The Feminine Mystique Revisted

Like I said, lately I've been doing a lot more reading, than writing. So 2 things first - I bought The Feminine Mystique, just out of curiosity, I wanted to read it. I never wanted to before, because I felt like the issues that faced women in the 50's and 60's did not affect Black women. The issue of only being a housewife and wanting more as a woman. My grandma was born in 1923, and she worked ever since she was 15. She cleaned houses for white people, and ran errands for them and their children, for years. I don't think that being a housewife was an option for many black women.


I never understood what was wrong with many of these women. You're complaining about being a housewife? Why? So now that I'm knee deep in the book, my concern for these women changed. Although this book was published 45 years ago, and the research took almost 20-30 years, these women were not lazy, or spoiled, they were just victims of society. As Black people were, fighting for their rights, these women just wanted to be included in society, in their husbands lives. A part of the decision making process, of the household, the most simplistic demands they requested. Forget about not being able to eat in the same restaurants as another race, forget about segregation and desegregation and all the shit that my ancestors and family had to worry about. These women just wanted to be apart of their husbands lives. Their whole lives revolved around their husbands and children, they didn't have an identity.


Many of these women got married out of high school, and had babies by the time they were 21. They didn't get to be free, and say whatever they wanted, or do whatever they wanted. Their hobbies included whatever their husband's hobbies were. But the truth of the matter is, I don't know how far we've come. How far have women actually come since then? If a woman is single, her main goal is to find a man to marry and make her own. But is it about love, or just about this fulfillment that women have. To have a husband, to have children, biological clocks, and such. Chapter 3 talks about the identity that men had during that time, and how they knew exactly what they wanted in their lives. It was their destiny to make plans and to be men. Be entrepreneurs, and business men, they were the bread winners for the longest time. Women didn't have their own separate identity. They were just Mrs. whatever...forget about having their own names.

Many of these women went to college, had degrees as scientists, neurologists, and all other types of degrees, but they didn't need to do anything with their college education, because their husbands took care of everything for them. I'm so glad, that I was born in the time that I was...and that my mother raised me to be independent. But many of these women were raised to be a wife and a mother, and that is it. It seems so simple, and yet women still wanted more. What would my life be, if I was in fact a house wife? I don't think I could imagine it. When I was unemployed, home all day, I cleaned, cooked, took care of the dog and my turtles, and I felt like I was going crazy. I couldn't imagine my life like that every day, for years and years.


I read some of these stories about these women, and it makes me a little angry. But at the same time, whose fault was it. Who decided that women were the weaker, lesser sex? Our feminine bodies, our physical strength, what was the reasoning behind this thought process, that haunted women for years. I'll have more opinions about this later, I only made it to chapter 4 so far.