Within / Without

Betty Friedan (1921 – 2006) died on 4th February 2006. Time Magazine of course seemed to have sounded the death knell for feminism much before. Friedan’s landmark work – The Feminine Mystique is on most essential reading lists for the second wave of Feminism.

In 1958, this fired-for-being-pregnant journalist conducted a minor survey amongst her female classmates. She wrote an article based on the outcomes – to illustrate the potential of women that was lost in the restrictive roles designed to keep women out of the public arenas. Legend has it, that no editor was willing to publish this in their magazine. And thus The Feminine Mystique was born and published in 1963. Her first chapter was named “The Problem That Has No Name”. That I like. I really do. She recognized that problems that are not articulated are mostly nameless. The first para of her book -

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night–she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question–”Is this all?”…

…In the fifteen years after World War II, this mystique of feminine fulfillment became the cherished and self-perpetuating core of contemporary American culture.

From the second chapter – “The Happy Housewife Heroine”.

The transformation, reflected in the pages of the women’s magazines, was sharply visible in 1949 and progressive through the fifties. “Femininity Begins at Home,” “It’s a Man’s World Maybe,” “Have Babies While You’re Young, ” “How to Snare a Male,” “Should I Stop Work When We Marry?” “Are You Training Your Daughter to be a Wife?” “Careers at Home,” “Do Women Have to Talk So Much?” “Why GI’s Prefer Those German Girls ,” “What Women Can Learn from Mother Eve,” “Really a Man’s World, Politics,” “How to Hold On to a Happy Marriage,” “Don’t Be Afraid to Marry Young,” “The Doctor Talks about Breast-Feeding,” “Our Baby Was Born at Home,” “Cooking to Me is Poetry,” “The Business of Running a Home.”

One of the stronger initial trends in the second wave of Feminism was to see the family as a universal context for women’s oppression. Betty who wrote about the boredom of the housewife and elaborated on how the key to women’s liberation was to go out and work, perhaps based her book on experiences, (rather, perceived experiences) of middle class white women. A wonderful critique of her work is provided by bell hooks who stated that Betty’s understanding of Feminism was limited to white/ middle and upper class women, for whom going out of the home was a choice. bell hooks with her afro-american background saw domestic life as luxury – given that lowerclass women always had to work outside of the house.

Further, feminism that came from The Feminine Mystique fountain in it’s own way debased the value of domestic chores. But the brilliant offshoot of this was to be able to recognize that the opportunity for growth at home was far less. The debate that it sparked off also led to the recognition that women who work outside home (as most women have had to since time immemorial) still have to do work at home. So women work in double shifts!

Friedan won’t be easily forgiven however for her inability in terms of not seeing lesbians as partners of feminists. So added to the white/ middle class baggage was that of sexuality. But she’s not the only one who’s guilty really. Heterocentric works have dominated most discourses. Despite being in a position of power, she didn’t seem to overcome (what seemed like) her personal discomfort with homosexuality, and contribute to understanding homosexuality as experienced by more patriarchal constructs.

The legacy of the book however is in being supremely accessible and its ability to relate to one of the many contexts of oppression. The more decentralized Feminism becomes, the more it finds itself relevant to the situations of women from diverse contexts. Just hold onto the core, and let women determine their own truths.

Some more posts on Betty Freidan – The Nanopolitan, Locana, Yossarian Lives

Posted on February 6th, 2006 by Neha Viswanathan
Filed under: Random Links