FRIEDAN, Betty
The Feminine Mystique
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
SUMMARY
Betty Friedan, a writer for women's magazines in the late 1950's using as a catalyst her own personal search for meaning and "fulfillment" explores in The Feminine Mystique what her personal search might mean in the lives of other American woman, particularly middle class housewives. She describes in the preface a feeling that there was something very wrong with the way American women were trying to live their lives and goes on to say, "I sensed it first as a question mark in my own life ,as a wife and mother of three small children, half guiltily, and therefore half-heartedly, almost in spite of myself, using my abilities and education in work that took me away from home." (p. 9)
This personal questioning led her to
conduct a survey of 200 of her classmates from Smith,15 years after they had
graduated. The questions were "intimate" and open ended and led
Friedan to believe, "There was a strange discrepancy between the reality
of our lives as women and the image to which we were trying to conform, the
image that I came to call the feminine mystique" (p. 9) . She goes on to
describe it as a "schizophrenic split." This led her to "hunt
down" the origins and effects of this feminine mystique. She claims her
methods to be those of a "simple reporter".
Her research consists mainly of
extensive interviews with women, "those who treat women's ills and
problems," and theoretical experts on women from the fields of psychology,
psychoanalysis, anthropology, sociology and family-life education." (p.
10)
Chapters one and two describe the
dissatisfaction of numerous upper-middle class suburban housewives, and takes a
cursory look at the role of woman as portrayed in the women's magazines of the
day. Of significance is her contention first, that the articles present women
as less assertive and more domestic than in the past and second, that editors
of women's magazines (who are almost exclusively men) believe that women are
not interested in politics or world affairs.
"The material details of life,
the daily burden of cooking and cleaning, of taking care of the physical needs
of husband and children-these did indeed define a woman's world a century ago
when Americans were pioneers, and the American frontier lay in conquering the
land. But the women who went west with the wagon trains also shared the
pioneering purpose. Now the American frontiers are of the mind and the spirit.
Love and children and home are good, but they are not the whole world, even if
most words written for women pretend they are. Why should woman accept this
picture of a half-life, instead of a share in the whole of human destiny? Why
should woman try to make housework "something more," instead of
moving on the frontiers of their own time, as American woman moved beside their
husbands on the old frontiers?" (pp. 66-67)
The next chapters detail what
Friedan calls the transition from "spirited New Woman " to the
"Happy Housewife", a role she claims will "doom women to be
displaced persons, if not virtual schizophrenics, in our complex, changing
world." (p. 67) Work in the home and at the service of the family and
community is seen as deformative and fundamentally detrimental to a woman's
mental health.
Chapter Three entitled "The
Crisis in Woman's Identity" describes young American Women without a
vision for their future, unable and unwilling to grow up and "face the
question of their own identity"(p. 76). Friedan clearly states her thesis
that "our culture does not permit woman to accept or gratify their basic
need to grow and fulfill their potentialities as human beings, a need which is
not solely defined by their sexual role" (p. 77). She identifies this need
as the need for a new ideological orientation as described by Erik H. Erikson,
a psychoanalyst and in later chapters she returns to this theme citing the
theory of Maslow of man's need for self actualization.
Interestingly she adds that,
"More and more young men in America today suffer identity crisis for want
of any image of man worth pursuing, for want of a purpose that truly realizes
their human abilities" (p. 79). This opens for consideration then the
possibility that this is a question of a generation searching for meaning and
not an issue unique to women. She does take up this train of thought later in
chapter 8 but asserts that the problem is a result of children being raised by
woman driven to mental illness by the burden of their meaningless lives. She
goes so far as to cruelly suggest that there is a scientific basis for this theory
and even mental retardation is caused by neurotic overbearing mothers'
symbiotic relationships with their children.
