Gender Roles After World War II

You may have heard the terms: man of the house, stay at home mom, housewife, and the working man. These terms stem from societal normality’s. They are terms that are used to describe gender roles. The classification of what is expected of the man or women. The domestic women and working man are ideals, some that are described in the late 1940s thru the 1950’s. Did the role of characters like June Cleaver just appear? Who said that women must stay at home with dinner ready and a pie in the oven for her family? Where did these standards come from?
After WWII, Gender roles were challenged, ideals were changed and standards were questioned. Could the war be a cause for these changes? This paper will evaluate men and women’s roles, ideals and standards
that changed post war using popular films in its era. It will also use popular feminist and film critics. Why use film? Film portrays societal norms and standards. Films are used as evidence of change throughout time, they are not only used for entertainment. Popular media articles are also important, although journalist write what sells, what sells is what people can relate to in their culture. Affirmation of the publics acceptance to these films, come from the films ratings. These films are all part of the top 10 grossing films for their year. The movies that will provide examples will be: Father of the Brides, Fathers Little Dividend, How to Marry a Millionaire, I was a male war bride, Peyton Place, Spellbound, State Fair, The Best years of our lives, and The African Queen.

GENDER ROLES:
Change happens because of an event or series of events.
For Americans, the major event WWII, caused women to be proposed with a new opportunity. They could work in higher positions in jobs never offered before. The woman was encouraged to work and go to school. By doing so, she was doing her duty to fill in, while the men fought the war. Since women had these experiences they saw new opportunities. They saw a world in which they could have a career, set goals and the new idea of advancement. Although women did work before the war, they worked primarily “woman jobs” jobs such as secretaries, housekeepers, with little to no advancement opportunities.
Due to the war, women were given the opportunity to obtain jobs such as lawyers, doctors and higher positions in the military. Women still suffered from gender inequality as not all men approved of their competence. Such as in the movie Spell bound, a female doctor, Dr. Peterson’s co-workers don’t see her as an equal. One man, who seems to like her as a women, critics her work as a career women. He observes her with a patient and says:
MAN DR: You can't treat a love veteran like Carmichael without some inside information.
DR.P: I've done a great deal of research on emotional problems and love
difficulties.
MAN DR: Research, my eye. I've watched your work for six months. It's brilliant but lifeless. There's no intuition in it. You approach all your problems with an ice pack on your head.
DR.P Are you making love to me?
MAN DR: I will in a moment. I'm just clearing the ground first. I'm trying to convince you that your lack of human and emotional experience is bad for you as a doctor and fatal for you as a woman.
DR.P: I've heard that argument from a number of amorous psychiatrists who all wanted to make a better doctor of me.

She defends herself stating that she has done the research, just as a male doctor would do. She knows what she is doing, and is tired of the men trying to tell her how she needs to be. Women are increasingly shown as having a “mind of their own” verbally after the war. Assuming positions of more “power” in the workplace changed women’s confidence and attitudes all around. We can see this in movies like I was a Male War Bride, and Spellbound. These films gave women roles in positions known primarily to men.
In this 1945 film Spellbound by Alfred Hitchcock; a mental hospital in Vermont staffs the beautiful Dr. Constance Peterson. She works as a psychoanalysis. She is one of the only women doctors shown in the film, partially accepted as a woman with some disapproval from her male coworkers.

Male doctors put her down saying that because she’s a career women, she could never be emotionally attached and joking about how quickly she’s taken a liking to the new director romantically.
Sounding as if they were making fun of her for doing the “Expected” as if the women is not “Man enough” for the career, that she is still just a woman looking for love and cannot be taken seriously. They act as if love is a distraction for her as a woman and that its either a career or love, not both.
She is a very patient caring woman, who helps the man she is falling in love as he has amnesia. She has had past patients with the same issue, she uses her knowledge to regain his memory. She proves that she is extremely intelligent by using her knowledge to help cure him, proving to her fellow doctors that she can be intelligent and in love.
When the men came back from war they wanted their jobs back and women were chastised even more. Historian Betty Friedan writer of The Feminine Mystique suggests that:

“Women were driven out of their jobs, due to the fields they chose to face hostility from the men and that there are unwritten laws of advancement belonging to men, and that to be a woman in these fields would be so much of a fight that women would just go home to a job that welcomed them…that after the war, many women did work, there were plenty of jobs, but the jobs that required training and that were actual professions besides, a factory job.”
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