Learn about the myths and realities of women's lives during the 1950s. Very few women worked after getting married; they stayed at home to raise the children and keep house.

The life of the average married woman in the 1950s and 60s was very different from that of today’s woman. The 1950s were a decade marked by the post-World War II boom, the dawn of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Women’s roles were greatly changed in the 1950s, with the men coming back from war and taking their jobs back. We can wear a stiff, full skirt, vintage aprons, masses of lipstick, absurd hair and play at having afternoon teas and being as ultra-feminine and retro as we want. Search. Courses. “America at this …

In many cases, a woman’s lot seems to have hardly improved by marriage.

This was the age of respectability and conformity. After the war, many women wanted to keep their jobs. Post-feminist revolution, 1950s housewives carry a certain amount of hip kudos. Many of them became wives and mothers as the men came back from the war. Housework was much more difficult, as for example people did their washing by hand, instead of in a machine, and with refrigerators being a luxury item for most people, food had to be bought daily.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. It was less common for married women to work and many took on the childcare and housework, while their husbands went to work. Women had, during World War II, taken men’s jobs while they had been away at war. Learn about the myths and realities of women's lives during the 1950s. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. Just 1.2 per cent of women went to university in the 1950s. The 1950s family home was also very different from our own. Now that we have equality (or a facsimile thereof) we don't have to be on the defensive anymore.