The 1950s: Kitchen Fever

Women Return to the Kitchen

Though women provided necessary labor throughout WWII, by the 1950s, they were expected to return to the kitchen in their role as the suburban housewife. As a recompense, they were promised that the exciting technology of the Atomic Age would free them from the drudgery associated with maintaining a household. Appliances would aid them with their labor, and new food products, including canned goods, pre-packaged items, and add-water-and-stir mixes would make cooking a breeze! Studies show that 60% of the calories consumed in the modern home came from processed foods. 

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique gave voice to the dissatisfaction that American women felt in this role of housewife and caretaker. Having been told that their life's meaning would be fulfilled through domestic life, many women yearned for something more. The book opened with the following words, “The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States.” The book is credited with kicking off Second Wave Feminism in the United States and beyond. Of course, while this work articulated a truth felt by a certain segment of women - largely middle and upper-middle class educated white women, it did not reflect the lived experiences of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and poor women. 

The suburban ideal has long been upheld as the realization of the American Dream, and it continues to structure our civic and social lives. Yet it is becoming less attainable today, due to stagnant wages, the necessity (and desirability) of dual-income families, and increased education and housing costs.