The 14th chapter of the book After the Fact, titled “From Rosie to Lucy”, tries to illustrate how the media has influenced women's choice of lifestyle, behavior, and motives. In the 1940s it carefully encouraged women to balance home life and the workforce when the men left for WWII. Then, almost suddenly, within merely a decade later the media persuaded them to essentially commit themselves entirely to “domestic duties".
This video details the history of how women were and are classically portrayed in common television shows throughout the span of about 70 years in brevity. Clearly we have many more programs to choose from today compared to the 50s; however there still remains the popular category of portraying the American family.
The video will begin with a short segment on the 1940s, but pick up with sitcoms through the decades following. It will go pretty quick, but try to pay attention to how female portrayals have changed- or if you feel like not much has changed after all.
I created a "white-page" of highlights from the chapter so that you might have more information regarding the kind of female oppression that was facilitated by the media: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1td5nzcXyzpnPnU...
For more in depth information on how women were experiencing ambiguous transcendence & discontinuous unity, you can check out "The Feminine Mystique", a revolutionary book published in the 60s by Betty Friedan, and for a short and interesting read: Iris Marion's article on "Throwing Like A Girl" (which is not at all about what you think it is!).
