Madeline
Rookie
- Banned
- #1
I am 9 chapters into this book and have found it hard going. There are lengthy discussions of Freud, etc. that seem so antiquated that it is hard to be patient and just read. The discussion of the suffragettes, etc. has been the only bright spot so far.
I asked myself why this book so electrified me in the 1960's and seems like such drudgery now? IMO, it's because Friedan spends so much time unraveling and refuting the notion that men and women are different (as opposed to individuals are different) and that women are only truely fulfilled when they are passive, subordinate and withdrawn from the world at large to tend to the home.
This notion seems so facially stupid as to need no refutation -- and yet it was the guiding principle of the women of my mother's era, and to a degree, of mine. I can't remember any girl I went to high school or college with openly wondering if marriage and children were just not for her. Ours was the generation that wanted more but had to smash barriers to get it. When I attended law school in the 1980's, my class was predominately female. Go back a decade, and the stories of women lawyers about law school are really horrifying....and even in my day, sexism was still rampant.
We seem to accept that each person should be free to find their bliss, at work and at home, in whatever fashion best suits them. That some women make better leaders and that some men are quite nuturing. That freedom all by itself is doubtless a burden to many, but the misery of the past is gone, for the most part. Most people want to be accepted, respected and loved for who they really are. Most people want to use their natural talents.
Without the work of women like Betty Friedan, no one could -- doubtless life was almost as stifling for men in the 1950's as it was for women. Her book may be passe', but doubtless for that, we have her and others like her to thank.
I asked myself why this book so electrified me in the 1960's and seems like such drudgery now? IMO, it's because Friedan spends so much time unraveling and refuting the notion that men and women are different (as opposed to individuals are different) and that women are only truely fulfilled when they are passive, subordinate and withdrawn from the world at large to tend to the home.
This notion seems so facially stupid as to need no refutation -- and yet it was the guiding principle of the women of my mother's era, and to a degree, of mine. I can't remember any girl I went to high school or college with openly wondering if marriage and children were just not for her. Ours was the generation that wanted more but had to smash barriers to get it. When I attended law school in the 1980's, my class was predominately female. Go back a decade, and the stories of women lawyers about law school are really horrifying....and even in my day, sexism was still rampant.
We seem to accept that each person should be free to find their bliss, at work and at home, in whatever fashion best suits them. That some women make better leaders and that some men are quite nuturing. That freedom all by itself is doubtless a burden to many, but the misery of the past is gone, for the most part. Most people want to be accepted, respected and loved for who they really are. Most people want to use their natural talents.
Without the work of women like Betty Friedan, no one could -- doubtless life was almost as stifling for men in the 1950's as it was for women. Her book may be passe', but doubtless for that, we have her and others like her to thank.