However, although the 1950s may have prohibited sexual 'deviance' outside of conventional sexual norms, in the form of out-of-wedlock births and homosexuality, it was highly approving of sexuality within the bounds it defined as acceptable -- the age of newlyweds plummeted according to the natural average, and the birthrate skyrocketed. Marrying young and having children enabled "Americans to thumb their noses at doomsday predictions" and also signified the end to an era when Americans were afraid to get married, for fear of providing for a new family (May 23). 'Containment' is the other key word of May's text, containment of communism and sexuality -- experts advised that it was better for teens to marry young than to relieve their urges in other ways. Sexual looseness outside of marriage and political deviance were also lined in the popular imagination. Interestingly, May does not see the 1950s as traditional but as futuristic in its obsession with the threat of war and what she sees as the new emphasis on personal life. As reflected in the Kelly surveys from this period, the popular use of psychoanalysis began to rise. "It was not, as common wisdom tells us, the last gasp of traditional family life...it was the first wholehearted effort to create a home that would fulfill virtually all its members' personal needs through an energized and expressive personal life" in American history (May 11). This intense personalization of American life also temporarily stultified political activism. "It offered private and personal solutions to social problems.... domestic containment and its therapeutic corollary undermined the potential...
Even the increased effectiveness of contraception brought it under 'expert' and professional control, thus containing it as well: like "labor saving" devices around the home, birth control mechanized the process of keeping home childbirth, enabling families to plan and space out their children (May 135). This was the age of the tyranny of the 'expert' who gave comforting advice how to build a bomb shelter, how to give birth and to raise children, and even how to efficiently cook the family meal according to the 'correct' procedure.
But even May admits that images such as the bomb shelter do not always convey an accurate picture of reality, given that few Americans built such shelters in their homes, although the images of the media might suggest differently, and the way people respond to surveys does not always reflect their lived experience (May 107). May's analysis thus seems to fall into validating 'Leave it to Beaver' cliches about the
Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. By Elaine Tyler May (New York: Basic Books, 1988). vii + 284 pp. Reviewed by in her book, Elaine Tyler May begins by describing a Life magazine feature involving a couple in 1959 who spent their honeymoon in a bomb shelter. This is the attention-grabbing start of a work that seeks to explore, in depth, the various components involved in domestic
Though the book focuses on femininity and gender division, it explores these topics as a window to the larger issue of a society dealing with the fact that it could be instantaneously annihilated. This fear was used to fuel rampant consumerism, much of it directed at the housewife -- the proper way to stock a bomb shelter, how to cook with makeshift tools, and other emergency measures were common
Did she on some subconscious level realize this irony and dichotomy? She does not deal with it in her book, but on some Freudian level it is certainly possible that she did. To recap, both of the authors Elaine Tyler May and Ann Moody see the institution of the family as something that was a mixture of limiting and liberating influences both for men and women during the 1940s, 1950s,
The crisis facing Soviet society as the union disintegrated came from several sources, but the economic problems, the growing crime rate, the inter-ethnic violence, and the political struggles all derived from the deep crisis rising questions about the legitimacy of Soviet political institutions and the identity of the Soviet people. Gorbachev brought about many changes in Soviet politics and society. The development of this national policy came as the
Today, the Americans fight different insurgent factions, who have limited weaponry, no air force, and no real large scale fighting tactics. Instead, they create havoc with roadside bombs and suicide bombers. Vietnam was fought on the scale of a world war, while Iraq is being fought on a much smaller scale. In addition, there was a draft in place during Vietnam, and no draft in place today, so our
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