In Chapter Four of Elaine Tyler
May’s Homeward Bound: American Families
in the Cold War Era, titled “Explosive Issues: Sex, Women, and the Bomb,”
the author explores government and social policy in regards to both the
changing attitudes of women and the threat of nuclear war. The emancipation of
women, specifically in the workplace and in terms of sexuality, was seen as a
danger to the concept of “the home,” the author argues. Tyler May states in the
chapter that women had to weigh the choice between forging their way in the
labor force and embracing marriage and domestic life. With the slim pickings
for women in the job market, she argues, marriage often seemed the more
appealing choice.
I was particularly interested in
looking at Tyler May’s work through the lens of the word “containment.”
Containment was formally speaking the Cold War policy of the U.S. toward the
Communists. In Tyler May’s chapter, though, I read her text as a commentary on
the general concept of containment: the need to contain “perversion,” feminist
ideals, communism, promiscuity, etc. It
was the general mindset, it seems, of the times. Deviance from social norms
creates vulnerability, vulnerabilities leave space for Communists to take
control. “For policymakers concerned with domestic as well as diplomatic
issues, containment was the order of the day,” she writes. It’s interesting to
me that the further education of women was seen as a threat to societal
stability. I do understand, on the one hand, the concern (however unwarranted)
that having more women in careers or higher education meant having less women
in the home. On the flipside of that, though, I would say it wouldn’t have been
a stretch for people to easily defend women moving into the workplace, as
increasing education levels across the board would seem to increase the general
defense of the country against the threat of communism.
As we saw
in the film “Desk Set,” women were able to increasingly move into new sectors
in the workplace during and after WWII. Women
who chose to stay in the workplace, in areas other than perceived “women’s
fields,” might have been classified as a threat by Tyler May. Women who were
seeking to enter traditionally male careers could have been classified as women
who were seen as needing to be contained. “Containment at home offered the
possibility that the modern family would tame fears of atomic holocaust and
tame women as well,” Tyler May says.
Tyler May’s point is a fair one,
and one that should be considered as we study gender and feminist geek culture.
To me, it seems that Tyler May’s point about feminism being seen as a
“dangerous and destructive force” would shape her definition of geek culture.
Geek culture is generally seen as a marginalized interest area. This could be,
in part, due to the fear, paranoia and general disapproval of women moving into
traditionally masculine roles in the Cold War era. Women becoming interested in
math, science, technology and other related fields was seen as concerning, to
say the least. Those women likely faced ostracism in both their personal and
professional lives. This snubbing by more “traditional” members of society
perpetuates the idea of “geeks” being people who don’t stick to social norms,
like the women Tyler May discusses.
I agree with your post in terms of the desire for containment of women in the home as an attempt to keep them off the workforce. It is true working women threatened the gender roles that were imposed by society at the time. If a woman were at work, she would obviously not be at home cooking for her family as a “good” wife and mother. I wanted to propose the idea, however, that another reason why men tried to keep women off the workforce was because of the threat they could represent for men themselves, specially those looking for work or working at the same job. I believe this statement would not be thoroughly used in the 1950’s as a reason as no man would admit at the time that he felt threatened by a woman. It is interesting how statements against workingwomen are always worded in a way that they represent a threat to “gender roles.” Although women did not have the same opportunities as men, they still had the ways to perform better than others in a line of work. What would this mean to men seeking to enter the same workforce? I think most of the time we don’t think of it in this way, but it not necessarily comes down to the breaking down of gender roles. At least not completely.
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ReplyDeleteI think it is very interesting that this article and conversation on the instability of the home center on the idea of ‘containment’. In his formulation of the anti-Communist containment doctrine that became the key strategic tactic of the Cold War, George F. Kennan stressed that “the main element of any United States policy…must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” (https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/kennan). While other key policymakers urged for a more offensive “rollback” of Soviet military capability, President Truman ultimately established U.S. foreign policy along Kennan’s terms of containment. The protection of current spaces of Western influence and defensive posturing became the macroscopic tent poles of the Cold War.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, the trends and public opinions described in Elaine Tyler May’s work reflect a society that recognized the threats to its stability, but nonetheless chose to confront the pressures defensively– by strengthening the status quo. Just as U.S. leadership did not pursue a direct attack on the Soviet Union and instead countered Soviet influence by strengthening its allies and through nuclear deterrence, Americans sought to protect the domestic life by reasserting its most traditional aspects. For example, May explains that in response to “the increasing expression of female sexuality” and the other danger of “the entrance of women into the paid labor force”, public officials “advocate[ed] early marriage as the prerequisite for a healthy family and sexual life (May 96, 98). Thus, efforts to combat the ‘emancipation of women’ functioned by reasserting the importance of domesticity. By committing women to marriage at a younger age, women were contained in the home–her influence would be limited to her own family and she would never have the time to develop a career.
