blog post 2

Kristen Coyne

2-6-14

Women were shown in all different ways through the media, but the majority of the time they were shown, it was degrading. “Advertisement has always had one chief aim: to make a consumer want to buy a product at any means necessary. And to advertise to women, this has meant that female consumers are made to feel insecure and off balance for most of their waking moments…” Ziesler  (24) When they were featured in advertisements aimed at men, they were wearing revealing clothes, and acting in a sexual manner, too appeal to men. However, when there was an advertisement directed towards women, it was meant to make them feel unconfident. For example, it would say that if the women did not buy the product, they would be alone for the rest of their life. The difference in the forms of advertisement for men and women was very unfair. It was designed to make men feel more confident, and to make women have a low self esteem. Women were also treated unfairly when the men left to fight in World War II.

            Women were always encouraged to be a housewife, but when the men left for World War II, this idea shifted. Women were suddenly urged to join the work force to save the economy while the men were at war. “No longer valued as only housewives and mothers, women were suddenly positioned as both the reason men should keep fighting the war and the fuel behind their country’s efforts to do so.” Ziesler (27) This became a time that women were becoming more powerful, however, until the men came back from war. Then women were told to go back to being a housewife and give the jobs to the men since the workforce was their “rightful place”.   The way that women were encouraged to join the workforce and then when the men came back were told to go back to being a housewife was extremely unfair. Women were finally being noticed for the hard work that they can accomplish just as well as a man can, and then it was taken away from them. It was a crushing blow to a women’s confidence and should not have been tolerated. One more way Ziesler describes how women were depicted unfairly in this time era was the way males could act verse women.

The way a man could rebel in movies and books, verse the way a women could was portrayed very different. For example, if a male character does something rebellious, such as running away from home, the behavior is always excused by a “boys-will-be-boys mentality”. However when girls rebel, it has major consequences. For example, in the 1961 movie Splendor in the Grass, a girl named Deanie becomes so in love with her boyfriend that when they break up, she goes crazy, and her parents end up putting her in a sanatorium as a result.  The way it was portrayed that men can do rebellious things and have no consequence, but if women did, it could have major drawbacks or disgrace their family is a great injustice to women. The way that this is shown does not even make sense because women are no less likely than men to have negative consequences for their actions.

            Overall, the way women were represented in society during the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s was very discriminating. Women were often losing confidence about issues they shouldn’t have been such as working and in the portrayals of what they had to look and act like shown in advertising. Women should not have to worry about the way they should be, but rather live the way they want to be.