You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: 50th Anniversary of The Feminine Mystique

YOU’RE NOT LIKELY TO HEAR Rush Limbaugh celebrating this week. Fifty years ago Betty Friedan helped launch the modern feminist movement and change life for American women forever. 

The Feminine Mystique was published in February 1963. 

If you’re young or haven’t read Friedan’s book, it can be hard to understand how far women had to go to achieve equality in 1963. Life on the domestic front—the only front that seemed to matter—was slowly improving. Fifty years ago the average housewife had an automatic washing machine and possibly a clothes dryer. She had an electric can opener on her counter, a garbage disposal in her sink.

If she was rich she might have an automatic dish washer. 

What else did a typical housewife have to be thankful for? Wrinkle-free synthetic fabrics had taken the “iron” out of “ironing day.” Frozen foods, cake mixes, TV dinners and a growing fast-food industry were making mealtimes less taxing. 

Birth control pills had been on the market for three years. Usage was spreading. It was still a crime, however, to send birth control information through the mail. Something to do with “pornography,” you see. Experts—male experts, anyway—reported that America’s females had never had it so good. 

In reality a revolution was brewing.

THE PATRICK HENRY OF THE MOMENT was Betty Friedan, mother of three small children, a stay-at-home mom (pretty much the only kind in 1963) and college graduate. Growing up she had heard the same message again and again. “A woman’s place is in the home. A woman’s place is in the home.” A girl must learn to cook and sew. A girl must make herself attractive to men. Still, she must be careful. She must not be too aggressive or act “too smart.” She must not curse. She must not engage in activities which made her sweat. She must not discuss sex! Mercy! No mentioning that word! 

She must be a “lady.” 

At times, it seemed nothing mattered more than looking good for and finding and roping in “Mr. Right.” The husband was the key. Landing him was like reeling in a prized fish. Looking good was as important to a woman, as bait to a fisherman. Slogans like: “Blondes have more fun,” said it all. American women were trained to think that happiness could be found in a bottle of coloring and millions died their hair blonde. Even the first Barbie dolls, which sold in 1959, helped bolster the message.

Barbie was all body and no brain. Her hair was perfect. Her clothes were lovely. Her head was empty. 

Still, Barbie had her Ken.

Marriage was thought to be the only goal for any sensible young woman. Caring for a family would be her career. A female who went beyond this role was flirting with disaster. She would be deserting her family, a gentleman of the period warned. Nothing would be left but an “empty house and empty cookie jar.” 

What, for her poor children, could possibly be worse? 

Even the vows recited at almost every wedding made the limits on a wife’s world clear. A bride promised to love, honor, cherish and obey her husband. A young wife explained what this meant in an interview: “If he [the husband] doesn’t want me to wear a certain color or a certain kind of dress then I truly don’t want to either. The thing is, whatever he has wanted is what I also want...I don’t believe in fifty-fifty marriages.” She had attended college herself, she told Friedan, but only long enough to find a husband. When it became clear she was going to marry, naturally, she dropped out, putting off graduation, probably forever. Now she explained, she “never disputed [with] her husband in anything.” 

A doctor’s wife and mother of three described a similar life: “I always knew as a child that I was going to grow up and go to college, and then get married, and that’s as far as a girl has to think.  After that your husband determines and fills your life.” 

ASKED IN 1963 WHAT THEY MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT about “careers” for daughters, most fathers and probably most mothers would have laughed at such a ridiculous idea. School books, television shows, and magazines supported this view. Women were meant to serve as housewives and discover happiness as mothers. Advertising focused on this theme. Commercials showed women who enjoyed getting laundry white and understood the joys of giving dirty kitchen floors a spotless shine. 

In working on her book, however, Friedan ran into countless women who admitted having trouble accepting such limitations. They did because that was what was expected. These were wives and mothers who tried to find happiness in such roles, but for whom nothing worked. Not even matching pillows and drapes brought contentment. Peanut butter sandwiches in lunch boxes wouldn’t do. Not even dusting and making beds gave them pleasure. Sadly, one woman explained:  “I feel so empty, somehow, useless, as if I don’t exist.” “Do you know what America is?” a frustrated housewife asked Friedan. “It’s a big, soapy dishpan of boredom.” 

A third woman told how she turned to gardening, hobbies, and the PTA to fill the emptiness she felt: 

I like it, but it doesn’t leave you anything to think about—any feeling of who you are. I never had any career ambitions. All I wanted was to get married and have four children. I love the kids and Bob and my home. There’s no problem you can put a name to. But I’m desperate. I begin to feel I have no personality. I’m a server of food and a putter-on of pants and a bed-maker, somebody who can be called on when you want something. But who am I?

FRIEDAN CALLED THIS FEELING “the problem with no name,” or “the feminine mystique.” This was the myth that women could find happiness in life only in roles as wives and stay-at-home moms.

It was, Friedan warned in 1963, a belief that had “succeeded in burying millions of American women alive.” The “dull routine of housework” was not enough to give meaning to their lives. The typical American home was no more than a “comfortable concentration camp.”

