The Feminine Mystique

By Betty Friedan
Getcher own @Amazon.com
Read: May/June 2008
Rating: Phwoar

I consider myself a feminist, am part of my school’s feminist group, and yet I’ve never taken the Feminism 101 class. Which leaves me to educate myself. I have a copy of Wollstonecraft that a class in political theory never got around to. There’s a lot of ‘someday’ing when it comes to reading this stuff. But it’s summer vacation now and I felt like I had the brain power to tackle it at last.

I first fell in love with this book during a freshman essay writing class, when we were given copies of the first chapter: The Problem That Has No Name. I think that is one of my favorite chunks of prose of all time. I could pick it apart and rereard it over and over again, because it’s masterful–it’s perfect. Friedan paints the life of housewives across America (and the world), with anecdotes and hard surveys and stats. Most importantly, it speaks to a real problem. You can feel the tectonic plates shifting as you read, even now.

The quote on the front cover from the NY Times Book Review is, “Changed the world so comprehensively that it’s hard to remember how much change was called for.” Again and again I had to stop myself to remember that what is common sense now was monumental when The Feminine Mystique was first published. It was tremendous, it made people anger. I am lucky to have grown up far away from the mystique, in a time when the manipulators have changed their angles but we’re no longer confined to them. Not as completely, anyway.

I never got angry while reading. This is not a book to make you angry, it’s a book to make you think, and see. It’s not about sensationalism or hating men. Friedan wants you to see what she’s seen, and recognize the need for change.

The sheer amount of work that went into these 500-some pages is astounding. Interviews, anecdotes, research going back decades… this is a thoroughly researched book. It should be a model for people who want to write about their material without being boring. True, sometimes the repetition of necessary phrases (growth, self-determination, etc.) can become a bit numbing, but those blander sentences always lead to something more solid, something that gets past the jargon to solid truth.

It is an intro to social science, history, economics, anthopology–it touches on everything, pulling them all together to show how women’s lives have been affected. The comprehensive study of what has happened to women leaves no gaps. Only some of the theories/sciences are questionable–we now know far more about the physicality of homosexuals than was known in 1963. I can count two instances where dated theories made me wince faintly–that’s all.

I wish I could take a class on this one book alone. There is so much in it, so much that I would love to sit around and discuss with like-minded people.

What has made me really glad to have read it, though, is that it has helped impress something upon me. The reason that women of Fridan’s era were so frustrated is because they were not pushed to grow to their full ability, not challenged to stretch themselves. It is not enough to do what you like and what feels safe–you must push beyond and do something that matteres.

Thank you, Betty. That is a lesson I will take to heart, and pass on to my children.