In my reading today of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Ms. Friedan blamed all sorts of things on the Feminine Mystique, the view that women should only be wives and mothers. Here are four problems that she cites, along with my impression of how she connects them with the Mystique:
1. Immature young people: Ms. Friedan states that the young people of her day have no focus, ambition, or strong opinions about anything. She mentions POWs in the Korean War, who couldn’t survive their way out of a paper bag. (I thought that, according to Ms. Friedan, the Feminine Mystique began in the 1950’s, or in the late 1940’s at the earliest, when men returned from World War II and wanted a warm, cozy home where they could be nurtured. By contrast, the women’s magazines before that time encouraged women to be independent. What’s my point? Soldiers in the Korean War couldn’t have grown up under the Feminine Mystique, if it began in the late 1940’s. How old were they when they were in Korea? Five years old?) Her thesis is that the Feminine Mystique encourages mothers to dote on their children and to spoil them, since that’s one of the few things that the Feminine Mystique allows women to do, as it discourages them from working outside of the home. That produces spoiled bratty children, who grow up to be spoiled bratty adults, people who are dependent and expect the world to cater to them, without them putting forth any effort.
I wonder what she said about the younger generation’s leftist politics during the 1960’s-1970’s. She wrote in 1963 that young people lack initiative and don’t care about any causes. Did she change her mind on that (at least slightly) when she saw their political activism during the Vietnam War? Of course, come to think of it, many conservatives looked at the young leftist activists and said the same things about them that Ms. Friedan wrote in 1963: “They’re spoiled.” “They’re lazy.” “Why don’t they get a job?” “They should’ve gotten a firm, hard spanking when they were kids, but too many parents trusted that Dr. Spock doofus.” Okay, Ms. Friedan didn’t mention spanking, but she does act as if some mothers were overly permissive!
2. Child abuse: According to Ms. Friedan, mothers spoiling their children is caused by the Feminine Mystique, and so is child abuse. Women are so angry because their role as a housewife is unfulfilling, that they take it out on their kids.
3. Autism: Apparently, this was an issue in 1963, just as it is today. According to Ms. Friedan, there are cases of autism that can be attributed to the Feminine Mystique. Basically, under the Feminine Mystique, women don’t have a self or an identity of their own because they are somebody else’s wife and mother. That sort of attitude passes on to some of their children, who cannot distinguish between themselves and the world around them. The mom has a problem with her identity, and that leads the child to have a problem with his.
I’m not an expert on autism, but my problem as a person with high-functioning autism is not that I don’t realize that I have an identity. It’s that I’m in my own little world. And some people have this more severely than I do. But I could be missing something.
4. On page 292, she refers to love-affairs between people and animals, and I thought she was about to blame bestiality on the Feminine Mystique—women are sexually unfulfilled, so they turn to animals! But she didn’t go that route (fortunately). By love-affairs, she meant that animal images show up more often than those of humans, and she sees that as indicative of the infantilism that the Feminine Mystique has produced, since children love animals, whereas adults should focus more on people.
I want to share one of Ms. Friedan’s quotes on homosexuality. Page 264: Homosexuals often lack the maturity to finish school and make sustained professional commitments. (Kinsey found homosexuality the most common among men who do not go beyond high school, and least common among college graduates.)
I wonder to what extent this is true nowadays. It’s not just that Kevin on Brothers and Sisters is a gay lawyer. I’ve gone to college with gay people, plus right-wing literature parades statistics showing that many gays are in the higher-income bracket, in an attempt to show that they don’t need a protected civil rights status.
Another point on feminism: I watched a beautiful movie last night on the Hallmark Channel, Elevator Girl, which premiered on Valentine’s Day. I understand why there are people who think that it’s cheesy, and, as with most Hallmark movies, there were characters whom I wished were developed a little bit more. Basically, it’s about a hot-shot corporate attorney who meets a free-spirit in the elevator. Her name is Liberty, and she does various things with her life: DJ-ing, catering, etc. She flirts with going to culinary school, but she’s not disciplined enough to pick one goal and to stick with it.
The lawyer loves her, even though his high-class friends think she isn’t good enough for him. And she loves him, even though her friends see him as a stuffy workaholic snob (but she knows the real him). But he thinks that she’s undisciplined and immature, and she feels that he’s missing out on the fun of life because he’s overly committed to his work.
Anyway, here’s where feminism comes in. A review of the movie said: Feminism has apparently triumphed so soundly in the world of Hallmark movies that all societal forces are against a corporate lawyer dating anyone who isn’t a badass VP or similar. Sorry, but as much as I love Lacey [who played Liberty], I was kinda rooting for the poor blond career gal who was also vying for Jonathan’s affection. She is going to have a much harder time finding her professional equal. But, hey, it’s the season of love, and opposites who meet in stuck elevators are obviously always meant to be. (see here)
I guess the reviewer’s point is that the movie makes it look like feminism has triumphed, more than it actually has in real life.
Speaking of the blond career girl, she’s a character who should’ve been developed more. She was jealous of the lawyer’s relationship with Liberty, but she didn’t do much about that. She didn’t try to undermine Liberty, except for the one time when she asked the lawyer why he was with her. At the end, however, the blond career girl told the lawyer that Liberty’s the woman for him. The blond career girl reminded me somewhat of the Baroness on the Sound of Music, who was jealous of Baron Von Trapp’s apparent crush on Maria, the Governess, and manipulated Maria to run away, yet at the end she encouraged the Baron to marry Maria, a woman who “will never become a nun.” But the Baroness was more developed than the blond career woman on Elevator Girl!