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I asked my mother and several of her sisters what their favorite decade was. They said the 1950s. One sister said, "Without a doubt." And they were all adults during the '50s, not children.
My mom went out with several neighborhood wives at night to dinner and/or the movies. They took turns driving (yes, they did have driver's licenses and a car). They were not stuck at home as the myth claims.
US Population in 1955 was 160 million. Assume half were female.
That’s 80 million life experiences. About 20 million of them lived in desperate poverty, lacking indoor plumbing.
Appalachia and the rural south were hit hard. The mining industry in West Virginia shed 70,000 jobs as functions performed by humans were replaced with machines that were are far more productive or the mines closed.
Imagine most of that population, including women, were miserable.
But it's the reverse today. Divorce is far too common and many times it's over silly things like the wife frequently burns the toast or the husband watches too much TV.
Divorce rate is at a 40 year low, for those under 55.
Many of those Bedford wives hated their families too--
"Sometimes, a woman would say, ‘I feel empty somehow . . . incomplete,’" Friedan wrote. "Or she would say, ‘I feel as if I don’t exist.’ Sometimes she blotted out the feeling with a tranquilizer. Sometimes she thought the problem was with her husband, or her children, or that what she really needed was to redecorate her house, or move to a better neighborhood, or have an affair, or another baby. Sometimes she went to a doctor with symptoms she could hardly describe: ‘A tired feeling . . . I get so angry with the children it scares me . . . I feel like crying with no reason.’"
"The Feminine Mystique was one of many catalysts for the second-wave feminist movement (1960s–80s). By the end of the 1980s, however, its flaws had been clearly identified. Its arguments, broadly speaking, were less relevant, because twice as many women were in the workforce as had been during the 1950s. Furthermore, feminists of colour, notably bell hooks, found Friedan’s manifesto both racist and classist, not at all applicable to African Americans and other working-class women who joined the labour force from necessity. Social historian Daniel Horowitz, in Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique (1998), revealed that Friedan had been dishonest about her vantage point, which she claimed was that of a suburban mother and housewife. She had been a leftist radical activist from the time she was at Smith College. It was, he concluded, a necessary fiction if both she and her feminist ideas were to be given a chance to take root. Still other critics noted that she based some of her theories on studies that have since proved inaccurate."
I think those women that Friedan handpicked are not representative of women as a whole. As I've said repeatedly, ALL of the women in my family, going back 4-5 generations? ALL WORKED. Anecdotal? Yes. But true.
I think this idea of the henpecked, trembling 1950s housewife, horribly depressed, tanked out on tranquilizers all day falls under the umbrella of class issues. Not feminist issues.
Also because they worked harder to save their marriage instead of divorcing at the drop of a hat. BTW, my mom did work in a factory. Assembling radios. She also worked at Packard Bell.
Oh - did "they" really work harder to save their marriages?
Why would men work harder on a marriage when they held most of the cards already?
Women "working hard to save their marriages" meant them resigning themselves to bad relationships by buckling under and trying to find satisfaction with the kids and women friends while ignoring issues with a husband who may not have cared if she was happy or not as long as the house was in order. She was stuck...
I graduated from H.S. in 1981 - I remember my mom telling me to take typing in so I'd "have something to fall back on". I ended up going to grad school - typing still helped - but not by being a secretary!
Oh - did "they" really work harder to save their marriages?
Why would men work harder on a marriage when they held most of the cards already?
Women "working hard to save their marriages" meant them resigning themselves to bad relationships by buckling under and trying to find satisfaction with the kids and women friends while ignoring issues with a husband who may not have cared if she was happy or not as long as the house was in order. She was stuck...
I graduated from H.S. in 1981 - I remember my mom telling me to take typing in so I'd "have something to fall back on". I ended up going to grad school - typing still helped - but not by being a secretary!
Oh you're SO evolved. My Mom graduated with a B.S. in Accounting and became a CPA.....wait for it......in 1945.
"The Feminine Mystique was one of many catalysts for the second-wave feminist movement (1960s–80s). By the end of the 1980s, however, its flaws had been clearly identified. Its arguments, broadly speaking, were less relevant, because twice as many women were in the workforce as had been during the 1950s. Furthermore, feminists of colour, notably bell hooks, found Friedan’s manifesto both racist and classist, not at all applicable to African Americans and other working-class women who joined the labour force from necessity. Social historian Daniel Horowitz, in Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique (1998), revealed that Friedan had been dishonest about her vantage point, which she claimed was that of a suburban mother and housewife. She had been a leftist radical activist from the time she was at Smith College. It was, he concluded, a necessary fiction if both she and her feminist ideas were to be given a chance to take root. Still other critics noted that she based some of her theories on studies that have since proved inaccurate."
I think those women that Friedan handpicked are not representative of women as a whole. As I've said repeatedly, ALL of the women in my family, going back 4-5 generations? ALL WORKED. Anecdotal? Yes. But true.
I think this idea of the henpecked, trembling 1950s housewife, horribly depressed, tanked out on tranquilizers all day falls under the umbrella of class issues. Not feminist issues.
Lots of early theorists in every discipline will have some of their tenets found lacking, yet their influence was far reaching and others built on top of what they started. Hmmmmmm....think....Freud? He was a man of his times. No one believes now that boys want to actually kill their fathers and boink their mothers - and yet he founded the modern fields of psychiatry and psychology. Do we throw him out with the bathwater?
Betty Friedan revealed a lot of truth about what a lot of women experienced. There are few theories that can encompass the experiences of ALL people - unless you want to count the Unified Field Theory (HAS that been proven yet?!). You may not like much at all about Friedan but...so what?
Oh yeah, my mom worked...part time as a bank teller. Her mother was divorced when my mom was young - she worked as a phone operator. Both were really, really good paying jobs - and ones held primarily by women at that time.
Oh - did "they" really work harder to save their marriages?
Why would men work harder on a marriage when they held most of the cards already?
Women "working hard to save their marriages" meant them resigning themselves to bad relationships by buckling under and trying to find satisfaction with the kids and women friends while ignoring issues with a husband who may not have cared if she was happy or not as long as the house was in order. She was stuck...
I graduated from H.S. in 1981 - I remember my mom telling me to take typing in so I'd "have something to fall back on". I ended up going to grad school - typing still helped - but not by being a secretary!
In 1980s you could start as a secretary with no college and work your way up to VP. We used to get tons of temps out of HS (they needed typing and basic computer skills which we trained them to do) set them up with companies for some entry level job, they would get hired and promoted within six months. It was a magical time.
Name a time in history America was in a a more prosperous/healthier conditions than then 1950s? That decade was the PEAK of America.
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