Welter, Barbara. 1966. "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860". American Quarterly. 18, no. 2: 151-174.
http:/www.jstor.org/stable/2711179
Argument
Welter examines women's magazines from the period to explain what "True Womanhood" meant in America from 1820-1860
"The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself
and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society could be
divided into four cardinal virtues-piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity." (152)
Piety
Woman were naturally religious, thus piety implied true womanhood
Purity
Men would try to assault their purity. Women had to resist.
Submissiveness
Remain occupied with domestic affairs unless otherwise directed.
Domesticity
Proper sphere
Useful as wife, mother.
Connection
Connects to the older "problem that has no name" which Friedan speaks of.
Showing posts with label Betty Friedan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Betty Friedan. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Evans - Personal Politics
Evans, Sara M. Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House, 1979.
Argument
Women's experience in the Civil Rights movement as well as the New Left catalyzed and sharpened their political stance. Quickly, though, disillusionment set in as even within these groups they found themselves under-appreciated, minimized, and disregarded. Thus they were motivated to join forces and start their own cause.
Analogy: women in the 1830s-40s abolition movement were motivated to start the first wave feminism.
Evidence: extensive oral history by an insider to the movement.
Connections
Friedan, Isserman
Argument
Women's experience in the Civil Rights movement as well as the New Left catalyzed and sharpened their political stance. Quickly, though, disillusionment set in as even within these groups they found themselves under-appreciated, minimized, and disregarded. Thus they were motivated to join forces and start their own cause.
Analogy: women in the 1830s-40s abolition movement were motivated to start the first wave feminism.
Evidence: extensive oral history by an insider to the movement.
Connections
Friedan, Isserman
Friday, April 29, 2011
Lasch - The Sexual Division of Labor, the Decline of Civic Culture, and the Rise of the Suburbs
Lasch, Christopher. “The sexual division of labor, the decline of civic culture, and the rise of the suburbs.” From Lasch, Christopher, and Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn. Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage, and Feminism. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1997
Argument
Suburbanization has changed the division of household labor from a barter system based on obligation among trusted friends and family to a private burden that is either managed at the expense of a career or, more likely, arranged for with an impersonal payment. Lasch suggests reading Feminine Mystique alongside Paul Goodman's 1960 Growing Up Absurd, as both seem to deal with two sides of the same suburban dissatisfaction.
Connections
Orsi's Madonna of 115th Street tells the story of what life was like in a dense, close-knit urban environment. Jackson's Crabgrass Frontier explains how that urban environment shifted to the suburbs. Lasch builds on Feminine Mystique to explain what society lost in that transformation.
Argument
Suburbanization has changed the division of household labor from a barter system based on obligation among trusted friends and family to a private burden that is either managed at the expense of a career or, more likely, arranged for with an impersonal payment. Lasch suggests reading Feminine Mystique alongside Paul Goodman's 1960 Growing Up Absurd, as both seem to deal with two sides of the same suburban dissatisfaction.
Connections
Orsi's Madonna of 115th Street tells the story of what life was like in a dense, close-knit urban environment. Jackson's Crabgrass Frontier explains how that urban environment shifted to the suburbs. Lasch builds on Feminine Mystique to explain what society lost in that transformation.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Friedan - Feminine Mystique
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002.
Argument
"The Problem that has no name," the Feminine Mystique expects women to find complete fulfillment through marriage, raising children and caring for the house as a housewife. This circumstance, peculiar to post-WWII women, has prevented women from achieving their full intellectual and, indeed, personal fulfillment as women. Women are expected to forgo their own lives - careers, ambitions, etc. - to submit to the vision of the feminine mystique. Friedan writes to raise awareness of this issue, to announce to women that they are not alone in having these feelings, and to destroy the Feminine Mystique by encouraging women to balance marriage and family with a meaningful career.
