How did a nation that during WW2 not merely tolerated, but actively cultivated an image of women empowerment, from Rosie the Riveter to female pilots like this one, to millions of factory workers, code-breakers, drivers, early computer operators, managers, and other key professions, who did it on a massive national scale while the men were off fighting, and who were celebrated and immortalized in iconic wartime propaganda...
...Suddenly did a full 180 and embraced the “1950s” household, where a woman was only fit as a subservient, docile housewife, while the man was the sole breadwinner? Again, not as an isolated subculture, but as an nationwide trend so common that the entire 50s decade is associated with that lifestyle?
Women were also previously accepted in (some) male professions during WW1, but at that time it was much more of "out of necessity". There wasn't nearly as much iconic propaganda, and women were still more limited to "female" professions such as nurses, or "lower" roles such as factory workers, to replace the men who went fighting. Whereas in WW2, we started seeing women take on a lot of previously "masculine", "high-responsibility" professions like the pilot above.
Furthermore, I don't think that post-WW1, there was ever such a massive swing "the other way" in rolling back women's rights and privileges; the "roaring 20s" were, to some extent, a continuation of a more liberal society for women compared to pre-WW1.
By comparison, the 1950s weren't just a return "to status quo", they seem like a massive reaction, with women's rights and social expectations to be "a wife and a mother" rolled back to even below those of the pre-WW2 levels.
Did the entire nation just collectively decide to “forget” the active and heroic role women played just a few years prior? How would they mentally reconcile their new “lifestyle” when coming across the occasional Rosie poster that still hasn’t been torn down? What drove such a massive, anachronistic reaction in American society in such a short time span? Were there "purges" or social pressure against women who gained professional or leadership positions during WW2, to "go back to being a housewife"? Were there any post-war protests by feminists related to this swing in attitudes?
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, many women were laid off from their wartime positions. This was a result of nationwide hand-wringing for the welfare of men returning from the war, as there were widespread concerns in the media that no jobs would be available to them. This was the largest short-term factor in reducing the number of women in the workforce immediately after the war.
Probably the largest long-term effect that kept women out of the workforce throughout the 1950s was the baby boom. The increase in nationwide birth rates after World War II is historically unprecedented with previous major American wars, such as World War I, not creating nearly the same spike in births. This increase in babies led to an increased need for housewives and stay-at-home mothers; this created a trend towards women filling domestic roles and staying at home.
There were also intensely conservative pressures in the mass media of the 1950s urging women to stay at home. This is the stereotypical image of the 1950s today: Dick and Jane, white picket fences, and suburban barbecues — all with women working happily at home, raising the children. Women who dared to venture outside these norms were ruthlessly ridiculed by mainstream psychologists and personalities; according to historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan, women who sought careers outside traditional female roles were described as "lost," "suffering from penis envy," "ridden with guilt complexes," or "man-hating" in the media of the time.^(1)
Perhaps the most notable takeaway from this era is that, while society as a whole generally refuted the wartime idea that women should join the workforce during the 1950s, women themselves began to view themselves as potentially important parts of the workforce. Before World War II, a government study concluded that wartime propaganda "must convince 40% of the younger women, and 64% of the older women, that it is their duty" to join the wartime workforce^(2). By the end of the war, though, nearly 75% of women who worked during the war said they wanted to continue working after the end of the war^(3).
The ideal of domesticity was also not quite as cemented in society as it may first appear. It arose as a result of relative economic prosperity and a byproduct of Cold War anxieties — according to historian Elaine Tyler May^(4):
Americans turned to the family as a bastion of safety in an insecure world... cold war ideology and the domestic revival [were] two sides of the same coin.
It's also important to note that, despite these very powerful public and media pressures on women to stay at home and become housewives, approximately 40% of women with young children, and 50% with older children chose to remain in the workforce. The cult of domesticity and nuclear family were certainly the dominant ideology of the time, but by no means were they universally prevalent.
TL;DR: Social pressures from prominent figures and commentators pushed women out of the workplace after World War II, and the unprecedented baby boom in the wake of the war led to women being pushed towards domestic life. New forms of mass media and entertainment such as television further reinforced the public stigma towards women pursuing careers (for more on this, I recommend Where The Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media). However, though society as a whole pressured women to join the "cult of domesticity," women themselves – especially those who worked during the war – desired a place in the workforce, and many women did still continue to work after the war in spite of this reaction.
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