Men in Gray Flannel Suits: Troubling Masculinities in 1950s America

Abstract

This essay deals with American family life in the 1950s. In its first part, the text scrutinizes how the corresponding gender stereotypes were culturally shaped by an array of discursive enunciations and a vast number of social and political practices. A closer look at the 1950s focus-on-the-family will reveal that the breadwinning father was not at all the undisputed hegemonic male stereotype of the age. A conflict between differing norms of masculinity has to be attested: On the one hand, after World War II the restoration of the father to the leading position in the family promised to stabilize post- and cold war-America, on the other hand critics bemoaned a loss of virility among the fathers of the 1950s. A fear of masculine decline permeated American society, caused by the conformist urge and the obviously limited options of suburbanized and corporate life. Talk about a “crisis” among heterosexual white men was everywhere, and this supposed crisis was perceived as a crisis of America at large. The troubling masculinities in 1950s America will take center stage in the second part of my essay. This will be exemplified by an analysis of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a 1950s book and movie, whose protagonist Tom Rath (Gregory Peck) epitomized the American suburbanite who felt overpowered by the requirements being addressed to him as a man.