Feminism as Femininity in the Nineteen-Fifties? Author(s): Birmingham Feminist History Group Source: Feminist Review, No. 3 (1979), pp. 48-65 Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1394709 . Accessed: 17/02/2015 10:27 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Palgrave Macmillan Journals is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Feminist Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 163.1.208.155 on Tue, 17 Feb 2015 10:27:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions | F e>veminism ':'4:. p'i S '-:'as d.i- temininity- * * S * * * s ^t>i sli ^ * in the nineteen-fifties . rL BirminghamFeminist History Group v r v This paperhas grown out of an attempt to do some collective research.Last year n we were all involved in an adult education class on women in the forties and b fifties. We were very struck by the absence of feminist writing on that period r and the vast amount of availablematerial which could be worked on. We decided to form a researchgroup and attempt by pooling the limited amount of time we i have to build up an account of some aspects of women's experiencein the fifties. g i It has not been aItogethereasy; the transition from being a class to becoming a |S2 researchgroup, the differencesbetween us both in the time we have to offer and g i the experiencewe have to brlng,and the problem of focusing on a limited enough < area in a relatively unchartedfield have all presentedconsiderable problems, but k we remaincommitted to the enterprise. k # In this paper we want to begin to interrogatewhat) as feminists, we have com- monsensicallyconsitlered the quiescence of feminism in the fifties. We arguethat we can only understand the political activity described by those involved as 'feminism' by placing it in the context of the particularand dominantversion of fetnilielity in operation then. If in the Womerl'sLiberation Movement today we see feminism as transformingfemininity in a fundamentalwayn feminism of the fifties seemed to be more concerned with the integration and foregroundingof femininity in a masculine world. Those aims demanded certain modification of femininity to be implemented, but not a thorough appraisal.Feminism was, therefore, bound by femininity in such a manner that we as feminists today do not easily recognize its activlties as feminist. It is primarilythe understandingof this ideology of femininity which constitutes the main elemerlt of this paper. We examine it in three domains: 'education', 'motherhood' and 'sexuality'>and in its dominant construction -- wolnan as wife and mother performlngessential work in the home On the whole we don't look at how women contradictorily lived within this femininity in their everyday lives, but focus on representations of femininity in specific kinds of writing;in what might be descrlbedas popular sociological and educative literature - some of which was directed at women themselves -and sn some official government publications. Against this back- ground we finally discuss fifties feminism. Here we are brsef and tentative, offersng preliminaryclues on how to think about it, but not setting out the com- prehensivestudy whichXhopefully, furtherresearch will deliver.1 The flfties was a period characterizedby consensus that the family was the cen- tral unit in society. It was a period when the after-effects of the war combined 48 This content downloaded from 163.1.208.155 on Tue, 17 Feb 2015 10:27:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 'Feminismas feminixiity?' with affluence and the boom to spread an aura of confidence and optimism, a belief in the future and in the possibility of solvingthe problemsthat remained in the society. It was a period which, in ElizabethWilson's terms, saw an end to the class war and an end to the sex war-both class antagonismsand sex antago- nisms were out of fashion. The war, the post-war reconstruction and the rapid development of the cold war, all contributed in different ways to a diminished emphasis on class divisions and an increased emphasis on areas of agreement. The way forward was open to a new and better society-'we've never had it so good' became the slogan of the times. But this appearanceof unity and consen- sus should not be taken too literally-one of the main tasks of ideology is to give the appearanceof unity and coherence. Ideologies in the fifties stressed agreement,the promiseof the future, and economic expansionism;the continued existence of class divisions, poverty and inequality were forgotten. Sociologists such as RichardTitmuss had to fight for the recognition of poverty as a struc- tural problem in the late fifties; an ideological onslaught had to be made. So if the appearanceof unity is more closely examined, the contradictions, tensions and divisionssoon become apparent. A great deal was written about the family in the fifties; a lively debate was going on about that institution. This debate was made necessaryby the war and post- war years which saw important changes taking place in the structure of the family. The signposts to the public nature of that debate can be seen, for exam- ple, in the number of government commissionsand reports which related to the family-the BeveridgeReport in 1942, the CurtisCommittee in 1946, the Royal Commissionon Populationin 1949, the Morton Commissionon Divorce in 1951 and the Ingleby Commissionin 1956. Severalof these inquirieswere followed by legislation. There were also a multitude of conferences held on the family by such important bodies as the church, and a number of influential books were published such as those by John Newsom and John Bowlby. All of this activity and discussion suggests that important changeswere in some sense being worked out. Those changes can be connected with three developments. The first is the entry of women into production during the war and the steady increase in the employment of married women after the war. The war effort had called for a massive increase in women's employment, and contrary to most expectations, this trend was not completely reversedin the period after 1945. The second is the increased number of marriages,the earlier age of marriage,the reduced size of the family and, crucially, the increasedavailability and use of contraceptives, all of which combined to compresswomen's child-reanngyeats. It is this change which is very much stressed by the sociologists of women and the family in the fifties such as Alva Myrdal,Viola Klein and Pearl Jephcott. The third factor is the increasingimportance of consumption, especially centred aroundthe home. Consumptionwas held in check by the restraintson wages and the maintenance of rationing until the Conservativevictory of 1951. After the Tories came into power they abandonedrestraint and encouragedthe consumerboom of the late fifties. It was individualconsumption which was facilitated, and the spendingon commodities primarilyfor the home signficantlyincreasedin the period.Women were central to this development, since it was their labour which was being used in the expanding industries producing consumer goods-foods and electrical industries, for example. But additionally it was their wages which were often buying those goods, and they who were choosing the brands. The increasing importance of home consumptionto the whole economy is signified by the mas- sive expansion in advertisingin this period which stresses domestic life. These 49 This content downloaded from 163.1.208.155 on Tue, 17 Feb 2015 10:27:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Peminist Review T"e Ho-scwlre's WOR^s"Or three factors which have been mentioned-the expansion in the number of marriedwomen working,the 'compressedfertility' typical of the period, and the increasingimportance of home consumption-all called for a new view of the role of women and their place in the family. The writing and thinking on women in the fifties by feminists and non-feminists alike tends to take place within a frameworkwhich accepts the primacy of the woman's role as wife and mother and which assumes that other aspects of women's lives must be fitted into that. The emphasison the dual role of women as wives and mothers andos paid workersis very charactensticof the period, but it is always insisted that the family must come first. Women'sentry into employ- ment is understoodin the context of a secondaryjob, preferablyto be done part time, so as to fit in with the needs of husbandand children.The tensions and dif- ficulties which women experience in trying to combine these roles are seen as somethingwhich can be sorted out. Women,it was said, have basicallyachieved equality-but they have also received recognition as different from men. Ideologies about women in the fifties are underpinnedby the notion of 'equal but different'-men and women have their special spheres, and women bring different qualities, feminine qualities, to the society which men could not provide. The notion of separate spheres is by no means new-indeed, it has a long history-but the conditions in which it appearsin the fifties are quite specific. Women should no longer need to aspire to be like men since they are a special vanety of individualin their own right. The new generation of women can successfully combine the loving and caring roleof the mother, so insisted upon by the post-Freudians,with an ability to run their own homes probably without domestic help and to work in the public sphereas well.