Kelly Barnhill sets the majority of the events of the novel, including the pivotal Mass Dragoning, in 1955 midwestern America. Within American culture, the overall tone and focus of the 1950s were heavily influenced by the national myth of the American Dream, which proposes that with enough hard work, anyone, no matter their social status or economic class, can achieve the prosperity they desire. On the heels of World War II, and in one of the most prosperous economic periods of America, the ideal household was portrayed as one that sported the newest technological conveniences, raised at least two children, and was run by a hardworking father and a picture-perfect “housewife.” “Housewives” were therefore expected to focus entirely on the minutiae of the domestic setting. Many women who built careers for themselves during the late 1940s because of the national war efforts were no longer invited into the workforce as readily, and instead, many were shackled by the expectation that they would return to the home to resume their roles as obedient mothers and wives who lived only to please their husbands with warm meals and quiet, well-behaved children.

When Women Were Dragons investigates and refutes these expectations, emphasizing the now widely accepted point that the 1950s-era image of the American “housewife” is an oppressive and impossible ideal.