Gender Disparities in Mother's Day and Father's Day Comic Strips: A 55 Year History

A content analysis of 495 humorous comic strips published on Mother's Day and Father's Day from 1945 to 1999 indicates that gender stereotypes in this set of Sunday funnies have fluctuated since the end of World War II. Patriarchal gender disparities in the fictional families (i.e., gender disparities favoring father characters) were at their highest between 1945 and 1959, declined between 1960 and 1974, increased between 1975 and 1984, dropped below zero between 1985 and 1989, and went up again between 1990 and 1999. Along with the fluctuation, there was progress. From 1945 to 1999 in the holiday strips, mothers were afforded more freedom and their domestic workload became less onerous; the ratio of daughters to sons improved; and, beginning especially in the 1990s, the families became more racially and ethnically diverse.