The struggle for woman's rights,
Freud, Margaret Mead and "Sex directed educators" dominate the next
section of the book as Friedan attempts to identify the ideas and theories
which helped put in place the climate where woman would freely give up their
identity and concept of self, she calls this, "The mistaken choice"
(Chapter 8).
In a very general way Friedan
defends and admires both Freud and Mead. We see this in her praise of Freud's
genius (p. 104) and Mead's "life of open challenge"(p. 145). However,
she claims the impact of their studies brought about an intellectual atmosphere
that saw women exclusively through their biological role and influenced social
thought so profoundly as to bring about a whole new direction in the education
of women. This focus permeated college campuses across the country and
educators fell into line. Curriculum moved away from classical standards
towards courses to help women adjust to the role of wife and mother. She claims
that, "The new sex-directed education was not, however, confined to any
specific course or academic department. It was implicit in all the social
sciences, but more than that became part of education itself (pp. 156-157).
The post war climate fed by
sex-directed education led to a massive return of women to the home, what
Friedan calls, "the mistaken choice". There, according to Friedan,
"she traded her individuality for security" (p. 204). She was kept
there by the powerful forces of the sexual sell. The premise here is that women
who are at home buy more things and that is good for American business. Women
wield 75% of the buying power in America. Advertising geared to the American
Homemaker showed images of houses stocked with gadgets and appliances every
well run home must have. They created a visual and constantly reinforced image
of what every home should be and have. Americans bought it, literally and
figuratively. The teenage market followed. Although Friedan never uses the
word, she has identified materialism as a significant contributing factor in
the frustration women voiced about their lives.
Friedan describes the home as a
"comfortable concentration camp". The inmates are bored, sexually
maladjusted women filling empty days with meaningless tasks. She vacillates
between descriptions of 16 hour work days causing "housewife's
fatigue" and bored women who play bridge and bowl 3 times a week to fill
up the empty hours in their lives. Even the open floor plan of the modern ranch
is suspect; designed it would seem to assure a woman would not have a place to
think for herself. Of course, women through the ages, especially those with
young children, have often found great rooms, keeping rooms, and open floor
plans helpful in keeping the children supervised while working at the task at
hand.
Friedan suggests all this has led to
progressive dehumanization and passive nonidentity. She asks, "Aren't the
chief characteristics of femininity-which Freud mistakenly related to sexual
biology-passivity; a weak ego or sense of self; a weak superego or human
conscience; renunciation of active aims, ambitions, interests of one's own to
live through others; incapacity of abstract thought; retreat from activity
directed towards the outside world, in favor of activity directed inward or
phantasy? (p. 286) The result of all this is "The Forfeited Self".
Friedan declares, "A woman today who has no goal, no purpose, no ambition
patterning her days into the future, making her stretch and grow beyond that
small score of years in which her body can fill its biological function, is
committing a kind of suicide." She continues, that "they will forfeit
their own humanity."(p. 336)
To remedy this disaster of
monumental proportion Friedan states, "We need a drastic reshaping of the
cultural image of femininity that will permit women to reach maturity,
identity, completeness of self, without conflict with sexual fulfillment. A
massive attempt must be made by educators and parents-and ministers, magazine
editors, manipulators, guidance counselors-to stop the early marriage movement,
stop girls from growing up wanting to be "just a housewife", stop it
by insisting, with the same attention from childhood on that parents and educators
give to boys, that girls develop the resources of self, goals that will permit
them to find their own identity" (p. 364). Furthermore she contends that
women who have found their way out of the "trap" have done so through
higher education, and later suggests this occurs at either the Masters or Ph.
D. level.
CRITIQUE OF METHODS AND REASONING.
Friedan presents her methodology as
that of a "simple reporter" searching for the answers to a curious
problem she has encountered. She would have us believe that her journalistic
instincts are unbiased and the "story " she uncovered is a factual
account of a far reaching social problem.
What we have is a carefully crafted
persuasive piece presented as objective journalism and over laid with a
pseudo-scientific tone to lend it credibility as a serious piece of social
research. Friedan began with a clearly defined thesis and drew conclusions from
a myriad of sources.
