Sunday, November 05, 2017

THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE




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The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan, W W Norton & Company, 1963, 395 pp
 
 
Getting through his iconic feminist text took work but I am so glad I read it. The work of reading it took different forms.
 
Hardest to read were the passages where she cited primary sources such as Freudian psychiatry, sociology, magazine writing, and the advertising of the times. Only when I reached the end of the book did I appreciate the meticulous way in which she built her thesis. It made for a good many pages of fairly dry reading.

I concluded that she had been influenced by both Simon de Beauvoir's The Second Sex as well as some of Vance Packard's early books such as The Hidden Persuaders, The Status Seekers, The Waste Makers, and The Pyramid Climbers, all of which I have read. She had done her homework and was proving it.

I understand why she did that though, because as a woman writing about women in the early 1960s, she knew she would take some heat and had to stand strong.

Another part of the work for me was all the emotion she evoked. I was only a sophomore/junior in high school when the book was published. I did not know of it then but I wondered if my mother had read it. One day near the end of her life, my mom told me and my sisters that when she was raising us she often felt she had lost track of who she was!

The book got me thinking about and remembering what it was like being raised in a suburban New Jersey town by a stay-at-home mom. I realized that she had channeled all her creativity as a musician into running a home, managing her husband and bringing up three daughters. I also gained plenty of insight into why I felt so smothered by her when I was a kid.

Then I pondered the choices I made as a young wife and mother. I felt chagrined to recognize how much the "feminine mystique" still had a hold on me in those years and caused such conflicted emotions and guilt as I tried to also follow my own dreams and keep a semblance of my own identity.

All in all, it was a rewarding reading experience despite how long it took to get through the book. After all, it was THE book that started second wave feminism. All the later complaints about The Feminine Mystique lacking diversity are true. The women Betty Friedan was writing for were the white, middle class citizens of America. Even so, she hit on universal truths for women: the importance of birth control, legal abortion, education, and the right for all women to be fully contributing members of society.
 
I feel this is an important book that traces why and how women were sent back home after WWII and what that did to us and our children. It was an eye-opening book to read in 2017.


(The Feminine Mystique is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)


 
 
 
 
 
 
 

12 comments:

  1. Important reading, it seems. I'm glad you liked it.

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  2. Hear, hear Judy. Wonderful review & thoughts. Seems important to go back & read these early feminist books now. Your reading gives me inspiration to do so.

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    1. Always happy to inspire a fellow reader!

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  3. I have yet to read this iconic feminist book...I think The Feminine Mystique is a classic must read for all feminist readers.

    Personally, I have yet to read The Feminine Mystique for a two main reasons... I've been intimated by the length of this book, so have chosen to read shorter books dealing with feminist issues... And I've heard it's a bit on the dry side.

    As a side note, I've also read/heard that Betty Friedan "wasn’t a warm and fuzzy feminist that was beloved by all. She was complicated, noisy, bitchy (by her own admission), pushy, bossy, and, as evidence suggests, homophobic and exclusionary." (http://www.theradicalnotion.com/10-things-know-betty-friedan/). So, even though I feel Friedan made significant contributions to feminism, I'm not sure I'd would have wanted to meet her in person.

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    1. I understand all of your concerns. The book is long, parts of it are dry. Like any human being who begets a movement, she was not perfect and made mistakes. In the edition I read, a 2001 reprint of the W W Norton paperback, Friedan has written an epilogue that addresses your side note. If you ever have the time or the inclination to suffer through this book, it would be worth your time. It is a lesson to all women of what equality, independence and freedom really require. However, I would not judge you in any way should you decide not to read it. Reader's rights!!

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    2. No one is perfect and that's what makes us all unique!! I value Betty Friedan's contributions to feminism.

      I have The Feminine Mystique is on my feminist reading wishlist, but have many other feminist books higher on the list to read first... I'm keeping fingers, that one day I will read The Feminine Mystique one day as it is an important book.

      P. S. OMG, I'm so envious that you had the opportunity of meeting Margaret Atwood in person. She's one of my favorite authors too and I would love to meet her in person some day!!

      Have you heard that Netflix has created a series based on Atwood's book, 'Alias Grace'? I have not started watching this series yet myself as I don't watch much television usually. I might just have to make an exception for 'Alias Grace' though.

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    3. Ok, that makes sense. Yes, I have been watching Alias Grace on Netflix, two episodes per night. It is so very good! I will finish it tonight. The amazing Margaret Atwood talked extensively about making the series during the author conversation I attended. She even has a bit part in it!

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    4. Glad you are enjoying 'Alias Grace' on Netflix. I will most definitely have to watch now and see Atwood's role in the series.

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  4. I remember reading excerpts of this very important book - in a magazine, I think, although to be honest, my memory is hazy. But I've never read the entire book. So many groundbreaking feminist works of that period gave us a foundation for moving forward and Friedan's was chief among them. I would certainly never have expected her to be warm and fuzzy.

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    1. Dorothy! I do not believe I have ever met a warm and fuzzy feminist.

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