Disgusted by what she found, Friedan launched a broad-based attack. It was time, she said, to “stop giving lip service to the idea that there are no battles left to be fought for women in America, that women’s rights have already been won.” Women should accept nothing less than full participation in school, work, sports and government. “If women were really people, no more [and] no less,” Friedan thundered, “then all the things that kept them from being full people in our society would have to be changed.”  

The Feminine Mystique stormed up the best-seller list and stayed there. The book helped unhappy, thinking women focus their anger. Friedan had issued the rallying cry for the “war” which was fast approaching.

*

IF YOU TEACH and might be interested in more materials, written in a similar fashion, aimed at middle school students, feel free to visit my page: Middle School History and Tips for Teachers.

Texas Republican Says "Maggots" Re-elect Obama

LET’S BE SYMPATHETIC NOW. America’s red-state patriots are having a tough time these last few days. Watching Fox News on election night, for example, a liberal might have been forgiven for assuming Megyn Kelly was undergoing an on-air colonoscopy.

She looked that grim.

Meanwhile, Karl Rove couldn’t believe his lying eyes. When Ohio went blue you thought Brit Hume might have to use a stun gun to silence the gibbering fool.

On talk radio, the morning of November 7, Rush Limbaugh had to break the bad news to all patriotic Dittoheads. The black guy was still in the White House. The “entitlement class,” he grumbled, had spoken. The “takers” had elected Obama. Now the “makers” would suffer hideous fates. Like seeing their marginal tax rates rise by 3%! Maybe 5%!

On Thursday Michael Savage assured listeners that, no, their side didn’t lose. Obama had sinister ties to some computer company somewhere that somehow allowed him to rig the election and turn reliable red votes blue.

Only Savage, Savage noted, was reporting the story. Something to do with the liberal media bias. Or Hitler.

Or unicorns.

Down in Texas, Peter Morrison, a Hardin County Republican and county treasurer wanted no part of the awful news. Tea Party stalwart and Ron Paul supporter, Mr. Morrison wanted to know:  “Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government? Let each go her own way,” he said, invoking the spirit of an earlier age, not 1776, exactly. More like 1860. If the “maggots” voted for Obama, let those “maggots” suffer the consequences. He really called other human beings “maggots.” And by “maggots,” Morrison meant Asian Americans and Hispanics who cast ballots for President Obama and carried him to victory.

Bud Kennedy, writing for the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram broke the story first, adding this reassuring note:  “Oh, did I mention that Morrison was chosen by former State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy to help screen Texas public school textbooks?” That ought to make us feel better, don’t you think?

A great guy like Morrison—helping decide what Texas public school students learn! What could be wrong with that?

SO, HOW DID THE GOP LOSE? Did it have anything to do with the fact that they didn’t turn out their side? In 2008 John McCain lost the popular vote by ten million, 69-59. Four years later, with Republicans poised (according to all their pundits) for a landslide win, and Obama actually losing 8 million votes, they pulled in only 58 million themselves. In fact, it might salve Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s wounds and sober the right-wing to remember that their side has carried the popular vote only once in the last six tries.

What about this idea that the “takers” are seizing control? Asian Americans, pretty much the “perfect” minority, well-known for their work ethic, went for Obama by something like 74 to 25%. Americans with college degrees split down the middle. According to exit polls reported in USA Today, 46% of this group favored the President while Romney captured only 52% of the “makers” vote. It seemed even “worse” if you looked at the surveys for voters who had done post-graduate study. Here the maggots were truly squirming. Fifty-five percent of the most-educated Americans said they supported Mr. Obama. Damn physicists and geologists and historians with their PhD’s and “taker” mentalities! Even the underclass, the “takers” by any Rush Limbaugh-Michael Savage-Peter Morrison-47%-definition, defied classification. True:  according to a report in the New York Times, Obama won their support by about 28 points, roughly 64-36. But that would still mean more than a third of the “takers” follow the Tea Party Way.

What about all those “taker” females, voting Democratic, 54-44%, forgetting that if they were raped it would be God’s will they become pregnant? And Rick Santorum and Paul Ryan’s will that they not have access to an abortion?

Were Latinos really so stupid as to vote for Obama, 69% to 30%, even after right-wingers in Arizona gave them the right to be stopped and asked to prove citizenship by showing their papers? Not to vote for a party that wanted electrified fences? Not to understand that the Dream Act was tyranny in disguise?

Did young voters stupidly choose to support a man who rammed “socialized medical care” down their throats, so they’d be covered on their parents’ insurance policies until age 26, thereby threatening the “socialized medical care” of people over 65, the retired “makers” in the very same country?

THESE WERE ALL HARD QUESTIONS and might involve soul-searching and thoughtful analysis to answer.

For now, however, the truth as seen through right-wing eyes was clear. Rush and the boys considered the numbers. They studied the democratic process. They looked at the changing makeup of the U. S. electorate.

And they saw maggots.

