The Feminine Mystique: The Representation of White Middle-Class American Women of the 1950s in Movies

Abstract

After the Second World War, the United States adopted a strong domestic ideology that forced women to find perfect fulfillment in the role of wife and mother. In my thesis, I explored the effects of this ideology on white middle-class women’s lives in the 1950s by analyzing three movies. Based on the first movie I presented the social expectations women had to face, by analyzing the conformity that characterized the decade. By analyzing the second movie, I presented the suburban life of the 1950s and the condition many women experienced at that time, the so-called ’housewife syndrome.’ Finally, the third movie deals with women’s education in the mid-twentieth century.