What Are Gender Roles In The 1950's

Gender roles have always been a part of our history. According to the Oxford University Press (2017), gender roles are roles or behaviors learned by individuals on how someone of the female or male gender should act or behave. Male gender roles have had some advancements since the 1950 era, yet some gender roles have remained the same. In the 1950s, men were returning from the war and rejoining the workforce. According to the U.S Department of State, 2017 many of the returning soldiers opted to leave the blue-collar jobs they had before the war to join the white collared work-force instead. Men were expected to be masculine, strong and the bread winners of the family. Ginger Voit wrote an article for synonym.com where she discussed that in the 1950's men were expected to be the sole provider for the family, yet had little interaction with the children, other than for punishment and to provide life lessons. Men were the head of the household, expected to come home to a
Even today society expects men to work and be the breadwinner of the house. Men are also expected to be strong yet emotionally unattached. However, despite these similarities, you can see the progressive strides society has made. For example, 42 % of women are now considered the breadwinner of their family, Sarah Jane Glynn (2016). According to the Bureau of Statistics (2002), 70.4% of the workforce was comprised of men in the 1950's, yet men only make 53.4% of the workforce population today. Per The Us Census (2011), 32% of men with a working wife was the primary caregiver for their children, showing that men are more involved with their children, compared to their ancestors in the 1950s. Men are more likely to have a college degree today as well. Per Statistica (2017), only 5-10% of men had college degrees in the 50s compared to the 30-33% of males with college degrees