Gender Roles

• A Streetcar Named Desire is often considered a play that critiques the limitations that the post-world war American society imposed on itself.
• While the restrictions on women are an explicit focus of Williams’, the gender stereotyping that men suffer is also addressed implicitly.
• The postwar emergence of a sense of American heroism had implications for the championing of masculinity, as the nation decided to embrace values centered around family and home, heroising these men and placing women like Stella in a more domestic role alongside them.
• During WW2, the percentage of women in the national workforce rose from 27% to 37%.
• After the war ended, women were pushed back into traditional domestic roles.
• Williams’ post-war New Orleans is a space where traditional gender roles had been shaken up and conservative Southern ideals of old money and aristocratic heritage had been displaced in favor of the new working class work ethic.
• Williams establishes conventional gender stereotypes and yet twists the notions of masculine and feminine energy using characters.
• Stella and Stanley portray the accepted societal gender roles, while Blanche showcases masculine energy in her sexuality and arrogance, and Mitch and Allan Grey are used to showcase sensitivity, a “feminine” trait.
• Throughout the plot, societal gender norms negatively impact all the main characters in the play, driving them towards either death, mental or moral destruction.