The Problem That Has No Name

Another major book victory for me. This one looks small, which is so deceptive, because it is as long as Moby Dick and took me even longer to read.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

A few things that this book is not: (1) It's not a feminist manifesto, (2) It's not a man-basher, (3) It's not harsh, abrasive, or aggressive in tone, (4) It does not seem revolutionary, (5) It does not downplay the significance or importance of a woman's role as wife and/or mother.

It is one of the first and broadly-published sociological studies of American female life. Published in 1963, Friedan's book incorporates her own research and the research of many others, as well as timely (for the '60s) ideology such as that of Freud, to dissect what she saw firsthand as a growing problem in America's suburbs.

Friedan's legacy in this book is her identification of "the problem that has no name." Why was it that in the decades immediately following WWII when the men were back and families were booming and suburbs were sprawling and appliances made life a hundred times easier for women than those of their mothers just 10-15 years earlier, were women living in a daze? Why were they taking tranquilizers and drinking on such a wide scale that doctors referred to this phenomenon as "the housewife's disease"? Why did their housework seem to expand to fit all the hours of the day, despite so many new industrial fixtures that actually did the work for them? Why did they so desperately cling to their husbands and children?

Without blaming men - and in fact, by putting quite a lot of onus on women - Friedan explores the undercurrents of a society that offered no other identity for a woman apart from her sexuality, that is to say, her ability to exist only to support her husband and her children. The problem, in hindsight, is not that women wanted to excel within the domestic sphere; it was that they had no other spheres. It was not that they struggled to maintain a career and a household; it's that the career was the household and there were no other options. A woman didn't decide to stay home because she wanted to, she simply had to.

Except, she didn't.

Friedan wrote during a time when women were accepted to colleges and into the working world. Yes, there were all kinds of political issues, but she was not writing during a time in which women were banned, so to speak, from professionalism. Instead, women purposefully didn't pursue any of it, and found themselves - broadly speaking - with no motivation or identity or energy apart from their families (meanwhile, the husband and children were fully immersed in their own lives, leaving the woman utterly alone, grasping at their leftovers. Women would do their children's homework and plan elaborate meals to entertain the husband's boss, just so that they could feel like they were a part of the lives being lived around them.)

In short, Friedan explores what made the women decide to forgo any opportunity of a life outside the house, and their subsequent misery and isolation.

It's a long read, but mostly an interesting one. Friedan includes a lot of quotes from other housewives of the time, and major marketing decisions targeted at housewives. For those of us living in a much different society (as a result of the efforts of the women who came before us) it's a real eye-opener. I suggest reading it along with another book. Just reading this one felt like it took a year off my life. But now I'm ready for another Feminist Thought class. :)