Turner, Lynn H.

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Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteCollege of Communication Faculty Research andPublications Communication, College of1-1-2013The Feminine Mystique and Me: 50 years ofIntersectionsLynn H. TurnerMarquette University, lynn.turner@marquette.eduPublished Version. Women and Language, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2013): 67-69. Permalink. © 2013Humanities Department at Michigan Technological University. Used with permission.The Feminine Mystique and Me:50 Years of IntersectionsTo be honest, it was difficult for me to write this essay. That is probably because I havenot read The Feminine Mystique, or at least not all of it. I would no doubt feel guiltierabout that except that in this 50th anniversary year of the book's publication, I haveread several other feminists' musings on the book containing the same admission.However, writing this piece has prompted me to think about, among other things, whyI have never read the book in its entirety.I didn't read the book in 1963 because at the time I was 17, and busy graduating fromhigh school and beginning college. And, frankly, if I had read fhe book then, I wouldprobably have dismissed it (in the same annoying way that younger women nowsometimes dismiss my messages about sexism) as not being relevant to me, but ratherbeing an issue for my mother and her generation. Liza Donnelly's (2013) comment inForbes online perfectly describes what I imagine my feelings must have been in 1963:"I was already brainwashed by our youth culture to think that what she [Friedan] wastalking about was old news . . . I was young, I knew I was nof going to be a housewife."In any event, although my mother lived the demographics of Friedan's thesis (she wasa stay-at-home mom and my father was the wage earner in our family), the dynamicsmy parents enacted provided me with a role model for an egalitarian marriage. And,my mother seemed anything but desperate—she acted extremely happy (at least so sheseemed whenever I paused from contemplating my own self-centered concerns to lookaround and try to imagine how anyone else was feeling). In February 2013, StephanieCoontz wrote in an online essay about Friedan's achievements that in 1963, "mostAmericans did not yet believe that gender equality was possible or even desirable." Butin my home we did, and I certainly did. I knew I was going to have a career, my parentsboth supported me in that belief, and I didn't see that there would be any obstacles inmy way.In 1973, when I might have been mature enough to process the ideas in Friedan's book,I encountered an obstacle. I had just had a baby, and the authorities at the high schoolin Iowa where I taught wanted to fire me for being unable to begin the school year ontime. They didn't exactly say that a normal woman should renounce all aspirations forwork outside the home after beginning a family, but the message seemed pretty clear. Ihad to hire an attorney, and take a longer maternity leave than I thought I wanted af thetime, but I was allowed to return to work in the Spring following my daughter's birth.All this kept me pretty busy thinking about my individual situation, and I didn't turnVolume 36.1 67In The Saionto Friedan's 10-year-old work for counsel. It still didn't seem to apply to me. Yet, just asFriedan did, I viewed my problems as personal and I felt alone and isolated in my fightwith the school district. It probably didn't help that I was living on a farm and I reallywas isolated! I was interested to read in an obituary of Friedan that she was fired froma job when she had a child.But, as a way to achieve some sense of community I was doing just what Friedanadvocated, and what her book ushered in—I joined a lot of consciousness-raisinggroups. I was a member of a women's reading group, but we didn't read The FeminineMystique or even It Changed My Life (1976). We were reading other things: ShulamithFirestone and Ursula Le Guin, for instance. I was also a member of a women's healthcollective and we were busy looking at our uteruses and figuring out how to dismantlemale dominated health care. I joined the National Organization for Women (NOW),but I missed Friedan's tenure as president. I marched for the passage of the Equal RightsAmendment (the ERA) in Illinois (it didn't pass by the way). I was moving from thepersonal to the political, just as Friedan did.In 1983 (or somewhere around there) I met Betty Friedan. She came to speak at IowaState where I was teaching at the time, and as a member of the planning committee forbringing speakers to campus, I had dinner with her and the other committee membersbefore her speech. I have to say I was not impressed. She seemed disengaged with thespeech and with us. I had the distinct impression that