A short history of the family unit and gender roles

1. A short history of the family unit and gender roles

2. The change in “traditional family” began in the 1960’s. Like all cultural shifts, there is no certain date – only a decade in which it occurred. • In 1950, 16% of women with children worked outside the home. • Today, 2/3 of women with children work outside the home. • Over half of all marriages end in divorce today. This is three times as many as in 1950.

3. The proportion of women who remain unmarried and childless has reached a record high; fully twenty percent of women between the ages of thirty and thirty-four have not married and over a quarter have had no children, compared to six and eight percent, respectively, in 1970. • Three children in ten are born out of wedlock. Over a quarter of all children now live with only one parent.

4. These transformations have inspired family values crusaders to condemn careerist mothers, absent fathers, single parents, and unwed parents as the root cause of many of society’s ills, such as persistent poverty, drug abuse, academic failure, and juvenile crime. • While these points have merit and will be discussed in turn, here are a few other statistics for you.

5. It was only in the 1920s that, for the first time, a majority of American families consisted of a breadwinner husband, a homemaker wife, and children attending school. Before this, everyone worked and most kids didn’t attend school in order to help with finances. • The most rapid increase in unwed pregnancies took place between 1940 and 1958, not in the libertine 1960s, and that teenage childbearing was higher in the 1950s than today. However, it wasn’t until 1960 that birth control was legalized.

6. As a woman in the 50’s, it was expected that you marry young, bear lots of children, and stay home to raise them and take care of your husband. • Today, it is rare that a woman stay home to marry instead of going to college. Is it this “just in case” attitude that results in so much divorce? • In the 50’s a divorce meant you were an outcast as opposed to today when it’s accepted.

7. In recent years there has been a push back toward the traditional family. Women are choosing to stay home, despite college educations, to take care of the kids and husbands. • A new form of woman (the anti-feminist) is appearing who is pushing against the feminist activists who have long been far more vocal. • These women claim that feminism has resulted in a worse world excepting the few obvious benefits like college, voting, and the right to not be beaten.

8. The idea of the American Dream is personified by the family/home life. Still today, a person who is unmarried and childless but successful in other ways is looked down upon as not being “American.” • Furthermore, the idea of a loving father is also new. Prior to the 50’s, men were the head of the household in a manner similar to the Muslim culture that we look down upon today. Though women were not covered head to toe, they were susceptible to the severe punishment that occurs in the Middle East today since there were few laws to protect them.

9. Surprisingly, despite the widespread shift into less typical 50’s family structures, people in America still feel that the 50’s family is the family everyone should have. • While having divorced parents is no longer a cause of becoming an outcast, it is still unacceptable. Though society has changed, our ideal of it has not.

10. In this unit you will examine your beliefs about the definition of families and, to a lesser extent, feminism and anti-feminism. Along with the family structure, we will also examine how our gender roles are developed and compare out roles to those in other countries. • It is important to respect other’s views in this, as in all other, units because everything discussed is a personal topic that is expected to result in personal responses.