Title: Desperate housewives, neuroses and the domestic environment, 1945-1970 /
Authors: Haggett, Ali.
Publisher: Pickering & Chatto,
Year: 2012
Subjects: Spouses; Social Conditions.; Neurotic Disorders; Depression; Women's Health; Spouses history; Social Conditions history; Neurotic Disorders history; History, 20th Century; Gender Identity; Depression history; Depression history Great Britain.; Gender Identity Great Britain.; History, 20th Century Great Britain.; Neurotic Disorders history Great Britain.; Social Conditions history Great Britain.; Spouses history Great Britain.; Women's Health Great Britain.; Housewives Mental health History; Housewives Social conditions; Depression in women Social aspects.; Sex role Health aspects History; Neurotic Disorders Great Britain History.; Social Conditions Great Britain History.; Spouses Great Britain History.; United States; United Kingdom; United Kingdom.; United States.
Abstract: "The historical association between femininity and neurosis is well documented. Many recent studies have seen women's mental health issues in the aftermath of the Second World War as being a direct consequence of a lack of opportunity and the banality of a domestic lifestyle. Although the figure of the 'desperate housewife' is familiar to us, Haggett suggests that many women in the 1950s and 1960s led satisfying lives and that gender roles, while very different, were often seen as equal."--Pub. desc.
Contents: Introduction -- Reflections on the desperate housewife -- The art of marriage: marriage and mothering during the post-war period -- The housewife's day : personal accounts of housewifery and mothering -- Lightening troubled minds: mid-twentieth century medical understandings of affective disorders -- Not something you talk about: personal accounts of anxiety and depression -- For ladies in distress: representations of anxiety and depression in the medical and popular press.