Ahhhhh The fabulous fifties. The era that defined the perfect woman and alienated anyone who didn't conform to the portrait of the ideal female. If you weren't June Cleaver, cleaning house in high heels and pearls, or a baby voiced sex kitten starlet, you might as well be dead, or worse..you might just end up being AN OLD MAID. 
              
Scholars are still writing angry papers about the evils of that generation, analyzing the post war women who left Rosie the riveter's work place when the men returned home only to be shoved back into the proverbial shrinking box. I mean, think about it - Barbie was introduced in the 1950's, and you know what the PhD dissertations have said about the evil influence of Barbie! 
                                       
Educated women could work, of course, but they needed to know their place..in the secretarial pool, the classroom, on airplanes, or as nurses in hospitals and doctors' offices. The 1950's working woman needed to come home and make the perfect meat loaf, defrost her pink, yellow, or mint green Frigidaire and attend little Bobby and Cindy's PTA meetings, all while maintaining a pristine manicure and 22 inch wasp waist. 
                                    
At the end of that humanly impossible day, she would then have to slip into her negligee, put on her uncomfortable, but sexy little slippers and be alluring to her husband, who had been drinking martinis since noon and who may or may not be gay.                                  
                                         
The term sexual freedom wasn't used yet and Rob and Laura Petrie, along with all tv married couples, still slept in twin beds. Movies like "Far from Heaven" and tv shows like "Mad Men" have pulled back the curtains and given us a modern day peek into the realities of the seemingly perfect lives of 1950's housewives and their families. And unlike the "Move that Bus" moment on Extreme Home Makeover, the revelation hasn't been an easy one to watch.

                        
Advertisements became more blatantly influential during the 1940's and 50's. Women were portrayed with bad habits like smoking,  as flirtatious, obsessed with the dilemma of what to make for dinner, and ultimately content with a sparkling clean house and a husband with a fedora. Nothing made the 1950's woman happier than a new convenience food, appliance, or cleaning product. 
                                      
50's Fashion advertisements are another permanent object of scholarly wrath. They are blasted, to this day, for defining a woman's figure as a perfect hour glass and dictating femininity through constricting undergarments.  Christian Dior's "New Look" allowed women to have larger hips than the fashions of the 1940's, but it still required that famous 50's cinched waist to be as small as possible.
                                           
The objectification of women is now a familiar term used to describe the way females were portrayed by the media in mid century America. A term that gave the younger women of that generation ammunition to go into battle against the male run society that decided their fates.  Women were outraged, and the women's rights movement swung the pendulum in the other direction, demanding that women burn their bras, hang up their aprons and go to work. Pant suits became popular, André Courrèges and Mary Quant introduced mini skirts which became symbolic of the new sexual revolution. 
                               
Playboy clubs started closing down across the country as women demanded to be recognized for their talents, intelligence, and skills, and not ogled over for having anatomically correct bodies. No longer would women be thought of as sexual objects, and lesser citizens, and designers like Celia Birtwell used free flowing fabrics of the 70's that became floral freedom proclamations. 

                                     
We look back on these archaic times with relief, having come such a long way from wearing girdles and living our lives so that men will find us attractive. Now, women are in control of their own sexuality, identity, bodies, and careers. Right? We know now that smoking cigarettes kills and that the body image that evil Barbie and the 50's forced on us is unattainable.  We are content with healthy weights, and no longer need to use our sexuality to get attention.  I mean, this is the 21st century and women have power now, make their own choices, and the media reflects those choices. Right? I mean sure, the ads today are provocative and raw, but honesty is good, right? What one person calls demeaning or objectifying is just his/her own opinion, and if a woman is portrayed through the media as a sexual object to be dominated, or an emaciated heroin addict, it's her choice now. That's MUCH different than the women in the images from the dark ages of our mothers and grandmothers who didn't have that "choice." We have definitely evolved and are no longer degraded objects of men's desires. Right? 
                                 
                                                 Evan Rachel Wood in
                                                                      May 09 GQ
                                        
                                                Christina Ricci in Vogue

Do you SERIOUSLY believe that? I hear that rhetoric all the time and I feel like the lone voice in the Emperor's New Clothes.. This whole sexual power excuse is a lie to give the media license to do whatever it is that sells. And people are playing right into the game by declaring it artistic and cutting edge.  Fashion has become just another form of exploitation and ad examples below from American Apparel, Dolce and Gabbana, Duncan Quinn, Gucci, and Cesare Pacciotti who choose to show women as dead, dominated, victims and prisoners, are sending a much stronger message than any 50's ad ever did. And Barbie?Please..

But now, somehow, it's okay.  It's okay to be gang raped, stepped on, killed, and date raped? And this is what is called empowerment?  Anyone who believes that is a pawn in the biggest media campaign of all.  My own colleagues warned me not to openly write this blog at the risk of alienating fashionistas and industry professionals.  I don't play that game very well I'm afraid, as you can see.  I work hard with a group to end human trafficking and sexual slavery and I will tell you that there are things that are definitely not okay. The fashion industry is  bravely perpetuating a lie but women are guilty of not only buying it, but labeling those who don't as either old or the antithesis of hip. 
                  
Anything goes and with it goes dignity...right out the window.  Shock ads get attention, but I don't care how many fashion bloggers call them brilliant and "fabulous", I call them degrading and irresponsible.  Ad campaigns that use Models that look like 12 year olds posing in sexually charged ads didn't do that by accident, they WANT them to look like 12 year olds! That is NOT okay, even if they are 18 in reality.  Am I the only one who thinks that children are still safe from the "anything goes" mentality too?   Or is it okay because they are wearing organic cotton? Why do we allow the media to depict women as disposable objects and choose to label it as art? Where are the feminists now?
                                    
Fashion ads used to be beautiful, but 21st century ads have very little to do with the clothing and a lot to do with ambitious photographers trying to get noticed in a society that isn't easily shocked anymore. It would be so refreshing to see an ad campaign that did the truly shocking thing; showed beautiful people in beautiful clothing..sexy without sex, empowering without whips and chains, and confident without arrogance..They say it's all about power..Well, who is being portrayed as healthier and more powerful, the women in the ads today or these women from various editions of Vogue during the 1950's?
                                          You be the judge.