Jenna Schwack

Dr. Lori Bedell

CAS 137H

8 November 2013

How The Glass Ceiling Started To Break

When reflecting on the nature of traditional families in the 1950's, one may
envision a father going off to work while the mother stays at home taking care of the
house and their two children. This image represents the traditional expectations of
families and gender roles in past generations. However, present day society has
witnessed a change in gender expectations for both men and women. The roles for
each gender are not as clear as they once were. While traditionally it was expected
that men would work outside of the house to support the family while women
tended to housework, the roles have changed since then. What has caused the shift
from the stay at home mom to the stay at home dad? The shift in traditional gender
roles has resulted from the strong push of the Womens Movement, slowing of the
economy, and evolution of the traditional marriage expectations. These three major
forces allowed women to become a more predominant force in the working world,
and have influenced mens increased involvement with the family and the home.
The Womens Movement has acted as one of the strongest forces for gender
equality across all sectors. It is important to understand that there were two waves
of the womens movement that made female mobility possible today. The first wave
of the womens movement began in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention. The
Seneca Falls Convention was organized by Lucretia Mott, who was responsible for
bringing early feminists together in the fight for women's suffrage. This first wave
was predominantly focused on obtaining legal rights that women did not yet have
within the American governmental system. These included womens right to own
property, the right to vote, and the right to run for office. In 1893, Colorado was the
first state to ratify a constitutional amendment allowing women the right to vote. By
1918, fifteen other states had also adopted amendments allowing women this right.
Two years later, the nineteenth amendment was adopted into the national
constitution allowing all women the right to vote. This was a major accomplishment
in solidifying the power of the feminist movement, but this was just the first step in
the fight for full equality under the law.
The second wave of the womens movement began in the 1960s. This leg of
the movement was highly influenced by Betty Friedans The Feminist Mystique in
1965. This book analyzed and reviewed general unhappiness among American
housewives in the 1950s and 60s. After Friedan illuminated issues of longstanding
unhappiness, women began to join together to demand more for their lives,
catapulting the second wave of feminism. In comparison to the first wave of the
womens rights movement, the second wave focused on sexuality, reproductive
rights, family, and the work place. This was considered to be the womens domestic
revolution. It was believed that once women had complete control over their
bodies that they would then be seen as equals to men in society. As a result of the
second wave of feminism, women began to obtain higher levels of education. They
were no longer limited to traditionally female jobs such as teachers, secretaries, and
nurses. They gained access into the service sector of the workforce, partaking in
careers other than those traditionally relegated to women.
One of the most intricate and complex components of this paradigm shift is
the reversal of success and standing from men to women. Right at the time that
women began to achieve success, society witnessed a decrease among men in the
workforce. During the 1970s, men experienced a decrease in economic prospects.
With a downturn in the economy and more men deciding not to attend college,
employment opportunities for men began to dwindle. Jobs that were traditionally
set aside for men, such as construction, became less available, putting more men out
of work, and with their limited education there was limited mobility for higher
employment. However, women continued to move up in the workplace, climbing up
to positions of power, making the working gap between men and women even
smaller.
The recession that damaged the economy from 1973-1975 also hurt men's
prosperity. Unemployment grew by 3.8 percentage points. The damage was not
contained to those years, however. From 1975-1982, men's unemployment rate
increased by 41 percent, this while 30% more women entered workforce as
opposed to 12% more men. In fact, 1982 marked the first year since 1947 where
male unemployment exceeded female unemployment, with a 9.9 percent rate for
men as opposed to a 9.4 percent rate for women. With lack of employment and
education of men occurring at the same time as the success for women, men were
led to enter the traditionally womens world of homemaking and childcare. In recent
years, society has witnessed a large increase in the number of stay at home dads.
According to the U.S. census, in 2006, there was a total of 159,000 stay at home dads
in the United States, (Wiatrak, 2007) and that number has continued to increase. In
2011, the U.S. Census reported that the number of stay at home dads increase to
176,000.
The shift of traditional gender roles is also attributed to the changing
