typical American family.” Another thing that I noticed was that the newer generations wanted less children because they got married at such a young age and in the longer reading, it mentioned how women had like seven but in this one, it said a majority said they only wanted about four or five and I still think that is too much. The women’s wanting of children early brings me to the subject of women being accepted more in the workforce than usual. It stated that the percentage of women working raised from 7% to 25%.
Question:
It is not really a question, more like a clarifying. I didn’t know what this sentence was trying to say.
“Facing more tenuous economic circumstances than did their white-collar counterparts, as a result of lower pay and less secure employment, these men clung more intently more to old-fashioned distinction between men’s roles and women’s place.
I saw a LOT of parallels between the lives of the families described in this reading and my life today. On page 192, the reading explained that "The image of marriage typically depicted was one of domestic bickering provoked by economic strain." I don't think too many fictional TV series address the current economic strain, but "domestic bickering" is seen as humorous. I'm not saying it can't be funny--I just think it's interesting. As it said in the reading, "It is clear that [1950s TV shows] reflected underlying tensions and anxieties in the population." Personally, I think "Everybody Loves Raymond" seems to be a perfect example of the similarities between 1950s media and that of today. As described on page 192, "the working-class husband [was] a bumbling, clumsy fool and dreamer, taunted by his wife...a foolish but sympathetic hero."
I didn't see too many parallels in last nights' reading to modern day- but I thought that there were many very interesting things from tonight's reading that I couldn't possibly imagine working in current day. One of these things was the "disciplined dress code" and not being able to own a car if you were under 18. How was this POSSIBLY enforced? I couldn't imagine that happening now...
another thing that I though was interesting was how it talked about 'desperate housewives' and that is a situation that some women are involved in modern day, so that's a parallel.
'Last night's' reading focused more on expectations that the society and the media has on the 'perfect family'. It focused on the televisions shows and the media that influenced women and families. And 'tonight's' focused more on women's resistance to that expectations. How women got bored with just being the house wife, that they wanted to do more. This of course fueled the second wave. Props to Martha for the ordering, I was able to see the cause and the effect of this expectation for women not just one or the other.
One parallel for me, that is more of an opposite is that my dad does more house work than my mom. Because my dad works out of the house he would always wake me and my brother up in the morning, and take us to school, and cooks dinner. My mom would only cook on weekends and do some laundry here and there. It's kind of cool that where I grew up it was acceptable, even common for that to happen... times have changed, in a good way!
Attacks in Baghdad are down in recent weeks but still remain a deadly threat
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Bombs kill Shia pilgrims in Iraq
A series of bombings across Baghdad has killed at least 13 people, including six or more Shia pilgrims from Iran.
Five Iranians were killed by two bombs near a house used by pilgrims near an important Shia shrine in the city's Kadhimiya district, police said.
In the northern Shula district, a car bomb struck a coach of pilgrims, killing two people. Another car bomb elsewhere killed six people.
Correspondents say overall, attacks are down in Baghdad in recent weeks.
Police officials said more than 100 people were injured in the string of bombings.
The Kadhimiya district houses the Moussa al-Kadhim shrine, one of several Shia holy sites that attract hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, most of them Iranian, every year.
The pilgrims, as well as Iraq's Shia population, have been targeted in the past by insurgents in Iraq.
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