Why is Being Liberal So Hard? Romney and Ryan Bring Back the Fun

SOMETIMES, IT'S TOUGH BEING a liberal. Rush and his legions of Dittoheads call you a "libertard" and pretend they're better Americans than you. As a liberal, you think this country and the world could be better and want to help make those twin ideals come true. Conservatives warn that you're a communist and insist you and your type want to wipe your feet (or worse) on the U. S. Constitution.

And when all else fails, and conservatives start losing the case on merits, they pull out the Big God Gun. They claim to have the Lord on their side.

How do you argue with that?

Then comes a bit of serendipity. The Republicans field a ticket with a Mormon at the top and a Catholic in second position. Mitt Romney for President! Paul Ryan waits in the wings.

As a liberal, you begin to feel that healthy liberal doubt rising again. How, for example, can people like Ann Coulter insist they have God on their side, when God can't seem to get His Own message straight? Is the Bible the last and only true word from on high? Is it where we go for all answers about gay marriage and abortion and scientific topics like global warming or not? What about the Book of Mormon? Is that what God, speaking to Moses thousands of years ago, simply left out?

Ross Douthat, a leading conservative thinker, argues in today's New York Times that Romney needs to open up his campaign narrative in coming weeks. He needs to let voters catch a glimpse of his Mormon faith.

As Douthat sees it:

Romney’s years as a bishop would be woven into a biography that emphasized his piety and decency, introducing Americans to the Romney who shut down his business to hunt for a colleague’s missing daughter, the Romney who helped build a memorial park when a friend’s son died of cystic fibrosis, the Romney who lent money to renters to help them buy a house he owned, and so on down a list of generous gestures and good deeds.

In this scenario, faith is an absolute positive, and, conversely, we can assume, lack of faith is a liberal failing. Douthat argues that during a visit to Salt Lake City this summer he was struck by the emphasis the Church of the Latter-Day Saints put on "faith, family and neighborliness."

As for those bedraggled, woe-begotten liberals? They assign the key role in society to the state.

A LIBERAL ENDS UP, RIGHT ABOUT THERE, scratching his or her noggin'. A liberal believes in both freedom of religion and individual freedom. Let Mormons practice their faith in their beautiful temples, with the figure of Moroni displayed on high, blowing his trumpet. If they believe Joseph Smith found golden tablets on a hillside near Palmyra, New York in 1830, and believe these outline the last true version of the Word of God, let them pray as they like. A good and decent member of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints is a good and decent human being, first, second and last. The same is true of the good and decent Catholic. It is the same again, when we are talking about good and decent Jews or Muslims or Sikhs.

If you're a liberal you have a few questions, not because you hate religion or God or this nation. (In fact, even though you aren't sure, you think God probably loves not only all Americans, but all human beings.) First, if Romney reads one religious book and Ryan reads another and those devout Evangelicals who represent the base of the GOP believe them both wrong and put forward a third version of the truth, why must we assume these people know what they're talking about when they quote chapter and verse on subjects like gay marriage?

If the Book of Mormon goes on in great detail about the battle between Lamanites and Nephites, two ancient peoples on the continent of North America, a liberal says, "Let the Mormons worship in peace, for they are human, and they have basic freedoms and rights. They do me no harm in the practice of their beliefs."

Still, the liberal mind swirls. Why do so many right-wing types, who say they care more about religious freedom than liberals, oppose the building of mosques in places like Tennessee? How is a good and decent Muslim, reading his or her Koran, any more a threat to the individual rights and freedoms of any other American than a good and decent Mormon or Catholic? If two Mormons marry in a special temple ceremony, or even a Catholic and Mormon marry each other, how does that effect anyone else save that couple? In the same way, a liberal wonders how the equation changes if two gays marry? When a conservative says, angrily, "You want to destroy marriage as it has existed for thousands of years!" you can't help but wonder. What were Mormons leaders thinking, when they allowed polygamy, under church doctrine, until 1890?

In fact, if you're liberal, you find yourself muttering, "And this is the same church that offered all kinds of support to Proposition 8, the California referendum to ban gay marriage in that state?

Sometimes it's great fun to be liberal, as it is now, with this "liberal" mixed marriage of Ryan and Romney. Because at times like this you get to confuse conservatives with logic and fact.

Here's one to try on the next right-wing type who says you hate God and kittens and the United States of America. When they insist we need to put prayer back in public schools, ask them exactly which prayer and led by whom? When they say God is against gay marriage, and quote from Leviticus, ask them their position on the sacrifice of goats. After all, if you're a liberal you wonder why there are something like 182 verses on that topic in Leviticus and but one related to homosexual behavior.

Better yet, next time Ann Coulter opens her mouth in any public forum, to spew out more hate, can some good and decent liberal in the audience simply stand and inquire, "Ann, at 49 or 51 (there's dispute over her birthdate) are you still a virgin?" Because, let's face it, conservatives, if the Good Book isn't clear about abortion, it's certainly clear on the topic of sex before marriage.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT Rush Limbaugh, now four-times married, might say. If Ann isn't still a virgin, then she must be a slut.

IF YOU LIKED THIS TRY:

http://ateacheronteaching.blogspot.com/2015/03/ted-cruz-and-new-american-theocracy.html