gher income families who had a desire for broader horizons as a primary reason for working. Also cited for this rise was the liberation of young wives in the 1960s with economic liberation and effective birth control methods (Lindsey, 1977, 139-140).
Television does not sell gender roles the way it sells viewers to advertisers or soap to viewers. Gender is inherent in the way men and women are portrayed on television, and these roles have changed over the course of television history. In a broad sense, they have changed to reflect shifts in gender roles in society at large, but at the same time, it is believed that television's portrayals have helped to shape those roles and continue to do so. In the 1950s, the nuclear family was widely represented in situation comedy, while in contemporary television programming, divided families, single-parent families, and non-traditional families vie with the nuclear family for television time. Gender is also represented in the advertising, which can be a greater problem. Commercials have as their object selling products, and they generally treat all viewers as consumers who can be made to buy anything. Children are particularly vulnerable to advertising for products of interest to them and pick up messages about gender roles from characters and situations in commercials as in programs.
One problem noted for television is the distorted image given of women and minorities in particular. The Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights found that minorities and women were underrepresented on television: "When they do appear they are frequently seen in token or stereotyped roles" (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1977, 3). In the 1950s, says the Commission, women had particular roles as homemakers:
Television households were always spotless and smoothly managed, but the women who maintained them usually looked as though they spent most of their time in the beauty parlor. ...