Why were women so shunned by society in the 1950s?

According to "The Way We Never Were", a woman's failure to bear children went from being a social disadvantage and sometimes a personal tragedy in the 19th century to being a quasi-perversion in the 1950s.





"Women who could not walk the fine line between nurturing motherhood and castrating momism, or who had adjusting to creative homemaking were labeled neurotic, perverted, and schizo."





"A recent study in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s concluded that institutionalization and sometimes electric shock treatments were used to force women to accept their domestic roles and their husband's dictates and orders."





"Shock treatments were also recommended for women sought abortion on assumption that failure to want a baby was a dangerous emotional disturbance."





In 1947, the book, The Lost Sex, called feminism as a deep illness, called the notion of an independent woman a contradiction in terms and accused women who sought educational or economic equality of men of engaging in castration on men."





"All women, even the seemingly most docile ones, were deeply mistrusted. They were frequently denied the right to serve on jury duties, convey credit cards under their own names, or establish residence. Women were excluded from several professions and many states gave husbands complete control over the family finances."





"Women in the 1950s did not have many alternative lifestyles besides baking brownies, experimenting with canned soups and getting the stain out from around their husband's shirt collars."





It sure sounded tough to be a woman in the 1950s, it sounds women were forced to live the way they did and were unhappy about it.





Why was it like that? It didn't seem to be like that any other time in history.|||Women were more held back prior to the 1950's but there were women who knew who they were since 1900. Women had to go to work in large numbers during war years. That changed women in many ways. Don't believe everything you read. Talk to women who are older and get their opinion about life in the 1950's. Rural women may have a different story to tell you than urban women, so location is important. Post high school education was less prevalent, overall. Economics played a part in what you are talking about. Starting in the early 1960's there was beginning to be money available for student loans and grants, so that turned around the jobs available to women, also.





I never felt restricted in what I would become as an adult. Even though I was from a rural middle class [but not wealthy], family, both of my parents worked. Both parents shared work responsibilities.





You really do need to find people to interview on your own. Life was not as portrayed on TV in sit coms, in the 1950's!|||The idea that women were lower than men flourished for so long, it was an ignorant way of life and it can still be seen today seen today. It was fed by propaganda, religion, and power.





Women had always been viewed as subordinate. Even in the bible (sorry to bring that up) there are parts where women are treated terribly, and in absurd ways.|||Though it's much more acceptable not to have children because you don't want to or can't, it's still not easy not to have children now.|||I think it had something to do with those funky rubber bathing caps that they wore in the pool to keep their hair dry.They made them unattractive and perhaps,compressed their brain somewhat.





OK,well,what's YOUR answer,then?