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Abstract

This dissertation will examine the relationship between the post war period of affluence (beginning in the early 1950s and ending in the mid-1960s) and developments in masculine identity. The prospering economy in Britain after the end of the Second World War allowed for great social and cultural change. The lives of many working class families were improved due to an increase in wages and a decrease in working hours, as well as better treatment in the workplace. A higher income, alongside an increase in social housing and slum clearance programmes, resulted in working class families being able to afford housing and afford to make their homes more comfortable, resulting in an increase in domesticity. This dissertation argues the home was the birthplace of many new ideals and gender roles which altered male identity. Changing relationships within the home, specifically, the development of marriage with the emergence of companionate marriage and the development of fatherhood with an increase in family oriented fatherhood. Changes in these relationships affected men’s roles and introduced them to new forms of care and domestic labour that had previously been separated by a strict gender binary. This dissertation argues that these changing relationships and an increase in domestic work for men, were both heavily influenced by the working class’s experience of affluence and impacted male identity in post war Britain.

Course: History - BA (Hons) - C1087

Date Deposited: 2024-01-23

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14308.html