Feminism in 1950s Britain
Encyclopedia
1950s Britain has traditionally been regarded as a bleak period for feminism
. In the aftermath of World War II
, a new emphasis was placed on the nuclear family
as a foundation of the new British
welfare state
. Although during the war most women worked outside the home
and participated in the war effort
, after its end they were encouraged to assume roles of wives
and mother
s, as the government aimed to “re-establish domesticity as women’s primary occupation (see Ward 2004: 50, Pugh 1990: 158).
In 1951, the proportion of adult women who were (or had been) married was 75%; more specifically, 84.8% of women between the ages of 45 and 49 were married (Lewis 1984: 3). At that time: “marriage
was more popular than ever before” (Bruely 131). In 1953, a popular book of advice for women states: “A happy marriage may be seen, not as a holy state or something to which a few may luckily attain, but rather as the best course, the simplest, and the easiest way of life for us all” (Whitman 67).
While at the end of the war, childcare facilities were closed and assistance for working women became limited, the social reforms implemented by the new welfare state included family allowances
meant to subsidize
families, that is, to support women in the “capacity as wife and mother” (Pugh 1990: 158). Sue Bruely argues that “the progressive vision of the New Britain of 1945 was flawed by a fundamentally conservative view of women” (118).
The encouragement to marry and was reinforced by popular media
: film
s, radio
and popular women's magazines. In the 1950s, women's magazines had considerable influence on forming opinion in all walks of life, including the attitude to women’s employment. Cynthia White maintains that their attitude to this issue was “regressive,” and that they used their great influence “positively to discourage women from trying to combine work and marriage” (135). Martin Pugh
regards women’s magazines as prescriptive literature, and claims they “threw themselves back into the task of discouraging women from seeking careers” (1990: 162). Through fiction
and real-life
stories, women’s magazines promoted the ideal of women’s domesticity and dependence, encouraging the return of the female labor force to the kitchen
and the nursery
(Ferguson 1983: 21). Similarly, women’s programs on the radio and on the recently introduced television
were just as dogmatic, and served to reinforce the image of the woman as a successful housewife
.
In spite of this, 1950s Britain saw several strides towards the parity of women, such as equal pay
for teacher
s (1952) and for men and women in the civil service
(1954). Thanks to activists like Edith Summerskill
, who fought for women’s causes both in parliament
and in the traditional non-party pressure groups throughout the 1950s (See Pugh 284). Barbara Caine argues: “Ironically here, as with the vote, success was sometimes the worst enemy of organized feminism, as the achievement of each goal brought to an end the campaign which had been organized around it, leaving nothing in its place” (1997: 223).
Feminist writers of that period, such as Alva Myrdal
and Viola Klein, started to allow for the possibility that women should be able to combine home with outside employment. 1950s’ form of feminism is often derogatorily termed “welfare feminism” (see Banks 1981:176). Indeed, many activists went to great length to stress that their position was that of ‘reasonable modern feminism,’ which accepted sexual diversity
, and sought to establish what women’s social contribution was rather than emphasizing equality or the similarity of the sexes. Feminism in 1950s England was strongly connected to social responsibility and involved the well-being of society as a whole. This often came at the cost of the liberation
and personal fulfillment of self-declared feminists. Even those women who regarded themselves as feminists strongly endorsed prevailing ideas about the primacy of children’s needs, as advocated, for example, by John Bowlby
the head of the Children's Department at the Tavistock Clinic
, who published extensively throughout the 1950s and by Donald Winnicott
who promoted through radio broadcasts
and in the press
the idea of the home as a private emotional world in which mother and child are bound to each other and in which the mother has control and finds freedom to fulfill herself (see Finch and Summerfield 11).
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
. In the aftermath of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, a new emphasis was placed on the nuclear family
Nuclear family
Nuclear family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a father and mother and their children. This is in contrast to the smaller single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple, but not always; the nuclear family may have...
as a foundation of the new British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
. Although during the war most women worked outside the home
Home
A home is a place of residence or refuge. When it refers to a building, it is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and store personal property. Most modern-day households contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food. Animals have their own homes as well, either...
and participated in the war effort
War effort
In politics and military planning, a war effort refers to a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force...
, after its end they were encouraged to assume roles of wives
Wife
A wife is a female partner in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the wife regarding her spouse and others, and her status in the community and in law, varies between cultures and has varied over time.-Origin and etymology:...
and mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
s, as the government aimed to “re-establish domesticity as women’s primary occupation (see Ward 2004: 50, Pugh 1990: 158).
In 1951, the proportion of adult women who were (or had been) married was 75%; more specifically, 84.8% of women between the ages of 45 and 49 were married (Lewis 1984: 3). At that time: “marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
was more popular than ever before” (Bruely 131). In 1953, a popular book of advice for women states: “A happy marriage may be seen, not as a holy state or something to which a few may luckily attain, but rather as the best course, the simplest, and the easiest way of life for us all” (Whitman 67).
While at the end of the war, childcare facilities were closed and assistance for working women became limited, the social reforms implemented by the new welfare state included family allowances
Family Allowances Act 1945
The Family Allowances Act 1945 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It came into operation from August 6, 1946, and was the first law to provide child benefit in the United Kingdom....
meant to subsidize
Subsidy
A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...
families, that is, to support women in the “capacity as wife and mother” (Pugh 1990: 158). Sue Bruely argues that “the progressive vision of the New Britain of 1945 was flawed by a fundamentally conservative view of women” (118).
