Still Waiting for Our Revolution: The Representation of Females in 1950s Magazines
To maintain its wartime demand, the United States government urged women to join the workforce. Yet, once soldiers began returning, the very same government that once encouraged women to leave the house and work, ushered women back into the household in order to uphold the status quo. Suddenly, magazines halt pushing the Rosie the Riveter image and begin showcasing women as subservient, docile housewives. With women now being perpetually fed the image of the stay-at-home mother who maintains the household and rears the children, magazines play a pivotal role in suppressing feminism. Once known for their recipes and household appliance advertisements, women�s magazines like Good Housekeeping and My Home acted like soundboards for housewives everywhere. When flipping through the pages, one finds the magazines are riddled with advertisement captions that read how to avoid being a wet blanket for your hubby or how to be a wise mummy. With such direct and penetrating marketing, women�s magazines were essentially offshoots of an oppressive patriarchy that keep women indoctrinated and in line. It is only in 1953, with the advent of Playboy magazine that a shift occurs. For the first time, women are seen as sexual creatures and are no longer viewed as desexualized humans. Taken out of their domestic setting, a female's femininity becomes celebrated in the advertisements in women's magazines.
Laura Kipnis writes about the association of dirt and the female form. As Kipnis points out, �housekeeping has been the assigned female occupation for some time now � for about as long as there have been houses� (82). With that in mind, it is no coincidence that the females portrayed in advertisements in the 1950s are usually vacuuming or dusting the house. In an ad for the Singer Roll-a-Magic vacuum cleaner, one is presented with an image of a woman vacuuming her carpets while her husband and child surround her (). The level of domestic bliss is measured in the happily smiling faces of the husband and wife and is only emphasized by the content baby, sitting by their feet. While questioning the definition of dirt, Kipnis states there is �the sense of something vaguely dangerous about dirt. It threatens us with chaos and disorder� (85). In a society recovering from the aftermath of a second world war, chaos and disorder is exactly what is to be avoided. If dirt is as threatening as Kipnis describes, then a deep cleansing of the filthy is exactly what was needed in the 1950s. By presenting the image of women, (who are �more attuned to dirt�), perpetually cleaning and scrubbing and mopping, women�s magazines are demonstrating a unifying force against all that would dare taint the tidy (Kipnis 82). However, while displaying the women�s ability to thoroughly cleanse her abode, magazines undermine femininity. The Singer vacuum ad, like many others at the time, completely drains away the female�s sexuality by presenting her as a vessel in which the cleaning product is utilized. The woman is the picture perfect imitation of what the stereotypical housewife should look like. Though, by portraying her with a formless, gray dress and high tying, telltale apron, all aspects of her femininity are bleached away like a stain. Even the woman�s vacant smile becomes a caricature of her vacant femininity.
Moreover, in her 1963 breakthrough, The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan argues that women�s magazines of the 1950s contributed to a, �crisis in women�s identity� (173). Friedan argues that American consumer culture of the 1950s was directly marketed to women and created an epidemic of unhappiness amongst the women of the middle-class. Calling it, �the problem that had no name�, Friedan continues to discuss the resonating dissonance between a women�s sense of fulfillment to her growing sense of guilt and failure (169). Friedman�s study focused on the portrayal of women under the suppressive and superfluous male gaze. With women being ushered back into the household after the war, a means of quelling the budding need for feminist revolt became necessary in order to maintain the patriarchy. What is incredibly fascinating is that the silent assassin of first wave feminism was not the government, but a collection of bound pictures and articles targeted specifically for women. Namely, magazines created specifically for female viewers. By focusing on female sexuality, American culture provided both a newfound sense of freedom as well as a new form of oppression: the taking away of female subjectivity. As one can see while observing women�s magazines, there is a strict uniformity to how the journals represented females. The women splashed over the covers of and throughout the pages are always smiling and conservatively dressed; their hair is flawlessly coiffed and their makeup is impeccable. The common theme in all media representations of housewives is a simple, if not neutered, one. Though, what becomes interesting is that the magazines do not focus on the appearance of the woman, but more, emphasize the duties of a woman � more specifically, the subservient housewife.
Moreover, female gendering can be viewed in an advertisement for Cadbury drinking chocolate. The advertisement is a full-page blowup of a doting wife, handing a cup of hot chocolate to her husband. The husband appears to be asleep in a reclining chair, with the daily newspaper resting against his chest. The placating wife becomes a perfect example of female subservience mixed in with a terribly inaccurate gendering norm. Judith Butler argues that �there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender ... identity is performatively constituted by the very expressions that are said to be its results� (25). In essence, gender is what someone does rather than who someone is. By having magazines �regulat[e] and reif[y] [female] gender relations�, women faced a perpetual dilemma (). A perfect physical appearance combined with immaculate culinary and cleaning skills equated a woman in the 1950s. Happy, subservient housewives became the billboard female in which all other women in the 1950s tried valiantly to imitate. By going through the motions of typical feminine duties, women were merely performing their gender without ever actually interacting with their sexuality. Even more troubling is a column found next to a Brillo soap pads advertisement. Sharing a page with the promise that �Brillo Soap Pads have [a] shining secret�, is an article entitled �Careers With A Future� (Brillo Soap Pads). The article reads like an advice column, where women write in with inquiries concerning profession they are interested in pursuing (Brillo Soap Pads). Yet, when one reads on, it becomes apparent that the subservient female dichotomy is being strictly maintained. Butler questions if �identity is identified through a process of signification, if identity is already signified� (143). As the advertisement continues, three different women write in with inquires on being an airport receptionist, a hairdresser, and a school matron (Brillo Soap Pads). With the friendly advice of what is presumably a female, the women are told that a school matron�s primary concern is to �care of the children's clothes, packing and so on. No one who has not a real fondness for children should contemplate this profession ... may look after children who are unwell� (Brillo Soap Pads). In essence, in order to have a career as a school matron, one must be an ideal mother who will fret over the state of the washing as well as provide a nurturing environment for children as well as while taking care of the children that become ill. To add, to fulfill the requirements of an airport receptionist, one must possess more troubling criteria. Airport receptionists are chosen based on their ability to, �speak nicely, and have a pleasant, reassuring manner. Good looks and a trim figure are assets ... she should be able to remain cool and collected in all circumstances� (Brillo Soap Pads). The way in which females are stereotyped in excess becomes a common theme for articles and advertisements of the 1950s. As Friedan says, �When [a woman] stop[s] conforming to the conventional picture of femininity, she finally began to enjoy being a woman� (257).
