The Feminine Mystique

Betty Friedan's 1963 The Feminine Mystique is said to have launched the modern feminist movement. It's easy to see why. When Friedan likens being a housewife/mother to living in a concentration camp, it no doubt lit a fire under the feet of many a housewife as she scrubbed her floors or changed the tenth diaper of the day. This is an extreme and repulsive analogy, and starkly unfair to those who lived and died in that hell, but the mothers who stayed home with their small children day after day, month after month, could make the connection.

I'd seen references to the book a few times over the years and decided there was no more pertinent a time than now to read it. If I could ever internalize Friedan's ideas, it would be by reading her book in the brief breaks from cleaning, cooking, laundry, diapering, consoling, feeding and picking up.

Friedan starts her book by describing the "problem that has no name." Through research and interviews she uncovers that most upper middle class housewife/mothers (what we call "Stay at Home Moms" today) suffer from a neurosis involving anxiety, depression, boredom and desperation, among other things.

These housewives had been raised, trained and educated to believe they'd find ultimate happiness and fulfillment in the housewife role. They were told it was a role of equal importance in society to that of their working husbands. It was respectable, it was feminine, and it was their destiny.

So from early on, women made it their only goal to get married and garner that beautiful suburban home, overflowing with children and things. They married right out of high school or in college, and attempted to live the dream that we've seen depicted in glossy 1950's advertising spreads. Only once they lived this life did they realize it wasn't the dream they expected.

The next chapters provide historical perspective. At the turn of he 20th century during the women's suffrage movement, pioneering housewives fought hard for equal treatment and their right to vote. When they won, there was a period of liberation and women became more involved in the world outside their home than ever before. This was helped by the need for women laborers during WWII.

We generally think of "Women's Lib" as taking place in the 70's, but as modern women I think we forget how much effort and courage was put forth to gain the emancipation we enjoy today. I'd never paid attention to any feminist movement, I just took them for granted, as most women my age do. Now I feel the gratitude.

The chapters on Sigmund Freud and Margaret Mead conveyed their influence on the Feminine Mystique. I rolled my eyes through the Freud part because it's too much to take him seriously, seeing how far the study of psychology has come. But he apparently made a big impact by heralding the importance of sex in psychology (to an absurd extent, if you ask me). Anyway, their sexualization of psychology and sociology didn't help women de-sexify themselves in the least.

Then came the influence of the educators and universities who guided women further into the Feminine Mystique by pushing marriage and relationship classes on girls while neglecting to encourage curriculum that would lead to careers outside the home. Girls were not taken seriously. Why make the effort to study for a career if you'll never pursue it?

After World War II there was the big surge in housewifery that led to the baby boom. "After the loneliness of war and the unspeakableness of the bomb, against the frightening uncertainty, the cold immensity of the changing world, women as well as men sought the comforting reality of home and children." (p.174) Men wanted it, and women were happy to comply.

This mass movement back into the home was further helped by the advertising industry. "Properly manipulated, American housewives can be given the sense of identity, purpose, creativity, the self-realization, even the sexual joy they lack - by the buying of things." (p.199)

We've all seen the shiny images of the smiling, happy housewife in her gingham apron, fully made-up, taking a caramelized roast out of her oven. She was beautiful and sexy and if she was in a magazine, it must be true in real life.

We started watching Madmen recently and it's become my favorite show. It's well-made and exposes truths about that era, some of which still apply today. The timing of our introduction to the show coincided perfectly with my reading this book. It put some of the words into pictures, which benefited my visual learning preference. (Read How to be A Good Wife for some tips from that era.)

Friedan goes on to explain the way "housewifery expands to fill the time available." Essentially, how women forced themselves to have more babies and do unnecessary housework so they could feel and show their worth. Ironing sheets or cleaning an already clean house are two examples I can think of.

