During the late 1940s and 1950s a growing dissatisfaction arose in American society over many issues, from growing greed and hypocrisy to military battles and the battle of the sexes. Much of this dissatisfaction was chronicled by the Beat generation, but it would spill over into mass movements in the 1960s, including both the Civil Rights and the Women's Movement. As Ginsberg (1945, p. 228) writes in the scathing social critique America, "America when will we end the human war? / Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb, / I don't feel good." This sentiment was a growing one in America post-WWII.
One of the biggest battles during the 1950s and 1960s would be between the sexes. Traditionally in American society, a woman's place was firmly rooted in the household or domestic sphere where she occupied the roles of wife and mother. Edith Stern (1949, pp. 223-24) satirizes the condition of many women in this condition by posting a mock advertisement, "Help Wanted; Domestic: Female. All cooking, cleaning, laundering, sewing, meal planning, shopping, weekday chauffeuring, social secretarial services, and complete care of three children." Women either stayed in such limited and thankless roles out of love for husband and children or because they had no way out faced with limited opportunities for other roles in society.
During WWII, the shortage of manpower witnessed the advance of women in terms of education, entry into the workforce and other roles that were beyond the domestic sphere. When troops began returning home after the war, many soldiers expected life to revert to traditional relations between the sexes. As one soldier noted, "After the war women will be needed in the home. They're needed to rear children...woman is the foundation of a good home" (Waller, 1945, p. 199). However, women had enjoyed a taste of roles and duties outside the home and were not as readily happy to revert to their limi...