Desperate Housewives, Neuroses and the Domestic Environment, 19451970 (Studies for the Society for the Social History of Medicine)

"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. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 List of Figures 10 Introduction 12 1 Reflections on the Desperate Housewife 22 2 The Art of Marriage: Marriage and Mothering during the Post-War Period 40 3 The Housewife’s Day: Personal Accounts of Housewifery and Mothering 60 4 Lightening Troubled Minds: Mid-Twentieth Century Medical Understandings of Affective Disorders 86 5 Not Something You Talk About: Personal Accounts of Anxiety and Depression 116 6 For Ladies in Distress: Representations of Anxiety and Depression in the Medical and Popular Press 140 Conclusion 182 Appendix 192 Notes 194 Works Cited 224 Index 242