THE CASE OF THE COLD WAR’S GOOD WIFE

She stood smiling in the kitchen. Her high heels and the apron wrapped around her waist accentuated her slender figure. She looked happy and well taken care of. This was the powerful image of the Western “good housewife” circulating in the late 1940s and ‘50s. This image of the housewife represented changes in the family discourse of the postwar era. Why was the family the site for change after World War II and how were these images of women and the family connected with the Cold War?

The Good Wife 

As old-fashioned and fictitious as it may look by today’s standards, the image of the 1950s ideal housewife represented the image of a new era in Western societies in general. The economy had just recovered from war and depression, people were eager to forget the suffering of the past and start anew. Interestingly, the quest to begin a new life had affected gender roles. Women’s journals of this time clearly showed what was required of the urban (white) middle-class wife and mother of the new era. 

These women’s journals were like guidebooks on how to keep the house tidy, run a chain of daily chores more efficiently and sufficiently (through the utilization of modern household appliances), as well as other tips beyond housekeeping. The good wife was not just an industrious being, but was a woman of many trades. She was a good housekeeper, a good manageress of the household budget, as well as a good host, with the ability of making good dinner conversations with her husband’s guests. These journals promoted the “good wife and happy home” ideal which was dominant in the US and Western Europe and an important element in the making of the 1950s “modern family”—the parent-child nuclear family.

The good wife and modern family image was good for business

The recovering postwar economy set the perfect background for this “new” nuclear family. The good wife and modern family image was good for business. The advertising industry took no hesitation in using the image to gain profit from the propaganda of the postwar modern family, where the country gave men their jobs back as well as their purchasing power. Thus, the family played an important role in the development of the consumer culture of the ‘50s and in maintaining the growing postwar economy. 

"The image and lifestyle of the ideal nuclear family excluded many groups, e.g., the poor, people of color, immigrants, and rural families."

Women’s journals were also very popular during this time in many Western countries, such as Italy, which despite having a strong extended family tradition had imported the woman-of-the-house ideals from the US and other Western European countries. The Italian postwar era saw the promotion of the nuclear family model in advertising campaigns—a male breadwinner and stay-at-home mom living in a three-bedroom home with modern kitchen appliances and a carport. Under the pronatalist policies of the previous fascist regime, a large family was officially the ideal family and women were procreators and mothers for the community and the nation. After the war, the influence of new values brought the family into the realm of the private sphere.

 

Popular postwar women's journal 

The Family and Cold War

What did this “modern” nuclear family ideal mean for women? Although this family was suggested as being somewhat new, it offered none less than a recycled image of the traditional wife and a romanticization of the male breadwinner. It was new, however, in the sense that the nuclear family was expected to be independent from the extended family, and also in the sense that being a housewife now involved access to information and new technologies. With these changes, the husband was transformed into a more fatherly-like and family figure, helping to some extent in the socialization of the children and housework.  

 

But why did the family become the site for change after World War II? The answer may involve a number of factors, but in the case of postwar Western Europe and US, at least two are of major influence. 

First, the crisis, trauma, poverty, and instability caused by the war led people in search of a safe haven that would create a sense of stability and security. The people needed something tangible as assurance that the war was a thing of the past and that they were on a path to a future of prosperity. The family institution with increased purchasing power of the male-head figure provided the source for this stability. The idea of women being income earners was associated with war, hardship, anomaly, and chaos; thus, an undesirable circumstance. The new postwar family was one which provided the feeling of safeness offered by the traditional family of the past, a discourse the state supported. Nevertheless, alongside these ideals and as the economy grew, women’s employment rate was generally on the rise. 

The new family on a path to a future of prosperity

Second, the Cold War following World War II required countries to build secure alliances. According to scholars, this was a crucial period where the US needed to spread the image that democracy and capitalism would make for a better future. This image was spread through US exhibitions of American architecture of new family houses and state-of-the-art household appliances made for the modern family, consisting of parents and children. The nuclear-type family which had to sufficiently support itself, was utilized to promote consumerism and the spread of “Western family ideals”—in other words to support a capitalist economy and Western ideology.

Reality and Resistance

In reality, many women had to or wanted to work. The stay-at-home mom ideal didn’t really translate into reality, even in the US, where as early as the 1950s women’s employment rate grew as the growing economy thrived on the participation of men and women in the workforce. Women’s higher education and the increase of clerical work targeted at women, also influenced the increase in women’s employment rate. While the US spread the women-in-the-home ideal, women’s employment rate continued to increase and by 1950, 47 percent of married women in the US were employed. The industry took advantage of the fact that women were cheap labor, taking on less-skilled and lower-paid jobs due to the stereotyping of gender roles.

Women occupied less-skilled jobs due to gender stereotyping

While in Italy, where the extended family continued to play a significant role in family life, in the 1950s and onward until the 1970s, women’s employment rate was instead low and stagnant. In 1950, 32 percent of Italian women between the age of 15 and 64 were employed compared to over 40 percent of women in other Western European countries, i.e., the UK, Germany, and France. The patriarchal family with the role of women mainly in the home was a norm which had already existed in Italian society even before fascism and was strongly influenced by the Catholic Church. This may have been the reason behind the slow changes in women’s labor participation.

Because of the strong traditional values rooted in Italian society, imported ideals of the family and its lifestyle did not come unchallenged. Although the Italian media promoted the ideals, it was carefully packaged in order not to create a disrupting transition. For example, when advertising a family home, an elderly is there among the young couple and child, symbolizing the role the extended family members still play. In the case of the popular American kitchen designs in the 1950s, it was initially viewed as culturally unsuitable for the Italian context and took years until it became popular in Italy. This is just an example of how the idea of a universal nuclear family and the lifestyle that came with it did not immediately sell in all Western countries.

 A campaign symbolizing the role the extended family members still play

  

Cultural Hegemony

The family ideals of the postwar era seemed to have offered the promise of a better future. The image of the smiling housewife in her modern kitchen provided reassurance of this future. The image was maintained even when women were actually working outside the home, perhaps because it served a political purpose.

As scholars have observed, the Cold War propaganda heavily focused on the family and national security. It was built on the premises that the values of the ideal Western family would build a strong national identity as well as sell capitalism abroad through the image of prosperity that the ideal family suggested. However, the image and lifestyle of the ideal nuclear family excluded many groups, e.g., the poor, people of color, immigrants, and rural families. In connection with the Cold War, creating the image of the postwar ideal nuclear family was nonetheless a way of establishing a cultural hegemony.

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Krasner, Barbara (2014) ‘The Nuclear Family and Cold War Culture of the 1950s.’ Academia [online] <https://www.academia.edu/9926751/The_Nuclear_Family_and_Cold_War_Culture_of_the_1950s> [21 December 2019].

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Tasca, Luisa (2004) ‘The “Average Housewife” in Post-World War II Italy.’ Translator: Stuart Hilwig. Journal of Women’s History Vol. 16 No. 1: 92–115. Project Muse. The John Hopkins University Press. <https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2004.0055>.

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