Let’s Look Back at the Lives of Women in the 1950s

Advertising in the 1950s relentlessly targeted women as housewives, portraying them as thrilled by new ovens, toasters, and vacuum cleaners. Print ads often showed women beaming at cleaning products, or even being scolded for not keeping husbands happy through perfect meals and spotless homes. Domestic servitude was marketed as glamour.

Companies like Hoover, General Electric, and Betty Crocker filled magazines like Good Housekeeping with gendered campaigns. These ads reinforced the belief that women’s worth was tied to domestic labor, making consumerism another tool of patriarchy while limiting women’s identities to wife and mother.