Moms for Liberty Are the New Tupperware Ladies
But at least back then, they were selling something useful
American Women Play their Part in the American Dream
There’s something so 1950’s about today’s Moms for Liberty. I should know, because I was a 1950’s girl.
My first ideas about American womanhood came from reading McCall’s and The Ladies’ Home Journal. Magazines like these belonged to my aunt who loaned us her big house in Hudson, NY, while my dad looked for a house in Woodstock near his new job.
I already knew what a family looked like from my Dick and Jane readers in grade school. But women’s magazines showed me how to make all that happen.
For example, “The Good Wife’s Guide” told readers how to greet your husband when he came home after work. It said,
Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time, for his return. This is a way of letting him know you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs.
That sounded about right to me. (I was 10.)
The ‘50’s family read together, too. One of my favorite Golden Books was called The Happy Family.
Around this time, American wives who didn’t have a job bought all the new appliances their family could afford.
And while their families were at work and school, thanks to the popular food-saving plastic Tupperware, they had extra time. Or so they were told.
And what to do with the extra time? You could buy inexpensive sewing and hobby materials with your pin money. But I think that a sense of purpose, a social life, and having more than pin money to spend, were missing for some of these women.
The time was right for Tupperware parties. By hosting one, the ads said, not only did you gain what you were missing in life, you were making your customers’ lives better, too.
Women in the Shadows Take the Spotlight
In our own day, decades of progress in civil and human rights have been followed by pushback from right-wing extremists.
A few years ago, for the most part wives were in the background. Here in our town, I remember a video ad for a successful Republican Commission Board candidate where his wife smiled up at him and told us all that he loves her sweet tea.
But guess what? Now she’s on the School Board.
In 2021, driven by opposition to the mask mandate for COVID and to other government directives, many traditional family women found an easy new way into the spotlight. As a Moms for Liberty rep, they could sell the idea of Parental Rights to lots of other moms who just wanted to protect their kids in an immoral modern world.
Suddenly, these women were told, you could be a moral leader in your community. All you have to do is display your outrage (we’ll tell you how), and then sign up more Moms. The M4L website says,
Join Moms for Liberty
Ready to stoke the fires of Liberty in your community?
Are you tired of feeling like you are alone in your concerns for the future of your children? Do you try to speak to community leaders about your concerns and your voice goes unheard? There is power in numbers and the purpose of our organization is to fight for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents.
Are you ready to take some control in this chaotic world? Buy a start-up kit for $65 and be a Chapter Chair!
In a world where American women are losing personal rights at all levels of government, it must be terribly attractive to discover and then publicly use your Parent’s Right, for example, to shield your child from moral threats in their public school.
Moms for Liberty’s get-togethers are not as intimate as Tupperware house parties, because broad news coverage is one of Moms’ products.
Both groups attract their members by offering a powerful promise. In the 1950’s the Tupperware company called it “freedom”; today the Moms organizers call it “liberty”.
How Are Tupperware Ladies and Moms for Liberty Different, and How Are They the Same?
On the surface, “freedom” and “liberty” look the same, but they have a different meaning for each group.
A Tupperware saleswoman of the 1950’s was promised freedom from housework and a little financial freedom. Today, however, a Mom for Liberty earns praise for taking the liberty of trying to force on her neighbors her own moral view, often religious.
Another difference: Tupperware parties were designed by a sales team, and Moms for Liberty was organized with the help of right-wing politicians.
In the end, though, both these organizations have offered women something like a career, with no problematic male-female power issue.
Both are signs of their times in American history.
Isabel, I think you were unable to access the paid subscription box because I haven't set it up, opting instead for free subscriptions. Your confidence in my posts is supportive, though, and makes me consider a more professional approach to Postcards, which I would certainly enjoy. But to receive payment, I must be able to keep my commitment to weekly posts, which so far I have done - but each new busy week (in this most important election year) is a new challenge! All my thanks for your offer, and for your comments about Little Golden Books and Tupperware. As for Moms for Liberty -- it will have to play itself out -- OUT.
As usual, I am so grateful that you take the time to write about your sense of what is happening in our country politically, culturally, and socially . I especially love that your particular lens generally includes books. I also met Dick, Jane, and Sally as a first grader. Later the women's magazines. Then books like Marilyn French's The Women's Room, the memory of which still affect me with a slam of recognition, anger and frustration. I feel so lucky to have always had a strong suspicion around all groups of enthusiastic people gathered for one purpose; groups including tupperware parties, church services, rallies, sporting events…. Recently I watched the E O Wilson documentary Of Ants and Men–a perfect description of the love vs skepticism I have always seemed to have experienced for enthusiastic groups. I did love the Dick and Jane books but even in the first grade I knew there was way, way more to the story. I never did like tupperware parties but I still have some tupperware…. What a great metaphor. Thanks Deda.