The Women's Room by Marilyn French

[KettlePolly]

Probably preaching to the converted here but I just wondered if anyone else had read the book or seen the film (1970s film so hard to get hold of but you can buy it online for a few quid). It was famous for a while but haven't seen it mentioned in discussions in recent years, perhaps it's seen as "out of date"

I was obsessed with it in my teens back in the 80s and my mother borrowed it at one point and it made her cry because it was so close to home.

It's the story of a suburban housewife in the 1950s who makes friends with other mothers, who contend with infidelity, abortion, DV, behind closed doors, how powerless they are, and how she has a political awakening when she goes to university after divorce and finds fresh thinking from the new feminists. It's terrifically powerful.

If you haven't happened to come across it I urge you to read it. A slice of history and many reminders of the insidious - and blatant power of the patriarchy.

If you have a second hand paperback, see if there's a message asking you to read it and pass it on, it might be my old copy

I have a copy of this - it was the first feminist book I ever read in my teens. I bought it after watching the film in the 80s. I've never forgotten it - it was a real awakening.

I read it back in about 1978 or 79 when I was a teenager. Had a huge influence on me. I haven't read it for many years now, though.

oh!! I just went to dig my copy out and can't find it
I had a big book clear out about four years ago - I can only assume that was one of the books that went.
Pissed off now

I've just been thinking:

1. I think my copy is at my mum's house, and next time I'm over there I'm going to snaffle it back

and 2) For a book I read once in my teens, I remember it remarkably well. I can remember specific lines from it. I have read many, many books since that I can barely remember - it really made a mark on me.

I have often recommended that book on here. Absolutely brilliant, and extremely relevant today. My copy is falling apart. I have reread bits of it so many times over the last 30 odd years.

I read it in early 80s - not since. I still have my copy - I don’t care what Marie Kondo night think - it doesn’t bring me joy to know I read it, have it and to see the spine - it’s much more important than that.

Interesting that someone mentioned Doris Lessing.

I read The Golden Notebook about twenty years ago, and it is only now, in my mid 40s, that I actually understand the predicament of Wulf and it bothers me just how similar her circumstances are to mine in many ways.

Loved that book - made me cry even as a teen in the 90s with ostensibly not much to relate to in it. I didn't know there was a film!

One of the first feminist novels I read too and influenced me a lot along with The Second Sex and The Golden Notebook, still on my bookshelf and briefly skimmed through the last few pages and am surprised at how depressing the ending seems. She is more than 10 years younger than me and talking as though her life is over and seems very aimless and unemployed.

I also read it back in the 80s. I saw the film, which I thought was good. A blurb for “The Women’s Room” was “this book will change your life” and it’s t true, once you start seeing things you can’t unsee them. I also read “The War on Women” by Marilyn French, which is riveting if bloody depressing, and (sadly) even more relevant now.

Read it in the late 80s as a young feminist. I was reading Greer as well. Very different texts, but both mind blowing in their own ways.

I love this book. I read it about 5 years ago when I was 25, it really shaped my feminist views. And it made me very angry!

I read it years ago and never forgot the message that as strong and powerful as we think we are, we can still be raped anyway. And nothing has changed.

I have my paperback copy from the 1990s but first read it well before then. It strongly influenced my feminist thinking - hence my name here!

Yay for Elaine Morgan! And The Female Eunuch. Both had huge impact on me.

Thanks for the rec, too, I looked up Marilyn French and have ordered 'From Eve to Dawn'.

If anyone has any other recs on women & silencing, whether in history, society, literature, etc, I'd love to hear them!

Read it in 1999 recommended by a teacher at school!

We had several copies in the school library

It's the ultimate feminist text.

I didn't read it until my mid thirties and when I read it, it was as if I knew it already.