Vintage Sexism

This cartoon comes from a book called "Im Glad Im a Boy! Im Glad Im a Girl!" It was published in the 1950's. It was a children's book that many parents bought for their children to model the gender roles that they wanted their kids to follow. This is an example of the obvious stereotypical gender roles of the early 19th century. First of all this cartoon is a good explanation of gender role stereotypes that are still around today. Women still are expected to cook and men still are expected to eat. This is a stereotype that has been around since "the housewife" became a role that many women felt that they had to live up to. The fact that this was shown to kids for kids to model after is ridiculous. I thought that this cartoon was important because it shows an example of what started this kind of thinking in the first place. When they showed this to little kids it became a belief of theirs and then passed this belief onto their children, which created the role of women in society as housewife and unselfish caretaker. This is a key factor to the way that women are portrayed today. The one positive thing that i can say about this cartoon is it does also show how much progress women have made in gaining respect from other people. The part of the cartoon about how boys invent, and girls use is not related to our society today. Many women are now known for inventing and creating many important things that are used in our everyday lives. Altogether I wanted to show people this cartoon to show the origin of where many of these beliefs came from, and how they have changed in a positive way. Also just to share how completely shocked I was by it.