A Honda Fit today might not be big or pretty, but if you ran a Fit into a Coup head on, both cars would be totaled, the driver of the Fit would survive while the Coup would have trapped his head under the gigantic steering wheel while his spinal column would have continued through the windshield. By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Men went to work, women stayed home to raise the kids 6. However, sexual “deviance” took on new meaning in the immediate aftermath of World War II, as sexual promiscuity became conflated with moral weaknesses and was thus considered to be an indicator of vulnerability to the contaminating forces of Soviet communism. It was okay to abuse your spouse if they even said the wrong thing, and the country was recovering from war. That's why the 1950s were so great. In addition to facing family and social pressures to stay home, cook and raise children, women's rights in the home were severely limited. there were also films like Airplane! Yes the racist parts of the 50s were bad but that's such a small part of what the decade was. On average, women earned only 60 percent of what men did. They were bursting with pride and victory from their success in World War I and this caused the marriage rate in 1946 to rise to 2.3 million. Before the late 1950s and the advent of the stately home business, very few working-class people had seen the upstairs of these great houses; those that had were there only to clean and serve, with an obligation to keep their eyes down, rather than uplift them and be educated. We had a booming economy9. "The weird foreign children's serials the BBC put on (although that may have been more in the 60s) - Belle and Sebastian , White Horses and the daddy of them all - The … Nowadays children (and many adults) expect to do whatever they want, and if anyone speaks up about it, they can call the media or their lawyer. So let’s resist the “normalcy” trap and interrogate these cultural truths that are taken for granted. Listening to my grandparents, the 1950s were a wonderful time to live and they produced many happy memories. In spite of new legislation, marijuana, heroin, and cocaine consumption all increased dramatically in the 50s Divorce rates doubled in the 50s, but women had fewer rights in the division of children and property so unhappy women stayed married. The fact is that marriages from the 1950s and 1960s have the highest rate of eventual divorce. We have lost so much but thankfully through the music we can relive those days! This is why journalism was so important in the ‘60s. Rampant sexism, racism, and intolerance. Music was relatable and unique. My gran lived in a back to back (2 rooms) with a long drop loo in a shared yard. The 50's were chrome tables, bright red or turquoise showing up in kitchen chairs, tables and accessories, but plastic wasn't that common in tableware and other accessories yet. For the people in the cities and the country, the economy declined. If you were anything else in those times, you were screwed over by society.Of course, the majority of the people who actually like this idea, that the world lived and ran like this, are white men who just want to go back to a time where that was all happening again and they had the majority of the power.Not gonna happen. But, most people don’t know the real story behind why the silly designs of the poodle skirt became so popular. I always have talks with my grandpa and him telling me how wonderful their lives were. Ah, the fifties, where racism, sexism, and homophobia all ran amok. As masses of Southern blacks migrated northward to the big cities, more rich and middle-class families left to live in the suburbs to escape the crime, redlining, and blockbusting of the cities. You couldn't imagine being that aged and decrepit. There is a common misconception that high-income Americans are not paying much in taxes compared to what they used to. Anonymous. The important difference was that women were confined to factories, typewriters, and toilets with basic pay. There was, in other words, no such thing as rape if a couple was married, and any form of birth control was still illegal in many places. Also, treats really were ‘treats’ back then, and only consumed occasionally. 1950 was the start of the fast changes that would be seen in the next 2 decades , the great depression was becoming a faint memory and families were moving out to the suburbs, kids watched howdy doody on 12 inch black and white TV sets and spent Saturday afternoons watching cartoons at Cinema matinees , times were gentler … However, despite these high marginal rates, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the … Think of how much more integrated this country would be if we'd been openminded enough to elect a black president in the 50s?10. Business could refuse service to anyone5. I'm still in my early twenties but I am feeling that the world is a mess right now, makes me feel unsafe everytime. We can start with a critical investigation into the past: What was life like in the 1950s? The first, and easiest to understand, is that the up and coming adults right now grew up during the decade. The heavy drug use caused a lot of problems for people back then, and it still continues today. I think the main difference between now and the '50's is the discipline factor. However, As some media shows, There were also disadvantages to the time period; since it was just after ww2, Some things were still a bit of a mess, There was much racism, There was much sexism, There was much homophobia and there was, As you’d expect, Less development in the medical world so if you got diseases, There would be less likely to be a cure or treatment and your life expectancy would be lower. Any millennial will tell you that the 1990s were (arguably) THE BEST decade to grow up in. Bullsh*t. Weekly churchgoing by Protestant denominations is about 23%, slightly up from 20% of the 50s. There's this unexamined belief that the 1950s didn't have all of those pesky non white people causing trouble by existing. 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