Summary: This week, The Age of Persuasion looks at part two of how Madison Avenue invented the Happy Homemaker. While advertising encouraged women to aspire to be housewives in the 50s and 60s, that stay-at-home stereotype was called out onto the carpet by a best-selling book titled The Feminine Mystique in 1963. That book and others like it helped fuel the embers of Women's LIb - which eventually led the Happy Homemaker to run smack into feminism in the 1970s. Women were now in the workforce in record numbers, but they were still balancing careers with motherhood. That juggling act would eventually create the next powerful archetype - which Madison Avenue would happily co-opt - and it would become the dominant female image to this day.
