You can find the first chapter of Betty Friedan’s powerful The Feminine Mystique here. The second chapter is here.
Do read if you haven’t yet. This is what feminism is really about.
The scary thing is that the book hasn’t nearly lost its relevance decades after its publication.
Seventeen years ago I read The Feminine Mystique at the British Council library back in Ukraine and discovered feminism It was as if a lamp suddenly turned on in my head.
Thanks for the links. I’ve always wanted to read it! Glad I can look at those chapters!
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I’m glad I could help! 🙂
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I wholeheartedly agree. I think the _Feminine Mystique_ is one of the best works of feminism of the 20th century. And it makes me sad how very very relevant it remains.
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When I read the book, the feminine mystique was beginning to conquer my country. It was shocking to see how many women were renouncing their, power, independence, opinions, careers, everything, to turn into miserable, depressed self-infantilized creatures.
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This was my situation, and my strategy:
http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/rhodesia-and-my-knowledge-deficit.html
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—When I read the book, the feminine mystique was beginning to conquer my country.
Most likely pendulum effect…
If one places some group of people into “progressive” situation against their will, they will rebel, regardless of how progressive the situation may seem compared to X, Y or Z…
For our western friends: in SU women HAD to work. One paycheck family was just economically unfeasible for 99% of the population. Furthermore, not working (“tuneyadstvo”) was officially a criminal offense (even though in reality it was used mainly to persecute dissidents after firing them from work, not to persecute rare housewifes).
Also note that most of the household chores and childcare were still considered “womens’ responsibility”… So SU never was a land where feminism won…
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“So SU never was a land where feminism won…”
– No, of course not. Yet, our women had been financially independent for generations, they all had lives in the public sphere, and never had the slightest problem with voicing opinions, being active, and making themselves seen and heard.
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I suppose close to this time at my town women left their jobs too – to work as a seller on a market somewhere, often illegally in Russia, because their previous jobs stopped paying. Ditto the men.
Those seem *very* rich people problems. There was this telenovella on Russian TV “Rich weep too”. Sure, but poorer people have lots of additional problems. 🙂
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“Those seem *very* rich people problems. There was this telenovella on Russian TV “Rich weep too”. Sure, but poorer people have lots of additional problems. ”
– You mean, middle-class. Betty Friedan was writing about the middle and lower middle classes.
Since I don’t belong to the “poorer people”, I won’t claim I know anything about their issues or try to cannibalize their voices. They can speak for themselves. I, in the meanwhile, will speak of a social class I know and understand.
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I know not only very rich choose the lifestyle, but somehow in our very poor town no such waves of women stopping to work were observed. So, those are problems of relatively well to do.
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El – the discussion of the situation Friedan describes as a white and non-poor peoples’ problem is well established. Yes, women of color worked outside the home, and women in (many) poor families too — although also (esp. in rural areas) their growing/canning food at home wasn’t a hobby/pastime, it was serious food production and a good contribution to the household economy. Yes, Black women who had a lot of housework to do at home and no child care, yet had to leave their own children to take care of those they were paid to care for, would rather have been able to afford to stay at home — especially with little kids. Read Ann Little’s description in _Coming of Age in Mississippi_ of what it was like to stay home alone as a toddler, and be preyed upon by people who knew she was in a vulnerable situation, and you will see why her mother would rather not have to go out to work.
The point Friedan is making, though, is about the destructiveness of women having no role except as servant of others — a sacrifice others then owe them for — and also the outright absurdity of this when these are women with skills and interests and abilities, who are *artificially* caged in suburban houses, etc. This situation hasn’t been so much a problem of the rich — they have much more freedom of movement, and so on — as of, precisely, the middle and lower middle classes, which are legion in US; the Friedan book does a great job of showing how this model was sold on people after WWII. And, most importantly, the gender roles that were taught also affected people of other social classes, so, all of this had far reaching effects and and is hardly just a frivolous complaint of the rich.
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That book had a profound influence on my childhood education, although I did not realize this at the time. As an adult helping her pack to move to an apartment, I found my mother’s 1964ish paperback copy stashed among the many novels. To my surprise, many passages had been underlined, and many of the underlined passages dealt with education of girls. At the time she bought and read the book, she was leading the classic SAH executive wife lifestyle, organizing the “everything else” so that my father could concentrate solely on growing his small, then larger, business. She contributed fashion and advertising ideas and was an alpha tester for the products (rain accessories), but did not go to the factory office. I would never have guessed that my very traditional mother would have read this book. She was slightly baffled by but supportive of my tomboy / science nerd tendencies and my plans to work at some science-related job someday.
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It wasn’t the first feminist book I read, or the most formative of my feminism, but I did think it was very good, and yes, still dishearteningly relevant.
The granddaughters of the women who read it when it first came out could be reading it today, and some of them could still see themselves in it.
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Here is chapter 3. http://www.scribd.com/doc/47592118/Friedan-Betty-The-Feminine-Mystique-chapter-3-The-Crisis-in-Woman-s-Identity
It really is key despite the limitations which have been amply discussed, etc. It really is an amazing ideological operation that took place, getting women to turn to this housewifery.
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COOL!! Thank you!
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There are a lot of people returning to the domesticated mode these days. I have two brothers and both of their wives are housewives. I actually can’t grasp it all all. It’s a way of escaping from work, but only up to a point. One of my brothers is transferring to Saudi Arabia, soon, along with his family, so that may prove to be interesting. “If you get beheaded, don’t come running to me!’
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Thank you for posting the links. This has been a revelation for me.
This text makes totally clear to me why I am so freaked out about having children and why I am such an ambitious person. For me, thinking about having children is like thinking about suicide. It feels like my life would end there.
The reason is of course I grew up surrounded by exactly this type of housewives that the text describes. Some depressed, some hyperactive, all having a totally empty life, living ‘for their children’.
Still, in our time, it is totally normal for women in my country to say:
” Now that I have a child I will of course stop working, I want to enjoy my child!”
or
“I don’t understand women having children but continuing to work, I mean, what do they even have children for?”
Which reveals that they want to USE their children for the ENJOYMENT, they want to have children FOR something.
That is normal. Shudder.
Hm, I understand myself better now. Thank you. 🙂
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“This text makes totally clear to me why I am so freaked out about having children and why I am such an ambitious person. For me, thinking about having children is like thinking about suicide. It feels like my life would end there.”
– Yes. I know the feeling.
“The reason is of course I grew up surrounded by exactly this type of housewives that the text describes. Some depressed, some hyperactive, all having a totally empty life, living ‘for their children’.”
– Exactly. It’s a great burden for a child to constitute the meaning of anybody’s life.
“Which reveals that they want to USE their children for the ENJOYMENT, they want to have children FOR something.”
– Horrible, eh? The child is so tiny, yet is already saddled with a role s/he needs to fulfill.
“Hm, I understand myself better now. Thank you. ”
– All thanks should go to Friedan. 🙂 🙂
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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