Fortress America by Elaine Tyler May

Author:Elaine Tyler May
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2017-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

In Rebel Without a Cause, the young “rebel” (James Dean) is confused and gets into trouble because his mother is too dominant and his father is too weak and feminized, as in this still where the father wears an apron and does “women’s work” in the kitchen.

Source: Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Increasingly, as fears of subversion, crime, and the breakdown of the family rose, news reports and articles geared to women asserted that children left unsupervised at home or in the care of others faced a number of possible fates, including physical and psychological harm or the development of criminal tendencies that rendered them dangerous to others. As more women entered the paid labor force, accusations of harm and neglect fell heavily on working mothers.13

These were largely postwar developments. Women’s labor force participation increased throughout the twentieth century, accelerating in the postwar era. In 1900, only 19 percent of women held paid jobs outside the home, whereas in 1999, 60 percent did. Most of the increase came in the last third of the century, especially for married women with children. Until the 1930s, most wage-earning women were unmarried. Over the ensuing decades, more married women entered the workforce. By 1960, one-third of all married women with children under the age of six worked at paid jobs outside the home, and this proportion doubled over the next forty years: by 2000, two-thirds of all married women with children in this age group were in the workforce.

The feminist movement successfully expanded employment opportunities for women; it was less successful, however, in convincing federal, state, and local governments to help create family-friendly workplaces. Women’s lives changed, but the structure of the paid labor force barely changed at all. Women had to adapt to the routine of work, but the workplace did not adapt to accommodate women’s childbearing and family responsibilities. In the later decades of the twentieth century, most families could not survive on the wages of one earner, which prompted many women with children to take jobs. Whether or not they enjoyed their work, women often felt both anxious and guilty if they left their children in the care of others.

Married women still performed most of the household work, even if they held full-time jobs. This “double duty” was particularly stressful for mothers. In addition to the struggles of juggling work and family life, women generally earned less than men who held comparable jobs, and they faced greater economic and job insecurity.14 These stresses made it particularly difficult for mothers—especially those with limited financial resources—to take care of their own children or pay others to care for them.

Rather than generating sympathy for struggling mothers, the great shift in women’s workforce participation unleashed a flurry of warnings that mothers who left their children in the care of others put them in harm’s way. Even the tolerant and liberal Dr. Benjamin Spock, the most widely read childcare expert, made it clear in the 1973 edition of his guidebook that

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