A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s by Stephanie Coontz Page A
Authors: Stephanie Coontz
Tags: Autobiography
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the need to strengthen marriage. It also had the benefit of immediately weeding out many marriages whose endings might otherwise have been spread out over the 1950s, producing a deceptive appearance of marital stability in that decade.
Unmarried men and women were eager to settle down after the disruptions of depression and war, and the average age of marriage dropped sharply. In 1940, only 24 percent of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-old women were married. By 1950, 60 percent of women in that age group had tied the knot. Men also began marrying younger and in greater numbers ; by 1950, more than 40 percent of American males between twenty and twenty-four were married, compared to just 22 percent back in 1900. And the birthrate, which had been falling for most of the previous hundred years, soared after the war.
These changes were accompanied by a new romanticization of the nuclear family as the main source of security and happiness. The first half of the 1940s, historian William Graebner argues, was a time of social activism around such public issues as opposing fascism and supporting the war effort. But the second half of the decade was characterized by a “private, familial” culture, “committed to consumption and the consequent reversion to traditional gender roles.” It was now almost a patriotic duty, Americans were told, to become “blissfully domestic,” furnishing their homes, yards, and garages with the most modern goods and appliances the postwar economy could provide.
Most wars and other historical events that destabilize family formation or result in couples being separated for long periods of time are followed by a brief bump in weddings and births, as people make up for delayed marriages and childbearing. Typically, however, the spike is followed by a quick reversion to preexisting trends, and this is what demographers of the 1950s initially expected to see. Instead, the postwar “adjustment” lasted long enough that it seemed to have established a new norm for family behavior in America. The age of marriage continued to fall for the next fifteen years: By 1960, half of all women were marrying while still in their teens. The postwar rise in fertility continued until 1957, when it peaked at 123 births per 1,000 women, up from 79.5 per 1,000 in 1940. The birthrate for third children doubled between 1940 and 1960, while the birthrate for fourth children tripled.
Looking back at the late 1940s and the 1950s from the late twentieth century, many observers mistakenly believed that the family norms of that
era were natural or traditional. For them the question was why the postwar family model disintegrated and diversified so rapidly after 1965. But it may be more instructive to ask why the postwar increase in marriages and birthrates was not the short-lived “correction” most demographers expected, and why the retrenchment into domesticity lasted so long.
Immediately after the war, many observers believed that the example of Rosie the Riveter had permanently shattered the idea that women’s place was in the home. The editors of the Saturday Evening Post predicted that millions of American women would now “sniff at postwar bromides about woman’s place.” And in fact, the postwar campaign to get women back into the home did not go unchallenged. Resistance to the reestablishment of older gender stereotypes was especially strong in 1946 and 1947, although it faded thereafter.
In 1946, Elizabeth Hawes published a vigorous defense of working women titled Why Women Cry: or Wenches with Wrenches . In the same year, Mary Beard issued a searing attack on Freudian theories about women. And the February 1947 Ladies’ Home Journal featured the most unapologetic argument for gender-neutral marital roles that I found in any mainstream magazine published between 1945 and 1963. In “I Wear the Apron Now,” David Duncan reported that he and his wife had switched roles after their second child was weaned. His
Unmarried men and women were eager to settle down after the disruptions of depression and war, and the average age of marriage dropped sharply. In 1940, only 24 percent of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-old women were married. By 1950, 60 percent of women in that age group had tied the knot. Men also began marrying younger and in greater numbers ; by 1950, more than 40 percent of American males between twenty and twenty-four were married, compared to just 22 percent back in 1900. And the birthrate, which had been falling for most of the previous hundred years, soared after the war.
These changes were accompanied by a new romanticization of the nuclear family as the main source of security and happiness. The first half of the 1940s, historian William Graebner argues, was a time of social activism around such public issues as opposing fascism and supporting the war effort. But the second half of the decade was characterized by a “private, familial” culture, “committed to consumption and the consequent reversion to traditional gender roles.” It was now almost a patriotic duty, Americans were told, to become “blissfully domestic,” furnishing their homes, yards, and garages with the most modern goods and appliances the postwar economy could provide.
Most wars and other historical events that destabilize family formation or result in couples being separated for long periods of time are followed by a brief bump in weddings and births, as people make up for delayed marriages and childbearing. Typically, however, the spike is followed by a quick reversion to preexisting trends, and this is what demographers of the 1950s initially expected to see. Instead, the postwar “adjustment” lasted long enough that it seemed to have established a new norm for family behavior in America. The age of marriage continued to fall for the next fifteen years: By 1960, half of all women were marrying while still in their teens. The postwar rise in fertility continued until 1957, when it peaked at 123 births per 1,000 women, up from 79.5 per 1,000 in 1940. The birthrate for third children doubled between 1940 and 1960, while the birthrate for fourth children tripled.
Looking back at the late 1940s and the 1950s from the late twentieth century, many observers mistakenly believed that the family norms of that
era were natural or traditional. For them the question was why the postwar family model disintegrated and diversified so rapidly after 1965. But it may be more instructive to ask why the postwar increase in marriages and birthrates was not the short-lived “correction” most demographers expected, and why the retrenchment into domesticity lasted so long.
Immediately after the war, many observers believed that the example of Rosie the Riveter had permanently shattered the idea that women’s place was in the home. The editors of the Saturday Evening Post predicted that millions of American women would now “sniff at postwar bromides about woman’s place.” And in fact, the postwar campaign to get women back into the home did not go unchallenged. Resistance to the reestablishment of older gender stereotypes was especially strong in 1946 and 1947, although it faded thereafter.
In 1946, Elizabeth Hawes published a vigorous defense of working women titled Why Women Cry: or Wenches with Wrenches . In the same year, Mary Beard issued a searing attack on Freudian theories about women. And the February 1947 Ladies’ Home Journal featured the most unapologetic argument for gender-neutral marital roles that I found in any mainstream magazine published between 1945 and 1963. In “I Wear the Apron Now,” David Duncan reported that he and his wife had switched roles after their second child was weaned. His
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