Our world has gone through multiple changes. Some of these changes are advancement in technology, changes in music styles, as well as social changes in education. However, one of the world’s biggest changes is the roles of women in society. These changes can be greatly portrayed in movies, books, short videos, plays and many more by having characters roles switch from the beginning to the end. One of the many changes that has been very prevalent was the changing roles of women in society, more specifically in the 50’s. The changing roles of women throughout the 1950’s could be seen through the dream of Beneatha Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun.
During the 1950’s, the ideal jobs were mainly geared towards middle class white women. The jobs that were very common for women were being housewives, which majority of the women during this time period were, also maids, working assembly lines, service workers, nurses and/or teachers. In the 50’s African American women as well as low economic status women were not presented in pop culture. With that being said, Beneatha Younger wanted to be different from the rest. Her dream job that she was going to school for and striving for was to be a doctor. Even her own brother thought her dream was way over her head, “Who the hell told you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ‘bout messing ‘round with sick people – then go be a nurse like other woman – or just get married and be quiet”(Hansberry pg38).
Here Walter is expressing how Beneatha’s dream was kind of a stretch for her and that she should just basically be like everyone else and just think inside of the box Becoming a doctor during this time period was very uncommon. So Beneatha wanting to become a doctor during this time period makes this role revolutionary. This is revolutionary because as she states “Get over it? What are you talking about, Ruth? Listen, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m not worried about who I’m going to marry yet – if I ever get married.” (Hansberry pg50) she explains this because she wants to pass over the obstacles of gender stereotypes. With that being said, women only knew the very common jobs which were in a sense easier since they were given to women and that was being a housewife and other jobs but they weren’t compatible with the jobs that men had.
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Just like Beneatha, other women, especially black women were stereotyped because of the jobs that they should have instead of the jobs that they actually wanted, even though African Americans have been hugely eminent in popular culture for the duration of the twentieth century, so “the 1950s were a very “whitewashed” decade from the standpoint of the mass media” (Khan Academy). Taking that into account the African American women of this time were ostracized out of the broad idea of domestication. The author Edward Mapp wrote the book Black Women In Film’s and discussed an achievement that was revolutionary for women and talked about how a late American film and theatre actress, singer and dancer Dorothy Dandridge “garned her an Academy Award nomination as best actress in a leading role in 1954… the only black actress to be so honored was Hattie McDaniel, winner of an “Oscar” for best actress in a supporting role.”(42) Similar to Edward Mapp, Jeanne-Marie A. Miller also stated how especially black female roles have also been more discriminatory than white female roles and, this could be shown even through novels that their roles in society do not really vary.
Jeanne states in her journal Images of Black Women in Plays that “black female character who has faced double discrimination- that of sex and race.”(494) Women who were determined just like Beneatha to change their roles in society and not follow the same regular jobs that were viewed normal for women throughout that time, other women accepted their faith and this is portrayed through Marge who is the mother and Florence who is Marge’s daughter that is seeking an acting career in New York are characters in the short one-act play Florence but, in the journal entry when Jeanne states that “Marge, the black woman’s daughter living at home, has accepted her place; Florence, the daughter seeking an acting career in New York, has not.”(495) This is showing that woman were gaining more confidence to look past their typical roles in society and changing it up by going out of the box with their careers.
In conclusion, the role sin society that woman have now were all impacted by the changes that women back in the 1950’s wanted to aspire. Even though certain jobs were very common, everyone wanted change and worked hard towards it. The usage of books, movies and plays also helped demonstrate how the roles that were very common were getting overturned with roles that were not particularly looked at as roles for the “modern” woman.
