Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Brainstorm as many gender expectations for women in the mid-twentieth century as you can think of.

Teaching Suggestion and Helpful Links: As students brainstorm, encourage them to think about more than one kind of expectation. Some might relate to occupations and ambitions, some might relate to behavior and attitudes, and so on. Students may need help understanding how gender role and sex differ. You might introduce the idea of Society’s Influence on Gender by explaining past mistaken beliefs about gender as a binary resulting from biology.

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research resource on how gender role and sex differ
• an extensive U.S. History Scene article on perceptions of women in 1950s America

2. Write a paragraph in which you explain which of these expectations have changed and which have not.

Teaching Suggestion and Helpful Links: As students write their paragraphs, ask them to focus on degrees of change rather than on absolute change. Encourage them to think about nuances such as how expectations are enforced: while some might have once had the force of law, for instance, media, social pressure, and bullying might now be how an expectation is enforced.