Women's Roles In The 1940s Essay

In contrast to the more liberated 1940s, the 1950s brought a return to traditional women’s roles. Different from the 1920s through the 1940s, less women graduated high school than men in the 1950s, and more men were still graduating college than women. This did not bring great success for women’s opportunities. In fact, the total amount of women’s participation in the labor force was 50% of that of men’s. After the war, when the men returned, the birth rate, in the United States, increased significantly. This caused the role of the classic stay at home mom, who took care of the children and did the chores around the house, to come back into play in the 1950s. Women were reluctant to leave their home and children because child care outside the home was not readily available. Instead of being working mothers, women with children were encouraged to stay at home. The women that did work, had their wages not considered a part of the family income but instead for holidays and extra fun activities. Society was still not seeing the importance of women …show more content…
Women resumed graduating high school (78%-88%) at a higher percentage than men, and there were only 5% more male college graduates than women in the 1960s. More colleges started to accept female students, including the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, which was in fact the last college willing to accept women as students. With this increase and hopeful outcome of education, women’s participation in the labor force increased to 32%, 30% of those women being married. Married women now had more responsibility which was made possible because child care was newly available. Before the 1960s, women were reluctant to leave their homes and children, but by the 1960s women overcame their guilt and started to leave the house more. Women were starting to experience more freedom and power, however, there was still gender discrimination in jobs and more specifically in