The encouragement to marry and was reinforced by popular media
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
: film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and popular women's magazines. In the 1950s, women's magazines had considerable influence on forming opinion in all walks of life, including the attitude to women’s employment. Cynthia White maintains that their attitude to this issue was “regressive,” and that they used their great influence “positively to discourage women from trying to combine work and marriage” (135). Martin Pugh
Martin Pugh
Martin John Pugh is a British guitarist who came to prominence after joining blues-rock band Steamhammer in 1968, staying with that band through five years and four albums. Their debut album, Steamhammer, was released in 1969 and yielded a minor hit single in Europe, "Junior's Wailing"...
regards women’s magazines as prescriptive literature, and claims they “threw themselves back into the task of discouraging women from seeking careers” (1990: 162). Through fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
and real-life
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
stories, women’s magazines promoted the ideal of women’s domesticity and dependence, encouraging the return of the female labor force to the kitchen
Kitchen
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.In the West, a modern residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a...
and the nursery
Nursery (room)
A nursery is usually, in American connotations, a bedroom within a house or other dwelling set aside for an infant or toddler. A typical nursery would contain a crib , a table or platform for the purpose of changing diapers , as well as various items required for the care of the child...
(Ferguson 1983: 21). Similarly, women’s programs on the radio and on the recently introduced television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
were just as dogmatic, and served to reinforce the image of the woman as a successful housewife
Housewife
Housewife is a term used to describe a married woman with household responsibilities who is not employed outside the home. Merriam Webster describes a housewife as a married woman who is in charge of her household...
.
In spite of this, 1950s Britain saw several strides towards the parity of women, such as equal pay
Equal pay for women
Equal pay for women is an issue regarding pay inequality between men and women. It is often introduced into domestic politics in many first world countries as an economic problem that needs governmental intervention via regulation...
for teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
s (1952) and for men and women in the civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
(1954). Thanks to activists like Edith Summerskill
Edith Summerskill
Edith Clara Summerskill, Baroness Summerskill CH PC was a British physician, feminist, misandrist, Labour politician and writer. She was appointed to the Privy Council in 1949.-Early life:...
, who fought for women’s causes both in parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
and in the traditional non-party pressure groups throughout the 1950s (See Pugh 284). Barbara Caine argues: “Ironically here, as with the vote, success was sometimes the worst enemy of organized feminism, as the achievement of each goal brought to an end the campaign which had been organized around it, leaving nothing in its place” (1997: 223).
Feminist writers of that period, such as Alva Myrdal
Alva Myrdal
Alva Myrdal was a Swedish sociologist and politician. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. She married Gunnar Myrdal in 1924....
and Viola Klein, started to allow for the possibility that women should be able to combine home with outside employment. 1950s’ form of feminism is often derogatorily termed “welfare feminism” (see Banks 1981:176). Indeed, many activists went to great length to stress that their position was that of ‘reasonable modern feminism,’ which accepted sexual diversity
Queer studies
Queer studies is the critical theory based study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and cultures. Universities have also labeled this area of analysis Sexual Diversity Studies, Sexualities...
, and sought to establish what women’s social contribution was rather than emphasizing equality or the similarity of the sexes. Feminism in 1950s England was strongly connected to social responsibility and involved the well-being of society as a whole. This often came at the cost of the liberation
Liberty
Liberty is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions...
and personal fulfillment of self-declared feminists. Even those women who regarded themselves as feminists strongly endorsed prevailing ideas about the primacy of children’s needs, as advocated, for example, by John Bowlby
John Bowlby
Edward John Mostyn "John" Bowlby was a British psychologist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory.- Family background :...
the head of the Children's Department at the Tavistock Clinic
Tavistock Clinic
The in London was founded in 1920 by Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller, a psychiatrist who developed psychological treatments for shell-shocked soldiers during and after the First World War. The clinic's first patient was, however, a child. Its clinical services were always, therefore, for both children...
, who published extensively throughout the 1950s and by Donald Winnicott
Donald Winnicott
Donald Woods Winnicott was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory. He was a leading member of the British Independent Group of the British Psychoanalytic Society, and a close associate of Marion Milner...
who promoted through radio broadcasts
Radio programming
Radio programming is the Broadcast programming of a Radio format or content that is organized for Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting radio stations....
and in the press
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
the idea of the home as a private emotional world in which mother and child are bound to each other and in which the mother has control and finds freedom to fulfill herself (see Finch and Summerfield 11).
See also
- First-wave feminismFirst-wave feminismFirst-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the 19th and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. It focused on de jure inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage .The term first-wave was coined retroactively in the 1970s...
- New LeftNew LeftThe New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
- New social movementsNew social movementsThe term new social movements is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s which are claimed to depart significantly from the conventional social movement paradigm.There are two...
- Pro-life feminismPro-life feminismPro-life feminism is the opposition to abortion by a group of feminists who believe that the principles which inform their support of women's rights also call them to support the right to life of prenatal humans...
- Second-wave feminismSecond-wave feminismThe Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
- Sex-positive feminismSex-positive feminismSex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism is a movement that began in the early 1980s...
- The left and feminism
- Third-wave feminismThird-wave feminismThird-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of feminist activity and study whose exact boundaries in the historiography of feminism are a subject of debate, but often marked as beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present...