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The Housewife, The Single Girl, And The Prostitute: Constructions Of Femininity In Postwar American Historiography, Marie Rowley
The Housewife, The Single Girl, And The Prostitute: Constructions Of Femininity In Postwar American Historiography, Marie Rowley
Psi Sigma Siren
America in the two decades after World War II experienced conditions that seemed to indicate an unprecedented focus on domesticity and traditional gender roles. Couples married at younger ages, fertility rates soared, and population shifted to suburban areas all over the country. Just beneath this surface, however, a more complex discourse about gender norms was also emerging. Gay and lesbian communities began to organize, teenagers emerged as a cultural force, and young single women began to view economic independence as a legitimate goal. These contradictory forces coexisted in a culture struggling to define gender and sexuality in the anxiety-ridden era …