Nitty-Gritty
The early portion of the book is constructed off of cultural analysis, including the analysis of advertising and writing (fictional and non-fiction) in women's magazines, which Friedan herself had been a contributer of. Friedan reveals a change in the image of a fulfilled woman as presented in these materials - fulfillment became "happy kids, a clean house, a working husband."
Friedan both subscribes to and takes issue with Freud. She accepts some of his arguments for the sources of psychological problems for both genders, but takes it one step forward in suggesting the feminine mystique leads to unhappy mothers who seek fulfillment through their children, thus leading in turn to psychologically unhealthy sons and daughters. On the other hand, she accuses Freud of completely mis-understanding women, portraying them as "maneaters" and generally labeling them as a feebler sex.
Friedan also criticizes universities for pushing women into the home and (along with professions who fire married women) making career and marriage an either/or proposition. Also, she notes and attempts to disprove a stigma that educated women have less satisfying sex lives.
Where this Fits in
Culture, in the Feminine Mystique, is a dangerous force that subconsciously shapes values and images of fulfillment. In 1950s America, culture has warped women's understanding of how they can achieve fulfilling lives.
The Feminine Mystique is about the 1950s. In launching a social movement, it is a primary source. It is more sociology than pure history, but it nonetheless contains interesting cultural analysis.
More than any other text I have read, I was reminded of Mad Men as I read this book. That television show really sets out to explore the ramifications and drama caused by the Problem That has No Name in the early 1960s.
Critique
It is what it is - ground breaking...so ground breaking, in fact, that it is dated. I was most surprised by how much Friedan is specifically criticizing the gender roles of the 50s, rather than the gender roles throughout history. She very much sees the Feminine Mystique as a recent problem, NOT a timeless problem.
Argument
"The Problem that has no name," the Feminine Mystique expects women to find complete fulfillment through marriage, raising children and caring for the house as a housewife. This circumstance, peculiar to post-WWII women, has prevented women from achieving their full intellectual and, indeed, personal fulfillment as women. Women are expected to forgo their own lives - careers, ambitions, etc. - to submit to the vision of the feminine mystique. Friedan writes to raise awareness of this issue, to announce to women that they are not alone in having these feelings, and to destroy the Feminine Mystique by encouraging women to balance marriage and family with a meaningful career.
Nitty-Gritty
The early portion of the book is constructed off of cultural analysis, including the analysis of advertising and writing (fictional and non-fiction) in women's magazines, which Friedan herself had been a contributer of. Friedan reveals a change in the image of a fulfilled woman as presented in these materials - fulfillment became "happy kids, a clean house, a working husband."
Friedan both subscribes to and takes issue with Freud. She accepts some of his arguments for the sources of psychological problems for both genders, but takes it one step forward in suggesting the feminine mystique leads to unhappy mothers who seek fulfillment through their children, thus leading in turn to psychologically unhealthy sons and daughters. On the other hand, she accuses Freud of completely mis-understanding women, portraying them as "maneaters" and generally labeling them as a feebler sex.
Friedan also criticizes universities for pushing women into the home and (along with professions who fire married women) making career and marriage an either/or proposition. Also, she notes and attempts to disprove a stigma that educated women have less satisfying sex lives.
Where this Fits in
Culture, in the Feminine Mystique, is a dangerous force that subconsciously shapes values and images of fulfillment. In 1950s America, culture has warped women's understanding of how they can achieve fulfilling lives.
The Feminine Mystique is about the 1950s. In launching a social movement, it is a primary source. It is more sociology than pure history, but it nonetheless contains interesting cultural analysis.
More than any other text I have read, I was reminded of Mad Men as I read this book. That television show really sets out to explore the ramifications and drama caused by the Problem That has No Name in the early 1960s.
Critique
It is what it is - ground breaking...so ground breaking, in fact, that it is dated. I was most surprised by how much Friedan is specifically criticizing the gender roles of the 50s, rather than the gender roles throughout history. She very much sees the Feminine Mystique as a recent problem, NOT a timeless problem.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)