ACCUSATIONS OF IGNORANCE |
BETTY FRIEDAN’S THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE AND THE OPPOSING VOICE.

Feminist scholar Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique (1963) which closely scrutinized and described the discontentment of the American women during the post-war period. Disclosing issues and ideas relating to women’s placement and purpose in society. As one of the first women to possess the ability to publish items with such raw, unfiltered commentary she had naturally been a spectacle of epic praise and tough scrutiny. Her writing has been labelled as imperative to the second-wave of feminism, while others have actually named her sexist and privileged based on her background. To many Women of Colour this made her unrelatable. Friedan was very influenced by her mother’s problems with the treatment of the female, in the way she was able to point out the needs of women after witnessing her mother’s unhappiness in the role of the house-wife. She proceeded to highlight the ways this then impacts not just the women but the family; husband and children.

‘The Problem that had No Name’

Friedan’s basic principal was that women are denied their “basic human need to grow”. Ruth (2019, p. 81) argues that women in mid-twentieth-century America, even educated, white middle-class women were regularly denied access to networks of power in the academy, industry, and government and were generally seen as uninformed and lacking in rational capabilities. Up until the world wars when those same women were placed in jobs in factories and farms which were formerly done by men (Browne 2020, p. 413). After the war, women were forced back into ‘female roles’ and many lacking fundamental fulfilment they then exhibited symptoms of depression and general unhappiness.

Interrogations

Friedan was an impactful voice at the time as her writings were published and raised concerns about the well-being of women. However, contradicting voices were silenced and labelled anti-feminist and since have been scraped from record in the publication industry (Gill 2013, p. 423). Gill aims to interrogate ‘unwritten’ anti-feminist movements which occurred during this period (2013, p. 423), by stating that the role of anti-feminist thinkers is yet to be properly addressed in the way it shapes discourses surrounding the respect to other theorists and especially females (2013, p. 423). For the examination of the entire movement can be attained to have shift, shaped and molded what we now see as the modern feminism. These actors are inevitably linked to and influence politics and history (Gill p. 423). Deft reorientation of scholarly understanding of the allegedly conformist, stay-at-home ideologies of the post-war era means that the subsequent tensions between feminist and anti-feminist thinkers and activists have remained largely unexamined (Gill 2013, p. 423)

Housewife Poet Phyllis McGinley known as anti-feminist speaker and writer had declared opposing views to what she named the radicalism of Friedan during second-wave feminism (Gill, p. 424). In a request by her then publishers Phyllis McGinley was in riposte but unintentional in rebuttal to Friedan as up until this point she had been the ‘poster child’ of the domestic woman, the American housewife and the standard of happy modern marriage (Gill, pp. 424-425). In fact, the very public displays of this segmenting of women, either feminist or anti-feminist is exactly the rife female portrayal that the media tend to uphold. Media create and reinforce many gender tropes (Browne 2020, p. 33), including but not limited to the hysterical woman, the ‘ball-and-chain,’ the asexual wife, and the abrasive and argumentative woman.

In fact, McGinley’s alternative vision of women’s existence and prospects has, its reputation and influence in its own time notwithstanding, disappeared from the public record (Gill 2013, p. 425). By restoring the anti-feminist ideas, and ensuring their visibility, we are better equipped to assess the strength and heterogeneity of contemporary discourses of gender (Gill 2013, p. 425). McGinley’s writing gives voice to the much-maligned happy housewife and provides positive alternatives to Friedan’s reading of white, middle-class domesticity as ‘always oppressive for all women’ (Gill 2013, p. 426). In fact, Friedan very much believed in the working woman, and that her joy and sense of purpose came primarily from her career (Churchill 2020). Neglecting entirely women who wish to be full-time, at-home housewives and/or mothers by choice, or seeking other roles within the plethora of opportunities to gain purpose within the grand sphere of social opportunities outside of just career. After all, for many women this is where they get great joy. McGinley was able to illustrate the shifts, contradictions and tensions that inevitably occur in the scope of the female roles (Gill 2013, p. 426). There is simply no measure to the importance of upholding opposing, versatile voices.

In their own sort of a way writers like McGinley aimed to defend the post-war woman. But of course McGinley received harsh reviews over the time periods proceeding some publications for her ‘dishonest’ depiction of seemingly effortless, always enjoyable interrelation of motherhood, married family life. It [McGinley’s Poetic works] does not display the complexities and interrelatedness of contemporary discourses of gender, family, home and nations, and the changeability of isolated and shared life (Gill 2013, p. 432).

