Postwar gender

Question 1

Marwick sixties

Answer 1

‘cultural revolution’ which firmly re-aligned values and social behaviour

Question 2

Sandwick sixties

Answer 2

‘breakneck, irreversible and unprecedented change’

Government legislation and also a ‘sexual revolution’

Question 3

Kiernan and Lewis

Answer 3

Motherhood and marriage had not undergone separation during the sixties

Question 4

Governmental legislation towards sexual revolution

Answer 4

Contraceptive Pill became available in 1961

1967 Abortion Act

Question 5

Pill stats 1969

Answer 5

48% of all 23 year olds were taking it

Question 6

Initial prescription of pill

Answer 6

Initially only for married women - Brook Advisory Centres in 1964

More clearly shown after on unmarried women

Question 7

More unmarried people

Answer 7

Extra million unmarried 15-24 than there had been a decade earlier

Question 8

Weeks - young sexual energy

Answer 8

‘potent bundle of emotional and erotic energies’ unleashed by advances in birth control and supported by abortion access

Question 9

Contraception on gender relations

Answer 9

Realigned them, as men were no longer relied upon to provide contraception

Question 10

Cook - emphasis of the pill

Answer 10

Crucial in ‘severing the chain’ that led women from initial sexual activity to marriage and childbearing

Question 11

Cook - main agents of change

Answer 11

Proliferation in 60s of young, mainly middle-class some who had begun in the 50s to have sexual affairs with men they did not intend to marry using contraception

‘harbingers of change’

Question 12

Contraception on married life

Answer 12

Removed constant fear of pregnancy

Question 13

Delay of time to have fist child

Answer 13

Dramatic increase for couples 1966-70

Married women could remain childless for some time

Question 14

Sixties marriage rates

Answer 14

96% of women married before the age of 45

Question 15

Murphy - lesbian women

Answer 15

Unwilling to embrace ‘the monolithic model of heteronormative conformity’ encompassed by straight marriage

Only a minority, but should not be overlooked

They themselves were heavily influenced by heterosexual norms

Question 16

Collins - increase in companionate marriage

Answer 16

Suggests far greater fulfilment -mutuality put into practice after 1945

‘effecting the transition from ideal to actuality’ not present between the wars

Question 17

Importance of love (Langhamer)

Answer 17

90% of those married in 50s and 60s considered themselves to be ‘really in love’

Question 18

Comer on mutualism

Answer 18

Contradicted mutualist self-congratulation

Suggested ‘we have not travelled a far from the Victorian era as we would like to think’

Mutualists should not be ‘expecting love to cure all the ills of patriarchy’

Question 19

Finch and Summerfield on marriage

Answer 19

Identified widespread support for marriage as a ‘relationship’ rather than an ‘institution’

However, this ideology ‘did not have at its core a concept of marriage as an ‘equal partnership’’

Question 20

Critical role of companionate marriage

Answer 20

More orientated towards helping women fulfil their domestic role rather than reconfiguring this role

Question 21

Divorce reform

Answer 21

Divorce Act of 1969 made ‘irretrievable breakdown’ sole ground for divorce, empowering women (who made up the majority of those filings)

Question 22

Zweiniger-Bargielowska on women

Answer 22

Argued that housewifery was an aspiration for many women, didn’t want economic pressure to work as well as rear children

Question 23

Increase in female workforce

Answer 23

10% increase in economically active women 20-64 between 1961 and 1971

Question 24

Thane - Girton graduates aspirations

Answer 24

Suggests 1960s cohort had higher aspirations than the previous generation

However, even single women had a ‘tough battle in an unreceptive male world’ of work

Question 25

Thane - Girton graduates reality

Answer 25

Even 1970s and 80s graduates went far less far in their careers than comparably educated men

Question 26

Lack of full time improvement

Answer 26

1961-71, only increase of 0.7% in full-time employed women

Question 27

Rise of married women working

Answer 27

Almost 49% of married women working outside the home by early 1970s

Lack of marriage bars and declining birth rates, also trend of working after the birth of a child

Question 28

McCarthy - part-time employment

Answer 28

Did represent a significant increase in female power, giving financial autonomy and a more equal sense of partnership - better domestic division of labour

Question 29

Wilson - employment

Answer 29

Women entered a separate, auxiliary labour market

Did not challenge the ‘male breadwinner ideal’

Question 30

Evidence for lack of female employment progress

Answer 30

Denied advancement and training

Up until Equal Pay Act of 1970, men’s average wages were twice women’s

Question 31

Langhamer - men accepting home

Answer 31

1960s evidence of men embracing ‘home centred society’ to a far greater degree

Question 32

Langhamer - home relations

Answer 32

Attitude of ‘revision and negotiation’ rather than ‘acceptance and acquiescence’ within domestic arrangements

Realignment of male roles, with men accepting a range of symbolic elements of domesticity

Question 33

Pram pushing

Answer 33

Immediately post-war, investigators found 80% of men took their child out alone in a pram

Question 34

Ayers - masculinity unchanged

Answer 34

Found ‘strong threads of continuity’ present in masculine identities in 1960s Liverpool

Due to rehousing programmes separating work from home, men felt less pressure to conform to new expressions of family status e.g. caring for children

Question 35

Francis - male only yearning

Answer 35

Shown in popular cultural signifiers of a yearning for an ‘alternative male-only “family”’ though the creation and warm reception of films e.g. Scott of the Antarctic

Question 36

King - press influence

Answer 36

Widespread encouragement of pro-active fatherhood and family-oriented identity

Question 37

King - limits of press quizzes

Answer 37

While they valorised the idea of ‘family-orientated masculinity’, a strong gendered division of labour remained prevalent

Question 38

Limits to male acceptance of domestic work

Answer 38

Only partial - did not extend to things like cleaning

Even mid-70s, men typically only completed 10-25% of domestic work

Question 39

Lack of quick abortion increase

Answer 39

Did not begin to increase substantially until the 1970s

Question 40

Abrams - resentment

Answer 40

‘a generation of mothers… who envied their daughters’ for their ability to step away from traditional notions of ‘good womanhood’

Question 41

Todd and Young - lack of intergenerational clash

Answer 41

Not a ‘war on parents’ in the sixties as papers suggest

Emphasise working class parents exhorting their daughters to enjoy a more fulfilling youth