Being a person

There was one quote from The Feminine Mystique that bothered me more than any other. It was from a textbook, Marriage For Moderns:

"If a woman can find adequate self-expression through a career rather than through marriage, well and good. Many young women, however, overlook the fact that there are numerous careers that do not furnish any medium or offer any opportunity for self-expression. Besides they do not realize that only the minority of women , as the minority of men, have anything particularly worthwhile to express."

As much as the contempt for women there bothers me, it is interesting that there is the same contempt for men. Given how often anti-feminist work portrays men as hopeless brutes, I think there is some food for thought there.

This is the opposite of the Gospel, where we believe in infinite potential in people, who are children of God, and where they should be developed and learn. 
  
Because we believe that, parenthood is incredibly important, for both mothers and fathers. As there was an expectation that the father would be the breadwinner, he could not be reduced to that role, but mothers were, and it was a reduction.

There were three things that I especially hated.

1. Mothers were considered the source of all ills. One result of WWII was that many Vienna-trained/Freud influenced psychologists came to the states. It talked about that in
The Feminine Mystique, but I just finished Her Mother's Daughter and The Day the Voices Stopped too, and whether it is the mother being told that her child's mental issues are her fault, or the parent refusing to seek treatment because of the stigma, it took a long time for that to wear off.

2. Motherhood didn't really give you that much to do. What Friedan describes was largely a middle-class problem, and it was rooted in that relative affluence. You get electric gadgets, and cleaning doesn't really take that much work anymore. You get TV dinners and baking mixes, and other conveniences so cooking is simplified. The children are enrolled in school, and getting their education there, and also, they will grow up. Then you get the surplus of time, and the move toward obsolescence.

There are fascinating things in there, and in The Beauty Myth about studies by the advertising industry, and how they not only work to sell products, but also to mold the customer base. When so many stories about people dying miserable or changing careers focus on people who work in advertising, there is some examination to be done there. For now, though, let's focus on women's magazines and a change they made.

3. Mothers were not supposed to be interested in the outside world. Older magazines had stories about current events and international issues, and fiction that was not always about settling down. That changed, because women were not interested in subjects other than recipes and diets and so on, but it was male magazine editors who decided that. A feeling of connection to the outside world is vital for happiness and self-actualization.

Think about it: if the only value in a woman is her ability to care for a husband and children, how many ways are that for her to go wrong. Yes, some women don't have children, and some don't even find husbands (gasp!), but what about the widow whose kids are grown? Has she outlived her usefulness? If you have only daughters, and you are just raising them to raise their children, doesn't that feel kind of pointless? Maybe they will have sons, but what if they don't!

But if she is a person, instead of just a woman, then shouldn't she get to have her own talents and dreams and wants too? That's not to say that it will never involve a time that is very focused on home and children, and those can be beautiful times, but then it's not a reduction, it's a choice, made by a person.

The differences may seem minor, but they are not.