The influence of Modernisation

Modernisation of culture has altered some representation of gender, specifically entering a more scientific understanding of biology. Modernist intellectual heritage dating from the eighteenth century sought truth in scientific investigations rather than the religious (Ruth 2019, p. 80). But sociologists, and specifically Friedan aim to critically assess the values of each of these and consider the social implications that factor outside of Science and ‘Nature.’ Friedan has invited a new interpretation, one that fell outside of science or nature and allowed people to consider a critical form of analysis which had yet been highlighted in press (Ruth 2019, p. 80). Women represented by disparate human misalignments between nature and distinct warping’s of relationships; ill-conceived agenda for control (Ruth 2019, p. 80). Modernisation, perhaps, allowed the woman to be less oppressed meanwhile activists such as Friedan aimed to yield the woman.

Race as Unseen

 ‘In the minds of American Women,’ as Friedan had said. Removed the empathy of understanding intersection of race in the ways it impacts Women of Colour in America at the time.  A critical race theory lens lets us consider concerns about the intersection of race. Feminist movements are always evolving, and for her time Friedan began discussions which opened the minds of the white, and middle-class women during that time. Feminist histories are inadvertently influenced by political attachments, and how we imagine the characters within a story (DiMiele 2021, p. 111). In what DiMiele (2021, p. 112) calls ‘the trap of ethics’ as white feminist subject formation, where society redeems the white feminist subject by either rescuing or relinquishing the white feminism’s protagonist; who is a figure of middle-class white woman (DiMiele 2021, p. 112). When Friedan called herself ‘everywoman,’ she told black women and women of colour that they didn’t experience any additional supremacy outside of being female. DiMiele argues that this has forged itself into the ground work of feminist movements and remains a problem in today’s society. White feminists spoke on behalf of all women, which has popularised itself into American institutions (DiMiele 2021, pp. 112-113).

At once what was accidentally ignorant has now become an intentional inconsideration of secular scope. Constitutive exclusion is not an innocent mistake but a function of racial privilege rooted in the white feminist subject herself (DiMiele 2021, p. 113). Oppressive power is exemplified in white feminism, which may as well be called selective feminism as it favours the white woman and puts her in a position of power in which she can choose to acknowledge or ignore the disparities between white women and women of colour. White women have historically suggested only working on behalf of morally or politically deserving white women, meanwhile, Black and Hispanic feminists desire aim to work for interests of the whole demographic (Gill 2021, p. 118). The white feminists desire for redemption (white saviour complex) appears in the way she chooses to acknowledge race (Ruth 2019, p. 80).

It is also true that she was not totally unaware of the interrelatedness and intersection which race played with feminism. Friedan wrote about the double burden of racism and sexism faced by black women in the articles published for UE news (Parry 2010, p. 1584). In fact, due to her Jewish heritage, she had a comprehensive empathy to the oppression which race and ethnicity can play even in post-war society. Occasions must occur of which humanity’s own critical consciousness of oppressive power is contested by those individuals no longer participating in acts which enforce and replicate those oppressions (Gill 2021, p. 114). Models such as ‘what conversation is like from the side of the oppressors’ have been hugely influential in the context of both sexual and racial difference (Gill 2021, p. 114). 

Conclusion:

The main consensus for The Feminine Mystique and other works of Friedan in her time has been explored while considering the importance of the opposing voice within the scope of feminism, and a demand for consideration of the interaction of class and critical race theory. Although unlikely her intention, Friedan harmed women who fell outside of the white, middle-class, and career focused women. Which inevitably bleeds into the normalcies and dialogue of contemporary feminist culture, also known as white, middle-class feminism. Her contributions to feminism, although very important had some major flaws. But Friedan has impacted the movement in a far more positive scope that anything else. Feminists can continue to raise exposure to the diverse voices: from the different class segments of society and different races and personal experiences of women. For we cannot all be painted with the same brush, and all contribute to important, explorative conversations surrounding feminism. Even those voices which claim non-feminist contribute to heterogonous dialogue that formats discourse society in an always evolving and changing world.

Reference List:

Alexander, R 2019, ‘In Defense of Nature: Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson and Betty Friedan’,           Journal of Women’s History, John Hopkins University Press, volume 31, no. 3, pp. 78-    101.

Browne K 2020, An Introduction to Sociology, 5th edn, Polity Press, Cambridge UK.

Churchill, L B 2020, ‘The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan,’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 19         February 2020, viewed 21 May 2022,
            <https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Quality-of-Life-1373934>

DiMiele, A 2021, ‘Feminist Storytelling and the Problem of White Feminism,’ Literature &          Theology, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 111 – 127.

Gill, J 2013, ‘Quite the Opposite of a feminist’: Phyllis McGinley, Betty Friedan and Discourses of           Gender in Mid-century American Culture’, Women’s History Review, vol 22, no. 3, pp.   422-439, https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2012.726127

The Feminine Mystique Friedan B, 1963, W W Norton Publications.

Sharp, E 2018, ‘Betty Crocker Versus Betty Friedan: Meanings of Wifehood within a        Postfeminist Era,’ Journal of family Issue, Sage Publications vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 843-867.