The Breakdown of Women’s Domestic Economy After World War II

In her the chapter “The Breakdown of Women’s Domestic Economy After World War II,” Susan Thistle discusses the period after World War II when the support for work in the home of both African American and white women unraveled.  Thistle describes how the growing economy of the post-World War II decades led to a decrease in domestic obligation and an increase in opportunities.  From these trends arose sentiments of suppression with regard to the laws and conventions surrounding women’s household duties.  Women began to recognize the possibility of independent work, outside the constraints of the home.  Men started to resent their socially enforced obligation to provide for their family even after death.  With women pushing their way into the workforce, employers realized the benefits of labor supply that women would present.  Finally, government official were becoming resistant to supporting women’s household work. 

Thistle goes into detail about after World War II, the market rapidly began to assume women’s household duties.  The prosperity that surrounded this change presented women with the possibility of testing new opportunities.  Thistle notes that not all women embraced such opportunities.  Rather, there were those who, fearing the harm such possibilities could create, rejected these new possibilities.  According to Thistle, the latter group was not wrong in their pessimism, for in abolishing the women’s domestic economy came unforeseen obstacles and conclusions.  It was lack of preparation and forethought of both groups that ensured that this progression magnified and even brought about such obstacles.

In this chapter, I thought that Susan Thistle handled the subject matter openly and fairly.  I liked how she showed the role of both sexes in the changing role of women in the postwar economy.  She exposed the both men and women as the culprits for the problems that arose, as well as giving attention strife both sexes encountered.  Finally, I liked how Thistle paints the overall scene of the torrential and confused environment of the postwar decades.  In doing so, she makes the evolution of women’s role easier to grasp.