Between the years of 1937 and 1960,LIFE underwent changes involving the portrayal of the genders. In popular literature, stereotypes and views of certain subjects are often displayed for future study. In the case of gender differences, advertisements and articles yield the best portrayal of gender stereotyping of the time. The following issues of LIFE magazine were used in this paper: January-February 1937, January-February 1945, January-February 1952, and January-February 1960. At the end of the Great Depression in 1937, women had a very simple stereotype in the popular media.
They were portrayed as staying home, cleaning, cooking, and mothering. The only pictures of women in LIFE were of housewives doing some sort of domestic work. Men were portrayed exactly the opposite, out at social functions or at some sort of important occupation. One of the first ads in the magazine was an advertisement for Colgate toothpaste. It pictured a girl in college complaining to her roommate that no one likes her and she is quitting school, “I should have never gone to college”. She then goes to her dean to quit and realizes she has bad breath. The dentist gives her Colgate and soon she has a date for the prom. I love college now. ” This cartoon advertisement seems to imply that in 1937, women went to college to get married. Most of the other articles involving women were ones that involved housework. Every last one of the cleaning and food advertisements had a pretty lady in a dress holding the item. Moreover, if there was a man in the picture, he was either getting food at the dinner table or sick in bed with his wife nursing him back to health. All of these articles implied the same thing: women stayed in the house and took care of all the domestic activities.
Some ads did portray women outside the home. One cigarette ad had both a man and a woman on it. The Camel man was a cowboy, watching his herd, the Camel woman was a pretty young secretary busy at her typewriter. There was obviously a clear division of labor in 1937. Finally there was an popular art series exhibited in LIFE in January. The article was written about a series of murals painted of the depression. All the men in the paintings were working hard, carrying mailbags, building a house, farm work, and other hard labor jobs. The women were sewing, cooking and taking care of the babies.
When women and men were together in the murals, the men were eating, and the women were usually taking care of them. The popular gender stereotypes of the time made apparent in LIFE magazine in 1937. And yet there was one article in February that wrote about the women’s liberation movement. It was on Margaret Sager and her efforts to make contraception more available to women. It even mentioned how she was a “inspiration for women all over the world”. One thing I noticed in all the pictured in the magazine was that all the women wore dresses.
No matter what the activity, women were always portrayed wearing a long skirt or dress. Eight years later in 1945, during World War II, gender roles were forced to change in America and popular literature changed a little right along with it. Ten million American men went to Europe and Japan leaving a huge labor shortage. The women in the country took their place making bombs, cars, and other factory-produced commodities. A Chrysler ad showed a picture of a car on an assembly line of entirely women with “Support your women in the war effort” at the top.
Another page advertised a need for more nurses. One of the pictures was a nurse in hospital nursery, and another was an Army nurse tending to a wounded soldier. One full-featured article was about women taking care of the family farm because all their brothers were at war. So the magazines did reflect the social gender changes of the time, but most advertisements did not change at all. All the domestic ads still showed a pretty lady in a dress doing some type of housework. One woman showed off the new “4 Soaps in One” that could wash babies, sheets, hands, and dishes.
Another woman boasted “Just a plain old cook — that’s me! ” One page even had a secretary telling another not to type to fast or hard because men do not like big biceps in women. “Men only like feminine ladies”. The woman’s place was still in the home. A man told his wife in a detergent drawing that she was great at washing and picking out all his clothes for the day. This not only stereotyped the women of the day, but also painted a picture of men not being self-reliant. I observed in each issue there were more and more automobile ads. However, not one showed a woman driving.
It always showed a man driving with his wife riding in the seat next to him. Clothing still did not change a bit either. Except in factory photograph mentioned earlier, every woman was pictured wearing a long dress or skirt. The factory girls were wearing coveralls. The cover of the January 1952 issue of LIFE magazine was about new women’s hairstyles. After World War II, women did not was just to go back and tend to the house after filling the labor shortages. The January and February issues had more articles and advertisements about women than any of the previous.
One article describes Anna Rosenberg and her very public role in government. It emphasized the fact that she was female and doing a job that was usually reserved for men. Another article described an eighteen-year-old girl of many talents. She was smart, musically gifted, artistic, and pretty. She could not seem to decide whether she wanted to marry and settle down or pursue a career of her own. One of the longest articles in the issues was that companies were now trying to take care of their employee’s wives. It was written as if the idea was new and innovative at the time.
They realized that a wife is just as important to a business as her husband. They acknowledged that the wives are just as influential to the company as their husbands and that they are not always compliant and submissive to whatever he wants. Views were changing, and popular literature started to portray gender rolls differently. The men changed little; they still went to work and supported the family with laborious jobs. In addition, one big thing did change in this issue: a lady in pants. She was doing housework and was wearing a pair of pants instead of a dress. And one more first.
There was a car advertisement with a woman behind the wheel. Before this, only men were driving advertisement cars. Besides all this changes, the stereotype tended to be the same. Women were still showed at home cooking or cleaning. All the food and appliance ads had women as the center of interest or were catering to women buyers. However, there was still a lot of change from 1945. In 1960 the stereotypes for both men and women changed in the media. Almost all the changes were in the pictures. One of the first articles was a summary of the new women’s clothes fashions that year.
There were more pants than dresses. Less and less of the advertisements pictured women in a traditional dress. Also, while most of the articles in the previous issues had been about men, the 1960 issue was written as much about female accomplishments as it was about men’s. Concerning changes in male gender roles, one article titled, “New Roles in the Household” described instances of men tending to the house, cooking cleaning, and the kids, while the mother was out at work. In addition, one of the cover stories was of the US women’s Olympic ski team. Attitudes were changing by the early 1960’s.
Women were not conforming to the past gender stereotypes. Instead, they were inventing a new one, which continues to further change today. Gender roles changed a lot in this century and popular literature like LIFE magazine changed with it. At first women had a set role in the house, expected to tend to the house and children and not pursue careers of their own. Thirty years later men and women had changed the way they lived life as a gender. Popular magazine articles provided a good illustration of what we were like culturally seventy years ago, and how we have changed today.
