Today, I read “The Mistaken Choice” in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), along with the beginning of her next chapter, “The Sexual Sell.”
In my post, Feminine Mystique 3, I said that, in my reading up to that point, I didn’t see much in Ms. Friedan’s work that acknowledged the existence of discrimination against women—at the time that the book was written, that is. Rather, her claim was that women have gobs of career opportunities that are open to them for the taking, yet, for some reason, they choose to stay at home as homemakers. In my reading today, however, Ms. Friedan talks about discrimination against women. On page 177, she states that there is a “wage sex differential,” that magazines tend to employ women as researchers rather than as writers, and that women in some jobs work hard, only for a man to take the credit. As I’ve read Ms. Friedan’s book, I’ve been puzzled: How can she say that the Feminine Mystique (the view that women should only be wives and homemakers) is so prominent in American culture, and at the same time assert that women have all these career opportunities? Are employers disregarding the Feminine Mystique when they choose to hire women?
It turns out that reality is pretty complex, which is why any narrative falls short. Yes, women faced discrimination. Yes, there were women who had careers. Yes, there was a Feminine Mystique that pervaded American culture. Yet, as a wikipedia article paraphrases Daniel Horowitz’s critique of Ms. Friedan’s work, “Although Betty Friedan’s book helped to open the eyes of many women who did indeed feel ‘trapped’ within a social or domestic situation, other evidence also supports that many of the contemporary magazines and articles of the period did not solely place women in the home, as Friedan argues, but in fact supported the notions of full or part time jobs for women seeking to follow a career path rather than that of a housewife.[13]“ So the Feminine Mystique was not the only game in town, in terms of what society told women.
In “The Mistaken Choice,” Ms. Friedan argues that the men and women of her time are, in effect, children. The men are returning from the harsh reality of World War II, where, as soldiers, they dreamed of home and hearth, relying on lullabies to give them comfort amidst the chaos surrounding them. When they came back from war, they desired the sort of warm home that they had growing up, with a wife replacing their mothers as the one who would dote on them. Women quickly bought into the role of housewife because they didn’t want to end up as old maids. The men wanted a housewife, and many women couldn’t spend time pursuing other interests (e.g., career, further education, etc.) if they were to get a man—fast—before all of the men were taken! Moreover, many of the women themselves grew up with mothers who doted on them, so they preferred the comfort of a home-life to the insecurity that freedom and independence can bring. As far as Ms. Friedan is concerned, doting mothers contribute to neuroses in children, who grow up demanding that someone take care of them, as they fail to arrive at the independence that is so necessary for them to compete.
Ms. Friedan says throughout her book that the Feminine Mystique keeps women in a state of childishness. Actually, in her mind, much of America during the 1950’s-1960’s is in a state of childishness! The men want their wives to take care of them, as their mothers did when they were children. The women feel that they need a man to be secure. And people bury their heads in the sand, trying not to think about (let alone do something about) the ugliness in the world around them (e.g., McCarthyism, war, etc.).
This reminds me of an argument that many non-believers make about religion. Some people think that believers in a religion are weak because they need a crutch to go through life. In the eyes of religion’s critics, people should be independent, able to cope with the ugliness and complexity of life—not soothing themselves with the opiate of religion. Personally, I find nothing wrong with drawing on the strength of family, friends, and a higher power to make one’s way through life. At the same time, I don’t think that people should bury their heads in the sand, ignoring the ugliness of the world around them. God calls us to do something about that ugliness.