Wally Unloads a "Gopher" During the 1950s suburbs like Levitown were springing up all over the country and the so-called American Dream was easier for everyday Americans to achieve than never before. They had just emerged from two decades dominated by the Great Depression and World War II, and prosperity was finally in sight. The need for women to work outside the home that was present during the war no longer existed and women were overwhelmingly relegated to female-dominated professions such as nursing, secretaries and teachers, if they worked at all. Television became very popular and quickly became part of the American cultural canon of entertainment. Leave It To Beaver is a classic American television show, which embodies values ​​such as respect, responsibility and learning from your mistakes. But, at least in the episode used for this essay, it is also surprisingly sexist for a modern viewer. This begs the question: What does the episode The Blind Date Committee1 say about 1950s gender expectations? The gender expectations in Leave It To Beaver seem to be consistent with the time period. The Cleavers live in the prosperous suburban town of Mayfield2. Mr. Ward Cleaver works outside the home, is correct and gives lots of advice to his children, as well as having a very cordial relationship with his wife. Mrs. June Cleaver is a housewife, she carries out the tasks expected of her as a mother and wife with much cheerfulness, Wally and Beaver respect their parents, but they also make mistakes. Each episode follows a familiar formula, there is a conflict that is resolved by the end of the episode, usually by teaching Wally or Beaver something. Cleavers are the quintessential model of the American family. They meet all the criteria,... in the middle of the paper... they are less true. According to Leave It To Beaver (and similar shows) women are supposed to be happy, pretty, compliant housewives, obedient to their husbands and fathers, not intelligent or successful in their own right. The episode reinforces gender stereotypes in a blatant way and paints the women as extraordinarily simple and happy with how their world is. This episode (and the entire series) follows the publication of Betty Friedan's infamous book Feminine Mystique, as the fight for women's liberation is really starting to heat up. But watching Leave It To Beaver you would have no idea that the world is just starting to change for women right now. Unfortunately, many social ideas and stereotypes are still too present in today's world, albeit in more sexualized and obvious ways. As I see it, the distance between then and now is too short to be comforting.