What Was the Ideal Female Image Projected by Mass Media in the 1950s - Essay Example

Mass media’s ideal image of women in the 1950s Mass media in the 1950s projected the ideal image of a woman as a domestic caregiver, whose sole purpose was to take care of the husband and the children. The ideal woman was typically white and was a housewife from a middle-class background. The ideal woman would not go out of the home for work. While men were supposed to win earn the bread, the ideal woman was supposed to bake it and make sure that every member of the family is relished. The ideal woman was supposedly a very good mother, daughter, sister, and wife with all responsibilities of management of domestic works.

While the husband was away, the ideal woman would clean the house, make porridge for the babies and bake cookies for the children returning from school. The family seemed to offer a psychological fortress, a buffer against both internal and foreign threats. In this ideological climate, independent women threatened the social order. Under cultural pressure and with limited options for work outside the home, women, contained and constrained, donned their domestic harnesses. (Meyerowitz, 1994). The ideal image was not quite real because many women did not feel comfortably restrained into the boundaries of their homes.

They felt that their rights were subdued and they did want things to change for good. Women of the 1950s wanted to play their role in social development along with men and yet maintain a balance between their professional and domestic life. Their constant effort improved their lifestyle in the 1960s when more women joined schools and entered the workplace than ever before.