Sitcoms and Suburbs: Positioning the 1950s Homemaker
Author(s)
Haralovich, Mary Beth
Abstract
During the post-World War II period, gender roles within the middle-class family underwent a radical transformation as many women were forced out of paid employment and into suburban household management. The 1950s suburban family situation comedy captured this change, creating an idealized, gendered household that became the focus of a growing consumer product industry. This selection argues that television programming, in parallel with marketing institutions and government policies, helped reproduce certain gender relations.
