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Women in the 1950's

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Submitted By bobbie123
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Large Families
Not only did most married women walk down the aisle by age 19; they also tended to start families right away. A majority of brides were pregnant within seven months of their wedding, and they didn't just stop at one child. Large families were typical. From 1940 to 1960, the number of families with three children doubled and the number of families having a fourth child quadrupled.

Single and Pregnant
If remaining single in American society was considered undesirable, being single and pregnant was totally unacceptable, especially for white women. Girls who "got in trouble" were forced to drop out of school, and often sent away to distant relatives or homes for wayward girls. Shunned by society for the duration of their pregnancy, unwed mothers paid a huge price for premarital sex. In reality young women were engaging in premarital sex in spite of the societal pressure to remain virgins. There was a growing need for easy, safe, effective, reliable and female-controlled contraceptives.

Advertisements about women-
Many of the advertisements in the magazines and T.V. shows somewhat defined the role of motherhood. They were constantly aimed at feminine concerns because women were normally the ones that were buying the products for the house. T.V. shows such as “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” set an example of how normal “American” life should be. These advertisements often times showed smiling women with their arms loaded with cooked food, or a women cleaning house and looking happy and content to be doing that and nothing else. These were dedicated housewives whose only goal in life was to meet the pleasures of their husband and children.

Women working-
Social commentators said that because of this, women were in fact endangering the family by not being there for their children and husbands. The husband wasn’t always at home all the time

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