With that being said, Hugh Hefner is famously quoted for saying, �Playboy was founded on the notion that nice girls like sex too�. Without a doubt, Playboy had the biggest social impact on the benign culture of the 1950s. Using Marilyn Monroe as the first centerfold, Playboy effectively subverted a system of oppression that had been in power since the Hays Production Code of 1934 (McLaren 164). Curvaceous and gorgeous, Monroe was not new to the concept of being a sex symbol. Yet, when Hefner published nude pictures of Monroe in the first issue of Playboy, Monroe�s celebrity skyrocketed (Playboy 1953). For the first time, female sexuality is not punished like in the movies of the film noir era. Instead of Monroe�s celebrity instantly fading, the nude pictures propelled her career into mega stardom. Though, what is interesting lies not within the nude pictures themselves, but within society�s voracious appetite for the nude pictures. This hunger for sex becomes the foundation work for the sexual revolution of 1950. As McLaren states, �Hefner, exploiting the pin-up genre popularized during the war, offered the bachelor readership an escape at home or in the penthouse via a fantasy of sexual consumerism. With a particular American earnestness, [Hefner] produced a philosophy to dignify his undertakings. Critics regarded him as simply the producer of masturbatory pornography seeking, by a compulsive harping on the female form� (156). By emphasizing Monroe�s nakedness, Hefner provided the America public with a new portrayal of women: the provocative female. Hefner almost single-handedly re-sexualized the female body. On the flip side, by re-sexualizing the female body, Hefner instituted the shift from viewing females as de-sexualized humans to objectified objects. While seemingly imbuing women with a sense of pride and power in their naked physique, Hefner unwittingly managed to subvert and entire culture of females by turning them into lust objects for the male gaze in an era of staunch sexlessness.
Nevertheless, Playboy�s impact did present a positive outcome as well. With the contrasting spectrum of the �sex kitten� woman or the good mother, media began to find a common ground to level the playing field. Advertisements in the late 1950s began depicting women as beautiful and confident in their sexuality, without needing to bare their naked bodies all or cover up all aspects of their femininity. Coca-Cola takes an early lead in 1958, with an advertisement depicting a statuesque woman with a cheery smile on her face, drinking their beverage. The men in the background are clustered together and are enamored with the woman admiring the rack of postcards. The caption reads, �wish you were here�, which denotes a sense of travel and adventure, something women in advertisements prior to 1953 were not privy to. The mystery and allure of the Coca-Cola woman become a platform in which advertising follows until the sexual revolution in the 1960s. As advertisement becomes more diversified, we begin to witness a radical departure from the ancient view of femininity. The examples used in Kearney�s article summate the parallels perfectly. The Judy Bond blouses that streamline femininity and shield away sexuality become overshadowed by the 1960 Bell advertisement that boldly (yet subtly) implicates sexuality into its campaign (569, 586). By modeling the advertisement around a woman discussing a male who invited her to prom, Bell infused its ad with the undercurrent of longing, desire and provocative nature that Playboy would splash across its pages monthly.
No longer pigeonholed in the household or exposed in the centerfold of a magazine, the representation of women slowly developed into a neutral, sophisticated one. Whether it was through women�s magazines like My Home and Women�s Home Companion, or a racier, edgier Playboy the depiction of femininity in the 1950s was a jumbled and biased one. Yet, each �woman� archetype was absolutely necessary in the formation of the solid base in which advertising became. This is not to say that the media has finally managed to perfectly level the scales, but the effort is apparent and appreciated. But with the schism between the staunch and the scandalous slowly closing, the media�s portrayal of women has finally reached a reasonably acceptable, inoffensive equilibrium.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. "Conclusion". Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Butler, Judith. "Critically Queer". Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of �Sex�.
New York : Routledge, 1993.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York : Norton, 2001.
Hefner, Hugh. "Marilyn Monroe." Playboy. December 1953.
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Kearney, Mary Celeste. "Birds on the Wire: Troping Teenage Girlhood Through
Telephony in Mid-Twentieth-Century US Media Culture". Cultural Studies 19:5 ;
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Kipnis, Laura. The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability. New York : Pantheon
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Lane, Gertrude. "Singer Roll-a-Magic". Woman's Home Companion. December 1956.
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MEGA Publishing Group. "Brillo Soap Pads." My Home. April 1955.
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MEGA Publishing Group. "Cadbury Drinking Chocolate." My Home. April 1955.
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MEGA Publishing Group. "You�re got a wise Mummy, Anne." My Home. April 1955.
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National Geographic Society. "Coca-Cola." National Geographic. October 1958.
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