After looking at this one of many examples of containment, I am interested in how our class perceives the connection between containment and television. Did the television provide any opening of this policy of containing women, or did it only function to sustain it?
Hi Megan, great post with a lot of insightful comments on May's text! I was also intrigued by her discussion of containment, and I think you raised an interesting question here -- "it wouldn’t have been a stretch for people to easily defend women moving into the workplace, as increasing education levels across the board would seem to increase the general defense of the country against the threat of communism." This is a valid concept that people might have recognized at the time. Thus, it might have become even more imperative for men to control the narrative and make sure their discourse was the loudest, spreading the ideology that women were natural protectors, and ostensibly giving women a sense of national responsibility. This discourse allowed men to maintain their patriarchal power, contain and control women (giving the domestic role new "meaning and importance" [101]), AND give some sort of comfort to the nation against the threat of communism by positing the home "as a place of security amid the Cold War" (102).
ReplyDeleteThis ideology--which conflates the home with the homeland and presents women's domesticity as something that serves the nation--still remains today, in a slightly different form. There's a great article entitled, "Security Moms in the Early Twentieth-Century U.S.: The Gender of Security in Neoliberalism"-- here's the link: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40004729?uid=3739656&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104269171921
This article tackles the 1990's-2000's in the U.S., an era in which it is considered normal for women to pursue higher education and careers outside of the home -- "containment" is not as prevalent a problem. Yet the discourse of women promoting security in the home/homeland still persists, demonstrating how useful an ideology it is in terms of national security and public rhetoric. The author, Grewal, discusses the figure of the "security mom" -- the neoliberal state (concerned with terrorism post-9/11) posits women as natural protectors of the family, expanding the domestic sphere by binding the home with the homeland. The state emphasizes that the nation's values are exemplified in the family and that the mother needs to protect these values; this allowed the state to use "security moms" to justify its surveillance and regulatory apparatuses to manage security "threats" after 9/11. There are startling similarities between the containment of women during the Cold War and the essentialist idea of security moms during the War of Terror -- it's interesting to see how certain ideologies are re-used to sustain patriarchal power and bolster certain U.S. agendas.
Elaine Tyler May’s use of the word “containment” was one that interested me, too. You bring up some interesting points regarding the containment of women within the home to prevent women from entering the work force.
ReplyDeleteI think another interesting level of this question of containment is with regards to female sexuality. May brings up the point at the end of the reading that women weren’t just contained to domesticity to prevent them from entering the workforce. They were also contained within the home as a way to control and “harness” their sexuality. May writes: “At home, sexuality could be safely unleashed by both men and women, where it would provide a positive force to enhance family life” (108). I found it really interesting that sexuality and eroticism could be seen as a “positive force” when contained within the home. So much of the post-war discussion about female sexuality was limited to fear and uncertainty, so I was surprised by the argument that female sexuality was a positive power that should be harnessed and used for good, albeit in a very narrow way.
You bring up the question of why “further education of women was seen as a threat to societal stability,” which is an interesting idea. You would think that if the U.S. could “harness” women’s power and redirect it into a more productive environment, the home, they could similarly “harness” their power and redirect them into being productive laborers and members of the workforce. But you and May both mention the idea that the home was seen as a much more traditional and appropriate form of containment. May makes the argument that it’s easier to contain “the new realities within the boundaries of old structures” (108). So, rather than harness women’s power in a new and productive way by encouraging them to enter the workforce, the U.S. reverted to tradition and old values by containing women within the home.
