Stephanie
Coontz is the author of A Strange
Stirring, who references the 1960’s book, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, in order to remind the
readers of how important the book was at the time. Although she mentions that
she knew the book from her younger years, she had not actually read it before.
The book when it first came out had a more significant effect on the women in
society than it does today. One reason is that it seems to be outdated at times
and that it was directed at women during this time. When Coontz is given the
task to write a book on The Feminine
Mystique, she researches a lot of content and interviews many women from
this time period. The most impacting to her was the interviews she performed
with the women that had been affected by this book.
During
World War II, women had their own jobs in factories, which gave them this sense
of freedom. After the war, women were put in the homes while the men took their
jobs. There was a lost “’sense of possibility’ that women felt in the 1920s,
1930s, and 1940s.”[1]
At this point, it seemed that women were less concerned about equal rights than
they did in the earlier years. Women were taught to grow up as housewives to
take care of their children and husband. Many women during the 1960s had their
mind set on marrying someone and fulfilling society’s definition of the role of
a female. At that point they were locked into a marriage, which was always to
be the women’s job to take care of family and home.
There
were many prejudices towards women, which gave few options for them to
independently live. Society geared these people to find a spouse, who would
take care of the family financially. Women were not allowed to even do the
simplest activities. “Prejudice and discrimination were pervasive in small
things as well as big. Elementary schools did not allow girls to be crossing
guards or to raise and lower the American flag each day, nor could girls play
in Little League sports”[2]
This is because people believed that, “girls should be channeled into
activities that would prepare them for homemaking and motherhood.”[3]
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Society
during this time insisted that the women should marry then become a housewife
and mother. People would think of a woman as a horrible wife to their husband if
they were not completing their wifely duties. Housewives were portrayed as some
who was only concerned of taking care of her children home, and husband.
“Most Americans
believed that the “normal” life for a modern mother was to become a homemaker
in a male-breadwinner family and live according to the cultural stereotypes
about womanhood that Friedan described as the feminine mystique.”[4] Women
were convinced that their only goal was to be a good mother, until The Feminine Mystique came out. The Feminine Mystique explained that
women were not only put on this earth to be a good housewife, but allowed women
to express their potential as human beings. “The source of ‘the problem with no
name,’ she insisted, was that modern culture did not allow women, as it allowed
men, to gratify a need that was just as important as sex— the ‘need to grow and
fulfill their potentialities as human beings.’”[5]
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As Coontz
interviews the women from the 1960s, she realizes how much this book had impacted
their lives. “Women who told me over and over that The Feminine Mystique transformed their lives, even that it
actually ‘saved’ their lives, or at least their sanity.”[6] Some
housewives were having feelings of discontent, boredom, and even depression
during their housewife roles. They thought these feelings were caused by their
own mental issues instead of society, since society believed that women were
meant to have the role of a housewife. Specifically in society, it was
considered that, “A normal woman found complete satisfaction in her role as
homemaker, mother, and sexual companion to her husband.”[7] It
was a relief to many women after reading The
Feminine Mystique because it explains that they did not need psychiatric treatment
for these rough feelings during their role as a housewife.[8] Although
this book did not start the feminist movement in the 1960s, it sped up the inevitable
action taken by these readers. The book put a whole new perceptive that women
were not accustomed to, which drove them to believe that societies belief of
them was not true.
[1] Stephanie Coontz,
A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique
and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, 2011. Basic Books. Kindle
Edition. (p. 36).
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