What is a Wife? Reconstructing Domesticity in postwar Britain before The Feminine Mystique

Journal article


Beaumont, C (2015). What is a Wife? Reconstructing Domesticity in postwar Britain before The Feminine Mystique. History of Women in the Americas. 3, pp. 61-76. https://doi.org/10.14296/hwa.v3i0.2186
AuthorsBeaumont, C
Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between the lived experiences of housewives in 1950s and early 1960s Britain and their portrayal in The Feminine Mystique and popular women’s magazines. Through a study of four housewives’ associations, the Women’s Institutes, Mothers’ Union, Townswomen’s Guilds and the National Council of Women, it is argued that they rejected the prevailing ideology of domesticity and challenged the myth of the ‘happy housewife’. As a result housewives’ associations presented a modern interpretation of domesticity where wives and mothers not only cared for their husbands and children but also made an important contribution to wider society. As equal citizens women were entitled to state support and housewives’ associations were successful in articulating the demands of women as wives, mothers and paid employees. In doing so housewives’ associations presented a much more nuanced account of women’s everyday lives illustrating that not all women succumbed to the feminine mystique.

KeywordsHousewives, 1950s, The Feminine Mystique, Women's history
Year2015
JournalHistory of Women in the Americas
Journal citation3, pp. 61-76
PublisherSociety for the History of Women in the Americas
ISSN2042-6348
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.14296/hwa.v3i0.2186
Web address (URL)http://journals.sas.ac.uk/hwa/article/view/2186
Publication dates
Print01 Sep 2015
Publication process dates
Deposited02 Sep 2016
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