To chime in on the discussion as to why educated women were seen as such a societal threat, it should be remembered that many of McCarthyism’s main targets were left-wing intellectuals, with W.E.B. DuBois being one of the main examples I can think of. This was probably in large part because intellectuals were some of the most likely people to disagree with a lot of post-WWII policies and ideas, many of which tended to be conservative in nature after WWII. Indeed, while having the ability to think may improve one’s productivity, it also makes them able to disagree, which was a massive no-no to a country as obsessed with “containment” and “normalcy” as May portrays it. Indeed, when May recounts how Arthur Schlesinger Jr., as well as other consensus academics, accused “leftists and the ‘emasculated’ ruling class” of “political sterility,” it is very difficult to not come to the conclusion that their vitriol was based in part on a need to get rid of those who could disagree with them (May, 95). As such, the mere idea of an educated, working woman was threatening from two different, albeit related, angles; not only would she fundamentally challenge gender norms, she might also have the nerve to speak out against societal norms and governmental policies, which, to a country and government heavily invested in returning the nation to its pre-WWII state of patriarchal, conservative “normalcy,” would vastly outweigh any benefits that could be gained from letting them work.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the idea of “containment” was enforced in other ways as well. Indeed, Lynn, quoting Tyler May, explains in one of her footnotes that, “since ‘college degrees did not guarantee the same entry intro well-paying jobs for women that they did for men,’” many ended up dropping out to pursue marriage, which merely reinforced the idea that women belonged in the home, and not out working (Lynn, 199). Likewise, while it’s hard to say this with certainty without seeing more 50s sitcoms, it would hardly be a surprise if very few of them broke out from the gender norms that were so prevalent at the time, as our cultural beliefs fundamentally affect the types of fiction we produce. That being said, women did not just completely leave the workforce in response to this. After all, as Lynn reports in her footnotes, 66% of women polled in a 1958 survey felt their chief source of importance as coming from their job, a statistic that challenges the system of “containment” so prominent in the 50s quite dramatically (Lynn, 199).
Very interesting point about how feminizing workplaces kept the idea (and necessity) of working women from becoming too dangerous. By carefully constructing spheres of labor separate by gender, the workplace can become a less threatening space for women, at least less threatening to societal standards. By aggressively limiting women’s work to administrative and secretarial labor, those skills can still be seen as domestic and feminine. In this way, workingwomen were “contained.”
ReplyDeleteIt is like how sex had to be marital sex to be acceptable. Marital sex happened between one man and one woman with the man in the aggressive and dominant role. The labors involved with sex are carefully contained in Husband and Wife spheres. As May notes, “As long as they were subordinate to their husbands, sexually and otherwise, they would be contented and fulfilled wives devoting themselves to expert child rearing and professionalized homemaking” (May 94). While the country feared loose sexual morals and sexual perversions, women could still be “erotic mates” and keep their femininity as long as their female sexuality was properly contained within marriage. These careful rules contained women to specific and “safe” spheres of labor, both working and sexual labor.
Not only does May focus on “containment” as it pertains to issues such as to women in the workforce or non-heteronormative lifestyles, she also speaks to physical (but largely symbolic) containment as it was experienced in the Cold War era. I find the idea of nuclear warfare preparedness to be especially fascinating, and May discusses how plans for public shelters were often scrapped in favor of private, family-oriented efforts. According to the civil defense strategies and public service campaigns, a family contained within their idealized bomb shelter (as prepared by the mother) is the final stronghold against the dangers of Communism.
ReplyDeleteCampaigns such as “grandma’s pantry” seem to assert the notion that even after an apocalyptic crisis such as a nuclear attack, the traditional family unit will still stand. While part of the motivation behind these campaigns can be attributed to lessening fears that the general public might hold, they also (less obviously) promote the idea that truly nothing in the world can topple the traditional American family unit and what it represents. This is especially interesting when considering that the building and outfitting of bomb shelters (in true American fashion) were quickly commercialized.
May’s article also touches on the atomic tests that occurred in Nevada during this time period. I watched the following video last year in Lynn Spigel’s Television History course where we discussed many of these issues; I think is especially applicable when thinking of ways in which these government efforts enforced the importance of a traditionally kept family home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGJcwaUWNZg