Determined Women or Nylon-Starved Housewives?

In late 1945, groups of women calling themselves the Bring Back Daddy Club began forming in the United States.  The women were concerned that the demobilization of the Army, including their husbands, was proceeding too slowly and that their ability to maintain a traditional household was being eroded by the prolonged absence of a male figure in the household.  Unlike the narratives of female industrial workers and women in military uniforms, which have been used to challenge traditional gender roles, the Bring Back Daddy members acted in support of those roles.  Despite this, they were viewed by some as attacking the basic structures of the nuclear family, and were described, in one account, as “nylon-starved housewives” who should stop “raising hell.”  This paper explores the demands made by the women, and the negative backlash which those demands prompted.