Post Number One

In Robert Yates’ Revolutionary Road, there was an underlying misogynistic theme. April was inferior to Frank and the wives of suburbia liked this masculine/feminine lifestyle. In contrast, The Huffington Post’s blog: “The Phony ‘Gender Wars’” talks about how women are becoming “a more powerful economic force than men.” Women are starting to break off on their own and are no longer thought of as weird or abnormal to raise a family on their own or be single. According to Eric Klinenberg’s new book Going Solo, “Marriage isn’t cool anymore.” Women are getting ahead in their careers and their financial situation.

Unlike the 1950s, the 21st century is a place where less people are concerned who brings home more bacon. Women felt contained by their house, by their ‘picture window’. Women could vote, but their economic opinions, and independence hardly crossed the minds of most males. Women are now financially more independent and have the public opinion more on their side. However, the question arises: Do some relationships falter because the woman makes more money? Does being a dominant male matter anymore?

Single women today have been more of a role model now then ever. Television shows make the single life out to be something to strive for. Women no longer need to have a man involved in their life to make them happy. Although there are definitely exceptions to this rule, the majority of books and TV shows today make the woman out to be a strong and defined individual. They are not tied to a man.

This blog post was written by Rick Newman (male) and this even shows that the views of men have changed from the 50s. In the past several decades, masculinity has shifted in the sense that it is no longer based around women, and being the one holding the job. Masculinity in that sense would be a complete turn-off for any women now. Newman argues that the “winner-take-all competition between the two genders, an oversimplified meme that has set off plenty of hyperventilating in the media.” I think he is right about this. I think the media sometimes unnecessarily embellishes the “gender wars.” Women who try to get ahead of men shouldn’t be worried that they are in competition with are men. They should worry about how they win. Even though there are some people who are blatantly sexist, I believe the majority today are not.

The housewife/house-husband debate is still going on. If the wife makes more money than the husband does she work and he stay at home? How does that affect his ‘masculinity’? Is he being contained?

However, to flip the views of the 1950s upside down and say that men should be stay-at-home dads and the females should work, or else the female is not feminine may seem very strange, and my guess is that not many men would like that. There would probably be a handful of men who would be thrilled by this idea, just as there are only a handful of women. The ideal life for a woman is different now. Maybe every woman in the 50s wanted to be a housewife, just as the majority of women now want to have a career. I couldn’t imagine having the life April Wheeler did in Revolutionary Road, but I wonder if it was just because of the containment of society or would I still want to have a career as I do now if I lived in the 1950s?