Betty Friedan's Unnamed Problem: Hidden Crisis of American Women in the 1950s-60s | Summaries American literature

Feminist Movement Lesson Plan by Kevin Murphy

The Feminine Mystique: Chapter 1 1

"The Problem that Has No Name" 2

Betty Friedan 4

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange 6

stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century 7

in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for 8

groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub 9

Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent 10

question--"Is this all?" 11

For over fifteen years there was no word of this yearning in the millions of words written about women, 12

for women, in all the columns, books and articles by experts telling women their role was to seek 13

fulfillment as wives and mothers. Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian 14

sophistication that they could desire--no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity…They

were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or 16

presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political 17

rights--the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for… 18

By the end of the nineteen-fifties, the average marriage age of women in America dropped to 20, and 19

was still dropping, into the teens. Fourteen million girls were engaged by 17. The proportion of women 20

attending college in comparison with men dropped from 47 per cent in 1920 to 35 per cent in 1958. A

century earlier, women had fought for higher education; now girls went to college to get a husband. By 22

the mid-fifties, 60 per cent dropped out of college to marry, or because they were afraid too much 23

education would be a marriage bar. Colleges built dormitories for "married students," but the students 24

were almost always the husbands. A new degree was instituted for the wives--"Ph.T." (Putting Husband 25

Through). 26

Then American girls began getting married in high school. And the women's magazines, deploring the 27

unhappy statistics about these young marriages, urged that courses on marriage, and marriage 28

counselors, be installed in the high schools. Girls started going steady at twelve and thirteen, in junior 29

high. Manufacturers put out brassieres with false bosoms of foam rubber for little girls of ten. And on 30

advertisement for a child's dress, sizes 3-6x, in the New York Times in the fall of 1960, said: "She Too 31

Can Join the Man-Trap Set."… 32

In a New York hospital, a woman had a nervous breakdown when she found she could not breastfeed 33

her baby. In other hospitals, women dying of cancer refused a drug which research had proved might 34

save their lives: its side effects were said to be unfeminine. "If I have only one life, let me live it as a 35

blonde," a larger-than-life- sized picture of a pretty, vacuous woman proclaimed from newspaper, 36

magazine, and drugstore ads. And across America, three out of every ten women dyed their hair blonde. 37

They ate a chalk called Metrecal, instead of food, to shrink to the size of the thin young models. 38

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1 The Feminine Mystique: Chapter 1

2 "The Problem that Has No Name"

4 Betty Friedan

6 The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange

7 stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century

8 in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for

9 groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub

10 Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent

11 question--"Is this all?"

12 For over fifteen years there was no word of this yearning in the millions of words written about women,

13 for women, in all the columns, books and articles by experts telling women their role was to seek

14 fulfillment as wives and mothers. Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian

15 sophistication that they could desire--no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity…They

16 were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or

17 presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political

18 rights--the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for…

19 By the end of the nineteen-fifties, the average marriage age of women in America dropped to 20, and

20 was still dropping, into the teens. Fourteen million girls were engaged by 17. The proportion of women

21 attending college in comparison with men dropped from 47 per cent in 1920 to 35 per cent in 1958. A

22 century earlier, women had fought for higher education; now girls went to college to get a husband. By

23 the mid-fifties, 60 per cent dropped out of college to marry, or because they were afraid too much

24 education would be a marriage bar. Colleges built dormitories for "married students," but the students

25 were almost always the husbands. A new degree was instituted for the wives--"Ph.T." (Putting Husband

26 Through).

27 Then American girls began getting married in high school. And the women's magazines, deploring the

28 unhappy statistics about these young marriages, urged that courses on marriage, and marriage

29 counselors, be installed in the high schools. Girls started going steady at twelve and thirteen, in junior

30 high. Manufacturers put out brassieres with false bosoms of foam rubber for little girls of ten. And on

31 advertisement for a child's dress, sizes 3-6x, in the New York Times in the fall of 1960, said: "She Too

32 Can Join the Man-Trap Set."…

33 In a New York hospital, a woman had a nervous breakdown when she found she could not breastfeed

34 her baby. In other hospitals, women dying of cancer refused a drug which research had proved might

35 save their lives: its side effects were said to be unfeminine. "If I have only one life, let me live it as a

36 blonde," a larger-than-life- sized picture of a pretty, vacuous woman proclaimed from newspaper,

37 magazine, and drugstore ads. And across America, three out of every ten women dyed their hair blonde.

38 They ate a chalk called Metrecal, instead of food, to shrink to the size of the thin young models.

39 Department-store buyers reported that American women, since 1939, had become three and four sizes

40 smaller. "Women are out to fit the clothes, instead of vice-versa," one buyer said.

41 Interior decorators were designing kitchens with mosaic murals and original paintings, for kitchens were

42 once again the center of women's lives. Home sewing became a million-dollar industry. Many women

43 no longer left their homes, except to shop, chauffeur their children, or attend a social engagement with

44 their husbands. Girls were growing up in America without ever having jobs outside the home. In the late

45 fifties, a sociological phenomenon was suddenly remarked: a third of American women now worked,

46 but most were no longer young and very few were pursuing careers. They were married women who

Betty Friedan's Unnamed Problem: Hidden Crisis of American Women in the 1950s-60s, Summaries of American literature

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Partial preview of the text

Download Betty Friedan's Unnamed Problem: Hidden Crisis of American Women in the 1950s-60s and more Summaries American literature in PDF only on Docsity!

