Culture:
Erna Hoover lived in a time period where women were still not equal to men. Even though during the 1950’s women were becoming more independent in their careers they were still not looked at as equal. Women like Hoover didn’t let this defeat them they continued to progress and make break through discoveries in technology. In the 1950’s technology was advancing, but most women’s only interaction with it was utilizing the appliances for household chores. “During the 1950’s the role of women was generally considered to be that of a housemaker (Taylor,2014).” Women were encouraged from the magazines and commercials to stay at home and create a domestic environment for their family using the appliances. Women were not given a fair chance to utilize their skills in their profession a lot of time especially when it came to technical jobs. The norm was for women to be maintaining a household or if they did occupy a job being involved in secretarial work. If they were in contact with technology it was mainly for advertising the new advancements in technology. Unfortunately, women faced many obstacles in the 1950’s when it came to their relations in technology, it was not equal for women. They were forced to mold into the stereotype of a stay at home mom or wife, and were not given the fair opportunity to utilize their skills in the technology profession.
One appliance a lot of women used in that time and is still predominately used by women today is the washing machine, over the years it has become more advanced, but yet women tend to still use it more often than men. A keypunch was a popular device women used especially if they possessed a job in business data processing and it is a device still used today in the business profession, known now as a three-hole punch. The first commercial modem was introduced in the 1950’s and was used by women as a mode of communication, it was the phone of that era. At least sixty years later and technology has become so advanced that we refer to the modem as a cell phone and it is used more today as a mode of communication than ever before. With women staying at home majority of the time they usually purchased the appliances as well as utilized them in the home. Along with purchasing the appliances a lot of time women were the handy man around the house making sure everything was working and in tip top shape, because most of the time their husbands were always away at work. Although these appliances were readily available women were always limited to what they could do with the technology outside of the home.
