[mitcheme]

Why aren't we talking about the 1950's? If you're correct, that the problem is a lack of glamour, then the 50's should not have been a problem. Motherhood was the ultimate glamorous profession for a woman in those days. Sure, you can go to college, but there's no sense doing anything with it when you could get married. The ideal was a beautiful, spotless house in the suburbs, beautiful and well-behaved children, a great and successful husband. Dress up every day, makeup, hair, a pretty dress, pearls even. Fingers in every community organization: church, PTA, charities. You get to host parties, lots of parties. The way we talk about 50's homemaking today is a lot different from the way we talked about it then.

Which cultures in which women are homemakers only, have stayed without change to gender roles for millenia? When I think of cultures that have stayed mostly unchanged, I think of the ones where women are contributing significantly to survival. Hunter-gatherer societies where men hunt and women gather. In most HG societies plant foods make up a large portion of the food; women's work is essential. And a step beyond that, societies where men hunt and women tend gardens or farms. Or where men and women farm and ranch together. Yes, women also tend to take care of the children in these societies. But modern-day me still has to do dishes and laundry; that doesn't preclude me from doing other things.

[cefarix]

I was not talking about the 50s in America for two reasons: firstly because I was talking about cultures in general, and second because I was talking about long-term multi-generational survival and time periods. The 50s, a decade, is not long enough for a society to go extinct because its culture subjugated its women. I don't know everything about the 50s and probably less than you do. I was born in the late 80s and my family is from Pakistan, although I grew up mostly in Texas. However, from what I know about the 50s in America and the decades leading up to today, I can say that women were getting mixed signals. The culturally right thing to do was to be a stay-at-home mom, have a nice house in the suburbs, with well-behaved children, to cook and have everything spotless clean. And yet it was at the same time not a glamorous thing to do. Let me explain: even when people said it is glamorous to be a mom at home, people also said, it is really cool to be CEO, president, or an astronaut. And when they talked about CEOs, presidents, and astronauts, they were much more excited and much more sincere in their admiration and respect for them than when they would talk about stay-at-home moms.