Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain during the 1950s

Revisioning the History of Girls and Women in Britain in the Long 1950s

“…It affirms, for example, Stephen Brooke's suggestion that gender 'became a primary means of articulating changes in class identity in the 1950s' and demonstrates how the 're-articulation' of class and gender played out in different registers according to place (the rural, for example) or occupation (here seen in white-collar employment). 8 To the history of sexuality it demonstrates the importance of attending to anxieties about sexual innocence as well as sexual transgression; of understanding the representation of new sexual spaces and of explaining just why cross-'race' intimacy was so central to transnational race discourse. To the history of emotion it suggests a need to attend to the everyday material conditions, not least those of home and work, which framed emotional lives and through which emotional demands were made and articulated.…”

Issues of gender and class in the Mirror newspapers' campaign for the release of Edith Chubb

“…This was in keeping with the papers' left-wing politics and their appeals to 'popular citizenship' (Thomas, 2004;Tulloch, 2007). It also refl ected mid 20th-century valorizations of the (white) British working class, which included a sentimental discourse of working-class motherhood (Wilson, 1980;Brooke, 2001). Post-war, the status of the working class increased, although this construction was contingent on 'respectable' behaviour (Waters, 1997;Bonnett, 1998).…”

“…The image of the strong working-class mother pre-dated the 1950s (Mitchell and Green, 2002). However, in the mid 20th-century it was a trope with particular symbolic power (Brooke, 2001).…”

“…It is also necessary to bear in mind that the newspapers' portrayal of Edith as a 'put-upon' working-class woman entailed emphasizing her strength and capability (Bourke, 1994;Brooke, 2001), which was represented as having been stretched beyond its limits. A sympathetic reading of Edith's case was dependent on appreciating how much she was able to cope with before 'snapping' rather than perceiving her as delicate, helpless or unable to act for herself.…”

Feelings, Women and Work in the Long 1950s

“…As Stephen Brooke points out in an important study of working class identity, 'more complicated and less certain gender identities emerged at the work-place and in the home during this period.' 23 This was a moment when the proper place of emotion and of subjectivity within public life was being actively assessed; when the boundary between public and private seemed to be in flux and when the 'psychologisation of experience' posited new ways of storying working, as well as intimate, lives.…”