She began her research with a questionnaire sent to 200 graduates of Smith College 15 years after graduation. Smith is the largest woman's college in the United States and is considered highly competitive. The population Friedan sampled consisted predominantly of well-educated affluent women. She later repeated the survey at other woman's colleges. The questions on the survey were open ended requested intimate information from the respondents. Friedan said that letters from other women from all walks of life echoed the sentiments found among the Smith women.
It's very noteworthy that Friedan
never presents the survey as sociological research yet goes on to rely on its
findings as though they were. First, the scope and nature of her
"research" are the province of social science (sociology or
psychology) and should then be subject to the rigorous rules and standards that
applies to credible studies. It appears too that she was selective in the
responses she chose to highlight. It seems incredulous that among all these
woman she found not one whose response reflected a happy well-adjusted woman
who stayed at home. This suggests that she did indeed "hunt down" her
story looking for evidence to support a pre-conceived agenda.
The use of highly emotive language
and hyperbole lends a dramatic air of urgency to her appeal for change. Words
like trapped, doomed, and schizophrenic are not objective observations of the
impact of the problem.
She suggests that her thesis is
supported by the observations of "theoretical experts on women".
Among these are Maslow, Fromm, Erikson and Bettelhiem. There is a humanistic
and existential thread that permeates the work and predetermines the outcome.
For example, the dissatisfaction of women is predetermined to be the result of
their work in the home and so excludes all other possible sources for the
frustration women appear to be experiencing, such as materialism, weakening
standards in education and the application of humanistic theory to social
problems.
While Fiedan never fully makes the
distinction it appears the women she studied fell into two very distinct categories;
women who are at home with young children and who have little or no free time
and women who have an abundance of free time and fill their empty lives with
bridge and bowling. The second group is significant because essentially they do
not have any productive work and one would expect them to find life devoid of
meaning.
In addition, her reliance on the
content of the so called woman's magazines of that period to validate her
thesis is pure speculation and it is ridiculous to assume that women did not
form political opinions because they are not reflected in this particular genre
geared for light entertainment.
Her references to the work of the
home often focus on the drudgery of the minutiae required to maintain a
home-dishes, laundry, cleaning. She fails to acknowledge any of the more
rewarding and creative aspects of home making and motherhood and even on a
human level the dignity of all human work.
Friedan identifies an alarming trend
in education away from classical and empirical sciences that she perceives as a
response to the feminine mystique and ignores the larger picture that
educational standards have dropped for men and women.
I will not dispute her claims that
the sexual sell was geared to creating consumers and a consumer mentality particularly
among women. This is a significant variable left unexplored in favor of the
feminist agenda. It is my opinion that the dissatisfaction and frustration
women found in their lives was due more to the unbridled materialism of the age
that promised more and more and yet never seemed to be quite enough.
Finally while Friedan professes to
speak to the needs of all women the reality is that this work pertains to a
very small and fortunate section of the population. According to the new life
plan for women to be truly fulfilled requires advanced education and precludes
satisfaction in any form of manual labor. What then of the women who will come
to cook, clean and supervise the children?, Are they to be excluded because
they have not the intellectual or financial resources for self fulfillment?
There is a naivet that suggests that
women can move out of the home and into careers and still manage to maintain
homes, marriages, and families with out requiring major adjustments with in the
home. The view that somehow everything will be fine, or in fact better, is
simplistic. The reality after 35 years of so called progress has been dismal
and we have seen a dramatic increase in divorce, crime, gangs, teenage
pregnancy and drug use. A whole new generation of 9 to 5 mothers are asking
themselves after long days at work over their washing machines at midnight,
"Is this all there is to life?"
