I mean that’s just not true. I thought everyone learned about how WWII offered women the opportunity in mast numbers for the first time because of the crucial roles that were left open by the men who were off to fight. That’s what sparked the transition toward women’s right to work at all. Before that, there was no such right. Unless you are counting cooking and cleaning at home, or tending the family farm, as “work”, but I don’t believe that’s what people mean when we are referring to “a woman’s right to work”.
Comment on Remember the good old days?
werty@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks agoI’m right there with you. Women have always worked and the 50’s housewife in the US is a historical blip that women fought to escape.
thepresentpast@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Objection@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
This is fairly inaccurate, as well. Paid work was certainly lower, but prior to the Industrial Revolution merely putting clothes on your back was a fairly labor-intensive task. One estimate puts it at 10 spinners to supply one person on a loom, and this work was often done by women at home, and was generally paid work in the Middle Ages. A British census in the mid 1800s, which over-represents unpaid work in domestic services as laborers (I’ll let you decide if that counts as women being part of the economy or not), still had about 50% of women in the census as employed.
thepresentpast@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I am responding specifically to the original point that the 50s represented a time where women somehow worked less than ever before. That’s just not true. I am not arguing against the idea that women performed valuable labor roles.
werty@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Cooking, cleaning and tending the family farm are all examples of work. As are making, washing and mending clothes. Teaching, nursing, bookkeeping, sex work and running a large household (or working in one) are also jobs. Helping to run the family business, whether a farm, a bakery, a church or a blacksmith, is working. Women did not just sit around embroidering things, and those who did sold their embroidery for money. You should also realise that all the men going to the office/factory every day is a recent development. My grandmothers both held gainful employment before world war 2.
thepresentpast@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Sure, but women still did all of those activities in the 50s. That didn’t change. And none of it is the same as holding a job. There were a small array of activities available to us, and we were expected to give most of them up upon marriage or at the latest pregnancy. And you couldn’t have a bank account or keep your earnings in any meaningful way. So the 50s were no different from the 30s or 10s in that regard, EXCEPT that women were entering the paid workforce in greater numbers than ever before, which is the opposite of your original point to which I am responding.
werty@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
You seem to define work as holding a paid job outside of the home. I disagree with that definition.
Wilco@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
No, you are wrong and need to understand why.
The ability to have that 50’s housewife was due to a single earner economy. You could be a bagboy at a supermarket and support a family of three … possibly even own your own home.
This was taken away. Perspective
werty@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
You’re not responding to my comment, just throwing in your extremely simplistic agenda. Your suburban american 50’s dream was a blip in time and space that is meaningless to most people.