Before the final chapter, Friedan warns of how detrimental this life is for women. A woman who is not allowed to continue her personal growth ends up neurotic. Remaining a housewife/mother stunts the innate human nature to grow, resulting in frustration and resentment. This, compounded by the stress of child-rearing, creates an environment that affects the rest of the family.

"It is urgent to understand how the very condition of being a housewife can create a sense of emptiness, non-existence, nothingness, in women. There are aspects of the housewife role that make it almost impossible for a women of adult intelligence to retain a sense of human identity, the firm core of self or "I" without which a human being, man or woman, is not truly alive." (p.293)

Yikes. If you thought you were happy, think again!

The last chapter offers "A New Life Plan for Women." She suggests women find a career at any cost and no matter how long it takes. Not just a job, but a calling that gives their life purpose beyond the confines of their home. If they need to hire help, they should. If they can only take classes in the evening, they should. If their entire paycheck goes toward childcare, so be it. Friedan claims that in the end it will be healthier for her, as well as for her husband and children.

Friedan's ideas and sense of urgency in her message "ignited women's liberation," leading to the move back into the workforce in the late sixties and seventies. The Feminine Mystique was one of the most important cultural books of the last century. Does it still apply today? I think parts of it do, and it certainly made me think of the modern Stay at Home movement. I'd recently read a few blogs from SAHMs who seemed perfectly fulfilled staying home, and in fact were opposed to mothers working outside the home.

My immediate feeling when I started reading The Feminine Mystique was validation. So I wasn't crazy to feel restless and anxious picking up toys and crumbs all day. Duh, I was educated to use my brain behind a desk and in meetings, sipping coffee and sharing jokes with my officemates. Not that it relieved much guilt or made me jump into a job interview, but at least I knew someone understood.

In some ways much of The Feminine Mystique is irrelevant. If they can afford it, all girls go to college with the expectation of having a career. It's only after they have kids that they realize they can't "have it all," or at least not the way they expected. Quite possibly more women have a hard time with staying home today because more women are educated not to. But those same women have also started careers they could return to if they wanted. And many do, though not at pre-kid levels, and for less money.

I think the difference is the type of career that Friedan encourages, which is a career that has the possibility to make a difference in the big wide world, like politics, law, science, medicine, education. For that, I give Friedan props. She takes women seriously and wants them to realize their potential as much as she realizes their potential.

Lastly, throughout the book I couldn't help hearing the little nagging woman in my head saying to the desperate housewife of the 50's, "Shut your whiny trap, you spoiled brat. I've got three kids and I have to work two jobs to support them. I clean houses for people like you. Don't you think I deserve to 'grow' too?" And she's right. This book is about upper middle class housewife/mothers. What about all the women who need to hang on to any job just to feed their families? I thought about them quite a bit. They like cleaning toilets as much as I do, and they deserve a break, don't they?

I think women over 35 should be able to pursue different things in their lives, no matter what their socioeconomic level. The world needs a variety of women to manage it. Maybe every person (boys, too) between the ages of about 15 and 25 should be partially responsible for keeping house and caring for children, in addition to keeping at their education. (I believe this is an old tradition -for girls at least- in most cultures anyway.)

This solution accomplishes a few things:

1. It frees up mothers (outside school hours) to continue their growth and contribute to society in ways that fulfill them.
2. These young adults would learn firsthand how much work raising babies is, which is far more effective at curbing teen pregnancy than abstinence education.
3. Cleaning house and changing diapers all afternoon would motivate them to study extra hard so they could move on when they reached the right age.
4. They'd be too busy to cause any mischief.

I haven't thought it all out, but it's what I have right now.

If reading this book didn't change my outlook on staying home, it certainly gave me perspective and motivation, as well as a primer in women's lib. I'm no Gloria Steinem, that's for sure, but that doesn't mean I can't do a little bit more than I think I can, whatever that may be, and whenever that may be. For now I'm just grateful for the brave women who know their potential and actively realize it. The choices they make mean mine are still open.