DOCTRINAL EVALUATION
The heart of The Feminine Mystique
is the fundamental question about the meaning and value of work for the human
person. Women or men who do not work and/or who burdened with excessive
material goods will not find meaning or fulfillment in their lives. Friedan
does not accept the idea of all work having an intrinsic value and dignity.
At the time she wrote —l963— there
was also a movement towards a very superficial and frivolous view of
femininity. In 1963, the year The Feminine Mystique was published so was Helen
Andelin's Fascinating Womanhood. Andelin, a devout Christian, presents as a
model of a very juvenile and manipulative woman, which she calls 'the domestic
goddess'. This book is still a widely used resource among Pentecostal Christian
women today. American women of this time were bombarded with conflicting and
erroneous images of what it meant to be a woman.
In the encyclical letter on Human
Work (Laborem Exercens) Pope John Paul II writes, "Work is a good thing
for man-a good thing for his humanity-because through work man not only
transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves
fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes 'more a human
being'". He also states, "Even though it bears the mark of a bonum
arduum, in the terminology of St. Thomas, this does not take away the fact
that, as such, it is a good thing for man. It is not only good in the sense
that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is good as being something that
corresponds to man's dignity and increases it." So then all honest work,
including housework, has this transformative quality.
Friedan's concept of intellectual
work is nothing more than a form of self-serving escapism. Any work perceived
as mundane, routine or common; she rejects as unfulfilling. She fails to
recognize the great value of any work which serves the family or society.
"In fact, the family is simultaneously a community made possible by work
and the first school of work, within the home, for every person." (John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 10). It is from the family that,
"man combines his deepest human identity with membership in the nation,...
realizing that in this way work serves to add to the heritage of the whole
human family, of all the people living in he world." (John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 10).
Friedan narrows the scope and sphere
of the human person to the tight, limited world of the self. The Catholic
Church teaches a much grander and noble view of the human person, each with a
unique "gift of self" to bring to and enrich the human family. In
particular, woman, rather than abandoning her femininity for a masculine role is
fulfilled through her femininity which "she inherits as an expression of
the image and likeness of God that is specifically hers."
"Consequently, even the
rightful opposition of women to what is expressed in the biblical words, 'He
shall rule over you' (Gen 3:16) must not under any condition lead to the
'masculinization' of women. In the name of liberation from male 'domination'
women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their
own feminine 'originality'. There is a well founded fear that if they take this
path , women will not 'reach fulfillment', but will deform and lose what
constitutes their essential richness." (John Paul II, Mulieris
Dignitatem, n. 10).
The Apostolic letter on women
identifies the true source of frustration voiced by the women in The Feminine
Mystique. “In our own time, the successes of science and technology make it
possible to attain material well-being to a degree hitherto unknown. While this
favors some, it pushes others to the margins of society. In this way,
unilateral progress can also lead to the gradual loss of sensitivity for man,
that is, for what is essentially human. In this sense our time in particular
awaits the manifestation of that genius which belongs to women, and which can
ensure sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance: because they are
human! and because the greatest of these is love”. (Mulieris Dignitatem,
n. 30)
The inescapable conclusion is then
that any work done for love will lead to the fulfillment of the human person.
The Feminine Mystique draws heavily
on the works of existentialist thinkers, particularly in the field of
psychology. This philosophy is nearly always atheistic and anti-religious.
Conspicuously absent from the book is consideration for the work of Victor Frankl
in the area of Logotherapy. Significantly though, Friedan applauds Martin
Luther's 'self actualization' in breaking with the Catholic Church. The work
denies human growth through any spiritual means and implicitly rejects the
existence of God and his plan for humanity.
Freidan's search for fulfillment
justifies divorce and abdicates the responsibility for the education of
children to experts. These views undermine the indissolubility of marriage and
infringe on the rights of parents as the primary educators of their children.
Because this work has played such a
large part in shaping how American women view themselves and because of
Friedan's role in leading feminist thought it is important for Catholic women
to understand and be able to respond to these issues.
M.W.
(1997)
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