Reading 'The Feminine Mystique'

[sethstarkaddersmummyreturns]

it's bloody terrifying. I am up to the 4th chapter and so far it could almost have been written today.

I think my head is going to explode. Anyone else read it and had their head explode?

Read it & head more or less exploded yes.

What the hell are we going to do so that our daughters aren't reading it in 30 years time and thinking the same?

I read it when I was nineteen and it terrified me then.

Not read it but will do. Not sure I like the sound of the head thing though!

I skimmed it when I was younger and it made no impression on me whatever - I thought it was just a historical artefact, how things were in the early 60s before feminism, nothing to do with me.

It's the relevance that is freaking me out now.

Like EvilAnts says, what the hell are we going to do so our dds aren't having the same experience in 30 years?

BoF what were you doing when you were 19? I'm thinking you must have been more perceptive/less naive than me at 19!

yes Alice, make sure you wear a good strong hat to read it.

I was dating my first husband- a medical student- and looking at moving to be with him after my degree. Predictably I ended up feeling like I'd wasted my aducation and lost myself a bit. Funnily enough, I remember actually highlighting the portions of text that sounded the claxons. If only I'd listened to Betty

I read it when i was 20, after breaking up with exf. I remember it having a big imoact in me. I went straight into reading the whole woman.

I cant remember much of the detail, can someone give me the jist?

I read it when I was 18 or so and it put me off being a housewife (well that and seeing my mum accountable to my dad because he was the one earning the money) for good.

I have read it a couple of times, must get it out again and re-read it as a mother.

Can we have it for a book-club discussion? I won't be able to read November's book, but I have read this one and still have my mum's copy.

Actually reading it at the time it seemed all a bit 1950s and a little dated, I think that now that kind of domesticity is back "in" and it is probably more terrifying now than when I read it.

hello all, thanks for those links Dittany.

To clarify why it is making my head explode: because there are just so many parallels with the situation today for me/lots of other women of my generation.

I don't think I'd appreciated before the extent to which the 50s movement towards femininity was a backlash; a lot of the 50s housewives were college-educated and were struggling with the question 'is this all my education was for?'

Betty Friedan was a magazine journalist and she's very good on the way magazines started to write about how wonderful the home was, where once they'd promoted careers. Jamaisjedors - exactly, that kind of domesticity is back in now.

There's even a line early on about manufacturers making a padded bra for little girls - and here we are with the Let Girls Be Girls campaign

I'm about to start the chapter on Freud; I'm guessing she'll be talking about how he was used to give a pseudo-scientific basis to the idea that women's place was the home, just like Baron-Cohen and the neurosexists are doing now.

Ditt - the edition I have has a foreword by Lionel Shriver and she talks about Mad Men. I watched it for the first time as a result on Wed - really good though it's going to take some time to get into it I think. Shriver thinks the name Betsy is a deliberate reference to Betty Friedan.

apologies to the partners and children of anyone else whose head actually explodes as a result of this thread....

Bloody hell Sprogger.

yes exactly, that stuff about the New Woman is really interesting.

let us hope history follows a similar trajectory and we have another really effective wave like the Second.

I remember Faludi in Backlash saying that the history of women's liberation is like a slanty corkscrew so you get these spirals down but then when you spiral up again you are further up.... Hope she's right.

Oooo, may have to join you in the December book club!!

I've never heard of this book, must have a look for it.

I'm guessing it's a study, rather than a novel? I bookmarked those links to the chapters dittany, will have a read of them.

I'm due to return to my degree in Jan after taking a year off on maternity leave with DS. Some older women have been scathing to me about my choices to 'leave' DS, so I'd like to read this book, learn more about what people think and have thought about a women's place.

That's right TryLikingClarity, it's non-fiction.
hope it is useful ammo for you!

I have plenty of ammo in my arsenal already, but it's always good to have a reserve

I agree about the madmen link - I was thinking about that today.

I don't see that we are supposed to hate Betsy though - surely there are lots of hints to how trapped she is and how unfulfilling her life is - but that's another discussion. Could be interesting though if other people are watching/have watched mad men.

I started it a couple of months ago. At first found it v. slow and too much of a period piece but am finding food for thought there now, and the out and out sexism that the series seemed to be rejoicing in seems to have given way to more of an exposé of women's lack of choice.

Am now off to bed with Betty (Friedan)!