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Example research essay topic: World War Ii Men And Women - 941 words

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Homeward Bound differs from the other works read to this point in that it is a social history. The author, Elaine Tyler May, looks at statistics derived from marriage and family patterns, and then attempts to show how the politics of the Cold War impacted people's decisions about when to marry, how many children to have, and whether to be a one- or two-income family. In May's opinion, the politics of the Cold War determined, to a large extent, how people of childbearing age made decisions regarding their family lives. In the introduction, May identifies the historical problem Homeward Bound attempts to solve: the post-war baby boom. She notes that historians have looked at the post-war baby boom as simply a reaction to the aftermath of a world war-after the chaos and disruption of war, people wanted to concentrate on enjoying their lives at home. However, May sees this explanation of the baby boom as inadequate.

She points out, for example, that no such phenomenon occurred after World War I. In Homeward Bound she attempts to discover broader reasons for the unusual desire for most Americans to marry early and raise many children. In Chapter 1, May uses a particular event in 1959 that she thinks reflects the "marriage" of politics and culture during the 1950 s: the so-called Kitchen Debate between Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Despite the seemingly more important issues facing the two superpowers (such as the availability of dangerous nuclear weapons), the two men debated the difference in how Soviet women and American women lived. It was Nixon's belief that American women were superior to Soviet women because in the United States women were more frequently housewives, living a life abundant with consumer goods available in a capitalist economy.

This idea, that "normal" women in the United States were housewives while their husbands went to work, forms the backdrop of the post-war baby boom. The Great Depression and World War II In Chapters 2 and 3, May steps back from the 1950 s to look at patterns established in the 1930 s and 1940 s. Essentially, she argues that the economic depression of the 1930 s reinforced standard gender roles for men and women, the idea that working women should not interfere with men's ability to find and keep a job-a job which would then support a wife and family. World War II was, on the surface, a potential disrupter of this "norm. " The war was a total war requiring women to work outside the home in war industries. Popularly represented by "Rosie the Riveter, " women followed the call to aid in the war effort, doing the work required, and earning a paycheck. May's point, however, is that "Rosie" was to work only for the duration of the war, and she was to retain her femininity while she performed her wartime duties.

After the war, as fears of another post-war depression spread, women were to relinquish their work to soldiers returning from the war. May begins Chapter 4 by citing a study conducted by the American Social Hygiene Association, an association which warned that a nuclear explosion could result in unregulated sexual activity (such as promiscuity and prostitution). Such activity, it was thought, could undermine the strength upon which the nation was built: the family. The study reflected the fears and anxieties felt by many Americans in the aftermath of the first atomic bomb explosion in 1945.

Another important study, the Kinsey study, discussed the high levels of pre-marital sexual relations, and other supposedly "deviant" sexual practices. One of the solutions to the problem of sexual relations outside marriage was to encourage early marriages. Only within marriage itself, contended the authors of such studies, could women's potentially explosive sexuality be confined. Just as the harmful aspects of nuclear energy needed to be contained, so, too, did the dangerous potential of uncontrolled female sexuality. In Chapter 5, May shows the apparent consensus (or agreement) among Americans as to the negative effects of premarital sexual intercourse. The "double standard" meant that these negative effects were especially troublesome for women since such behavior by men was acceptable.

The Kelly Study also revealed the extent to which women sometimes felt confined by the families they were so eager to raise. By and large, however, May did find a great deal of agreement that raising children was a fulfilling process happily engaged in by most respondents to the Kelly Study. To highlight her claims about reproductive consensus, May devotes an entire chapter to the baby boom and birth control during the Cold War. If there was some discrepancy between the ideal marriage and men's and women's actual behaviors, there was no such inconsistency when it came to having children. Pro natality, or the desire to have children, was without a doubt the norm during the 1940 s and 1950 s.

Furthermore, as May shows, parenthood became not only important for women, but for men as well. What gave rise to pro natality during these years? Homeward Bound suggests that for married men and women, fertility indicated abundance-an ability to provide a home with consumer goods for their children. Having children also became a way to influence the world, a world which, in the nuclear age, may have seemed "out of control" to many Americans. So influential was the exhortation to have children that May labeled the phenomenon of having children as a way to expand one's citizenship the "baby boom ideology. " In the next lessons, you will learn what role the American government played in the choice women and men made to have children. Bibliography:


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Research essay sample on World War Ii Men And Women

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