It’s kind of fucked up when you realize the image of the quaint 1950s leave it to beaver family with the housewife and hard working husband is a propaganda model that had to be adopted to justify stripping women of their jobs they were able to get during WWII. Like women literally proved they could keep an industria wartime economy afloat without men and society had to craft some serious insidious shit to get them back into the home.
This painting for the cover of the pulp Private Detective Magazine by Richard Lillis was published in early 1945, before the war was over. I’ve long wondered whether this painting could not have been published even six months later, because the gender roles of the people in this painting show a strong woman in charge (firing a gun, driving) while the man is in the weaker role of passenger and the one holding the bag.
But get a load of this screenshot of Private Detective Magazine covers when the search term includes 1946…
Lots of damsels in distress, huh? I’m no history major, but a quick Google search really makes a big impression.
When we say representation is important, it really IS important. It can change the way a culture sees gender roles in just the space of a few years.
Keep pushing media to represent you, and demand it be positive representation: women, PoC, LGBTQIA+, disabled people. Minds can be changed in a really short amount of time, when they’re exposed to people different from themselves.