dynamics within higher education. According to the U.S. Department of Education,
the male to women ratio in college is 43.6-56.4. (Borzelleca, 2012) The number of
women attending college far exceeds the number of men. According the U.S. Census
(2012), the number of women enrolled in a four-year college outnumbered men by
almost three thousand students. Women continue to have higher rates than men all
throughout college, including graduation rates and enrollment in graduate schools.
There are several factors in this. Boys tend to have more behavioral problems
during grade school than girls and girls tend to spend more time on their homework
than boys. Boys also have a greater number of arrests and suspensions from school
than girls. Therefore, as the second wave of feminism compelled and encouraged
more women to attend college, their numbers soon overshadowed those of men,
thus lessening opportunities in what once had been a male-dominated society.
One of the most visible scenarios in which one witnesses this shift in gender
roles has been in the evolution of traditional marriage expectations. In pre-
twentieth century, marriage was looked upon as an institution. Clearly defined by
gender roles and expectations, the male was to be the head or the leader of the
household while the woman was to be obedient and caregiving. (Cherlin, Page 216)
In an institutional marriage, the partnership was not based upon romantic love but
rather based on the satisfaction of needs.
Following the institutional marriage, societal expectations evolved into
companionate marriage. In 1945, Ernest Burgess outlined a marriage that
highlighted friendship between partners and sexual gratification. (Cherlin, Page
217) However, similar to an institutional marriage, companionate marriage also
relied upon the bread-winner/home-maker dynamic within the household.
Although the relationship between husband and wife began to change, the
expectations for their roles did not. Women typically did not work outside of the
home at this point, but spent their time focusing on creating affectionate and loving
homes. It was during this time that scenarios fostering the feminist mystique
occurred. By the mid-1960s, the breadwinner/homemaker relationship was no
longer the main form of relationship. With a shift into individualized marriage,
emphasis was placed on the self rather than the family as a whole. Individualized
marriage is defined as a marriage in which the emphasis is on self-development,
flexible roles, and open communication (Cherlin, Page 218). Women were no longer
solely responsible for taking care of the family and home. It became acceptable for
both men and women to work outside of the home and hold their own careers.
However, with marriage being such an important institution in our culture, this
would have a major effect on gender roles and expectations. Once women were no
longer expected to be the sole caregiver to the household, they had more freedom to
branch out into other fields that better suited their interests and strengths. And
similarly, since men were no longer expected to be the sole breadwinner for the
family, the financial responsibility could be split amongst husband and wife,
allowing the husband to take on more of the responsibility at home, or pursue jobs
with a smaller paycheck.
It is also important to understand that the entire relationship between men
and women shifted. Now sexually liberated as well as financially liberated, women
now had other choices than they had before in their relationship to men. No longer
was it assumed that the woman's main goal in life was to marry and raise children.
Often, women would now postpone marriage--or even choose not to marry at all--to
concentrate on their careers or other pursuits. Often, couples would begin to choose
to live together without being married. This would make the financial expectations
of the relationship different than they had been in previous generations. Instead of
the expectation that the men would handle the financial aspects and the woman
handle the home, they were now both expected to work and contribute financially to
the home.
The role of gender has been the foundation for many important aspects in
our society. It shapes our expectations of lifestyle, and defines our duties as
individuals as well as in connection to others. It has outlined what role people can
partake in their homes, within their community, and the nation as a whole.
Traditionally, these gender roles have been very strict, not allowing any movement
from the societal norm. However, over time, traditional gender roles have been able
to be changed. The womens rights movement unified women as one to fight for
their own rights. Without this major social movement, the traditional model would
never have been challenged to change. Following the success of the feminist
movement, it was the concurrency of multiple events that triggered this shift. Only
when womens success occurred at a time of economic loss for men were women
able to break into the traditionally male dominated world. With these changes in the
workplace and the changes brought about by a new institution of marriage,
traditional gender roles were no longer rigid and socially enforced.



















Bibliography-

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