"In the fifties, the only thing worse than sleeping with a man was to telephone him."

Rosen begins her book by saying that it's not just about women:

This is not a book just about an isolated section of society. Dissident movements provide a microcosmic view of the dominant culture's values, assumptions, and social structure.

I will surely not disagree with that statement. I think that the way a society treats its minorities reflects well that society's character. Obviously, this also applies to the civil rights movement, among others.

I found Rosen's analysis of the post war social environment to be quite convincing. Not that I hadn't heard her argument before, but I think that she did a nice job of clearly articulating it:

Reared in the Depression, most had grown up in a culture that valued duty, thrift, long-term commitment, and an old-fashioned work ethic. But they married and bore children in a culture of abundance that prized planned obsolescence and disposability, glamorized leisure, and promised individual happiness through the purchase of products.

Personally, I believe the second sentence in that statement sums up the current situation in the U.S. -- if not the rest of the Western world -- today. And personally, it sort of annoys me that this sentiment isn't seriously discussed in our mainstream outlets. If you don't agree that our disposable consumerist culture is the Greatest Thing Ever, says conventional wisdom, then you're obviously some sort of extremist reject who ought not to be voicing such outrageous opinions and upsetting everyone.

Clearly, marketing executives knew exactly what they were doing when aiming their products at women in the '50s and '60s (and today), as made clear by author and consultant Anita Colby when she exclaimed "Honestly now, where would you be without the little woman's rebellion?"
She was saying that business men ought to thank heavens that their wives are mentally unstable, because it causes them to buy more stuff!

Savages.