she had prejudged Iowa State asa place for hicks, and she seemed to be doing the entire gig on autopilot. I was guilty ofdismissing her ideas because I didn't like her personality. In Life So Far (2000), Friedansays that she has always been a "bad-tempered bitch." When I met her, I didn't give hercredit for paving the way for women to have ideas and not necessarily be nice. But,that's an accomplishment too, and one that I am beginning to appreciate more andmore.In 1993,1 was concentrating on building my career and teaching college students aboutthe intersections among sex, gender, race, class, and communication. Betty Friedan'swork didn't seem too relevant, so I didn't read The Feminine Mystique then either.In fact, I'm sure I dismissed it for having all the problems that other feminists haveraised about the book: "The complex concept of 'intersectionality', for example, wasunfamiliar to Friedan and her generation, whereas today's feminists are much moreaware of how race, class, sexuality and gender presentation are woven into the tapestryof problems that women face" (Scott, 2013). Further, I agreed with Coontz (2013) andothers who noted that political changes that are sorely needed for a better world arenot best achieved through personal choices. Structural changes are needed, and TheFeminine Mystique does not clearly speak to these. As Cameron Macdonald (2013)notes, when we are completely focused on our private problems, "we lack the energy topush for public solutions that would benefit all"Yet, in an epilogue to The Feminine Mystique written a decade after the book was firstpublished, Betty Friedan wrote, "It isn't really possible to make a new pattern of life allby yourself" (p. 381), and she commented that she intended to write a second book68 Women & LanguageReflections on The Feminine Mystiquearguing for "a political movement, a social movement like that of the blacks" (p. 382).Rather than write that book, Friedan went to Washington and with several othersbegan NOW. So, perhaps some of the critique of Friedan's work hasn't examined it incontext, or considered its evolution.However, I still didn't read the book. In 2003, I was busy becoming a grandmotherand dealing with the realities of gender and aging. And I was realizing that as much asfeminism changed the world, there was still much more work to do.Now, in 2013,1 see the inadequacies of The Feminine Mystique, but I also am consciousof its strengths. I see the contributions that one woman was able to make, but as AshleyFetters (2013) noted, I don't have to consider the book a sacred text and I can look atFriedan's assertions holistically. I can also see that I, myself, was focused on privateproblems and concerns throughout the past 50 years. These concerns may have blindedme to insights and resonances from The Feminine Mystique that could have benefittedmy thinking and aided my political actions. Although Betty Friedan was born in thesame year as my parents, she spoke across generations. And, certainly in 2013, I seethe generational divide from a different perspective than I did in 1963.1 think as LizaDonnelly says, "At the beginning of young adulthood, both men and women feel they-know what the real story is. But it takes a certain amount of actual living to fully seeê-For that reason, women [and men] need to talk to each other an'd listen across thé"generations."More work remains to be done. More conversations remain to be engaged.I think I'll read the book this year.ReferencesCoontz, S. (2013, February 17) Why gender equality stalled. The New York Times:-Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.comDonnelly, L. (2013, February 18). On the 50th anniversary of The feminine mystique isthere still a 'problem that has no name'? Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.comFetters, A. (2013, February). Four big problems with The feminine mystique. TheAtlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.comFriedan, B. (1963/1997). The feminine mystique. New York, NY: Norton.Friedan, B. (1976). It changed my life. New York, NY: Random House.Friedan, B. (2000). Life so far. New York, NY: Touchstone.Macdonald, C. (2013). The rise of the 'motherhood mystique.' Retrieved fromhttp://www.contemporaryfamilies.org/Gender-Sexuality/50th-anniversary-of-feminine-mystique-publication.htmlScott, C. (2013). 50th anniversary of The feminine mystique: Is this groundbreakingbook still relevant today? Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.ukVolume 36.1 69Copyright of Women & Language is the property of Organization for the Study ofCommunication, Language & Gender and its content may not be copied or emailed tomultiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

The Feminine Mystique and Me: 50 years of Intersections

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