1950’S GENDER ROLES IN RURAL AUSTRALIA
- Women were expected to return to household duties after WWII.
- Some Australian women gained independence for the first time; in law, economy and sexuality.
- Although some women had pursued other jobs in hairdressing and retail the media encouraged women to restore back to their traditional roles.
- Women were to fulfil certain roles such as a caring mother, diligent homemaker and an obedient wife.
- The perfect type of woman would stay home and nurture so society would accept them.
- A good wife was only a good wife if she carried out her husbands orders and agreed with him on everything.
- Her lack of education did not allow her to voice her opinion in the household.
- It was abnormal and uncanny for a woman to attend university in the 1950’s.
- Most women went through high school, married and fell into their traditional roles straight away.
- The braver woman who chose to take a different career path, was not able to be taught mathematics or science but instead home economics and cooking.
- Men often feared intelligent woman simply because of their tendency to think and disagree.
- Men were the workers of the house hold, they worked all day and came home to their families at night.
- Men were extremely more dominant.
DIVORCE
In the 1950s divorce was not a very common thing for the simple fact that it meant you carried around a very large stigma. In society marriage was something you did once in life and you never left the person you married no matter how miserable you were. This can be seen in the text “The Dressmaker” by Rosalie Ham when it implies in certain chapters that one of the husbands used to beat his wife in their youth and as age consumed him and his body stopped working so well, so did the intensity of the beatings. In this day and age if there is domestic violence in a marriage majority of them will be ended in divorce.