1 The Feminine Mystique: Chapter 1

2 "The Problem that Has No Name"

4 Betty Friedan

6 The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange

7 stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century

8 in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for

9 groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub

10 Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent

11 question--"Is this all?"

12 For over fifteen years there was no word of this yearning in the millions of words written about women,

13 for women, in all the columns, books and articles by experts telling women their role was to seek

14 fulfillment as wives and mothers. Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian

15 sophistication that they could desire--no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity…They

16 were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or

17 presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political

18 rights--the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for…

19 By the end of the nineteen-fifties, the average marriage age of women in America dropped to 20, and

20 was still dropping, into the teens. Fourteen million girls were engaged by 17. The proportion of women

21 attending college in comparison with men dropped from 47 per cent in 1920 to 35 per cent in 1958. A

22 century earlier, women had fought for higher education; now girls went to college to get a husband. By

23 the mid-fifties, 60 per cent dropped out of college to marry, or because they were afraid too much

24 education would be a marriage bar. Colleges built dormitories for "married students," but the students

25 were almost always the husbands. A new degree was instituted for the wives--"Ph.T." (Putting Husband

26 Through).

27 Then American girls began getting married in high school. And the women's magazines, deploring the

28 unhappy statistics about these young marriages, urged that courses on marriage, and marriage

29 counselors, be installed in the high schools. Girls started going steady at twelve and thirteen, in junior

30 high. Manufacturers put out brassieres with false bosoms of foam rubber for little girls of ten. And on

31 advertisement for a child's dress, sizes 3-6x, in the New York Times in the fall of 1960, said: "She Too

32 Can Join the Man-Trap Set."…

33 In a New York hospital, a woman had a nervous breakdown when she found she could not breastfeed

34 her baby. In other hospitals, women dying of cancer refused a drug which research had proved might

35 save their lives: its side effects were said to be unfeminine. "If I have only one life, let me live it as a

36 blonde," a larger-than-life- sized picture of a pretty, vacuous woman proclaimed from newspaper,

37 magazine, and drugstore ads. And across America, three out of every ten women dyed their hair blonde.

38 They ate a chalk called Metrecal, instead of food, to shrink to the size of the thin young models.

39 Department-store buyers reported that American women, since 1939, had become three and four sizes

40 smaller. "Women are out to fit the clothes, instead of vice-versa," one buyer said.

41 Interior decorators were designing kitchens with mosaic murals and original paintings, for kitchens were

42 once again the center of women's lives. Home sewing became a million-dollar industry. Many women

43 no longer left their homes, except to shop, chauffeur their children, or attend a social engagement with

44 their husbands. Girls were growing up in America without ever having jobs outside the home. In the late

45 fifties, a sociological phenomenon was suddenly remarked: a third of American women now worked,

46 but most were no longer young and very few were pursuing careers. They were married women who

47 held part-time jobs, selling or secretarial, to put their husbands through school, their sons through

48 college, or to help pay

49 the mortgage. Or they were widows supporting families. Fewer and fewer women were entering

50 professional work. The shortages in the nursing, social work, and teaching professions caused crises in

51 almost every American city. Concerned over the Soviet Union's lead in the space race, scientists noted

52 that America's greatest source of unused brain-power was women. But girls would not study physics: it

53 was "unfeminine…”

54 The suburban housewife--she was the dream image of the young American women and the envy, it was

55 said, of women all over the world. The American housewife--freed by science and labor-saving

56 appliances from the drudgery, the dangers of childbirth and the illnesses of her grandmother. She was

57 healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found

58 true feminine fulfillment. As a housewife and mother, she was respected as a full and equal partner to

59 man in his world. She was free to choose automobiles, clothes, appliances, supermarkets; she had

60 everything that women ever dreamed of.

61 In the fifteen years after World War II, this mystique of feminine fulfillment became the cherished and

62 self-perpetuating core of contemporary American culture…

63 For over fifteen years, the words written for women, and the words women used when they talked to

64 each other, while their husbands sat on the other side of the room and talked shop or politics or septic

65 tanks, were about problems with their children, or how to keep their husbands happy, or improve their

66 children's school, or cook chicken or make slipcovers. Nobody argued whether women were inferior or

67 superior to men; they were simply different. Words like "emancipation" and "career" sounded strange

68 and embarrassing; no one had used them for years. When a Frenchwoman named Simone de Beauvoir

69 wrote a book called The Second Sex, an American critic commented that she obviously "didn't know

70 what life was all about," and besides, she was talking about French women. The "woman problem" in

71 America no longer existed.

72 If a woman had a problem in the 1950's and 1960's, she knew that something must be wrong with her

73 marriage, or with herself. Other women were satisfied with their lives, she thought. What kind of a

74 woman was she if she did not feel this mysterious fulfillment waxing the kitchen floor? She was so

75 ashamed to admit her dissatisfaction that she never knew how many other women shared it. If she tried

76 to tell her husband, he didn't understand what she was talking about. She did not really understand it

77 herself.

78 For over fifteen years women in America found it harder to talk about the problem than about sex. Even