After watching the videos from 1950′s, I found it hard to believe that women in America have come such a long way. “Choosing for Happiness” and “Cooking Terms” videos portray women as inferior beings in comparison to men. Media treated women as if they were incapable of performing common sense tasks. “Cooking Terms” serves as an educational video to a newly-wed wife that is learning how to cook. It teaches her the terms that are used in the cook book. However the emphasis stands mostly on the point that wives were obligated to learn how to cook for their husbands. It seemed to me as if they were trying to prove that the wife has to be ashamed if she does not know how to prepare everyday meals. “Choosing for happiness” is a video that advises young girls to make a good decision picking a husband. The most important quote that shocked me is when one of the girl’s boyfriends says, “You are not like other girls. You are smarter, almost like a man.” This shows that men were thought of being the superior gender. They were the once that are smarter, more educated, and the once whose opinion actually did count. On the other hand women were uneducated housewives that were in charge of raising kids and taking care of the household. Another thing that I got out of these videos is that women took them positively as well as the men.
The video that I picked to compare the 1950′s women to today’s women is Hilary Clinton’s advertisement for presidential elections. Women have gone from housewives to being the most powerful person in America. Take for instance Hilary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Oprah Winfrey and so on. The role of women has definitely changed over time. The family roles are not as traditional anymore. Wives do not have to necessarily cook and clean all the time. Moreover, husband is no longer the main source of family income. Women have become independent of their husband. It is normal for a woman to be the head of the household, whereas in the old days that would seem abnormal and strange.
I agree with what you had to say about how women were inferior to men and how women are just advised on how to pick a husband in “Choosing for Happiness”. Thats actually a lot of what I wrote about in my post. What I found funny about this particular video is how one of the women thought it was weird how the other girl wasn’t engaged yet, and these are girls in college!