Gender Stereotypes Of World War II - 1180 Words

September. 1945. World War II has just ended and the men are coming back from overseas. The influx of soldiers, sailors, and airmen cause most of the women to leave their jobs because the men are back. Husbands and boyfriends are returning to their women, thus prompting the start of the â€Å"Baby Boomers† generation. Seeing as many of the women no longer need to hold up jobs, some quit to raise children and care for their husbands. Before the war, there was an image in the United States of a Nuclear Family; a husband, a wife, and a couple of children. The war had caused an interruption of this seemingly perfect picture, but with the end of conflict, Nuclear Families were able to sprout up and continue growing. Men were once again the†¦show more content†¦Tara Culp-Ressler claims that raising children to adhere to strict gender roles is harmful to their health. In her article, she refers to a three month long study that was conducted on a group of young teenagers. The study observed their behaviors based on gender and the findings concluded that both genders exhibited potentially harmful behavior patterns; a large number of the boys in this experiment were violent with one another in an attempt to demonstrate their masculinity and they would often bury their emotional struggles. The girls felt pressure to live up to standards that had been set for them to be feminine, some even taking to restricting calories to stay thin because â€Å"real women are skinny.† Adding onto the stress already felt by adolescence, the teenagers in this study denied themselves of simple rights and pleasures; the girls didn’t want to participate in sports they liked because they were afraid of looking unattractive, and the boys refused to acknowledge most emotions if not seen as â€Å"manly,† also turning down any psychological help or a shoulder to lean on. Once the study ended, the teenagers were mostly on the same page when some said that they t hought sticking to these gender roles was what they were supposed to do, even if they weren’t happy about it. To some, it doesn’t matter if people are unhappy about gender roles. The men at the Fatherhood Foundation believe that gender roles are necessary, and they explore