It's odd when people hark back to the 1950s as a golden time, as though everything today were on an ever-descending spiral into depression, violence and selfie sticks. You may notice that those who are on a hark-hop tend to be white, straight, male, or any combination thereof. This is probably because to be a white, straight man in 1950s America was to have an absolutely corking time, relatively speaking. It’s a bit like watching Darth Vader bemoan the fact that, since the Death Star got blown to bits, there are too many ewoks about and the rebel alliance has no respect for you anymore. The process of losing dominance is painful for the dominant class. Don’t worry, though, straight white men! There’s still a hell of a way to go before we reach equality, so you can keep living it up right now.
Anyway, Betty Friedan’s The Problem That Has No Name is a lucid and powerful selection of essays from her larger The Feminine Mystique, the seminal feminist text that underlines the problems facing American women in the 20th century.
The titular problem is thus: women were being told they ‘had it all’, and should be the happiest they’d ever been. There was significant social and media pressure to accept and believe this. And yet depression was through the roof, and psychiatrists were treating women in their droves who simply weren’t happy, even though they had everything they were told they should need to be so.
Elegantly and methodically, Friedan goes about highlighting this situation, examining the responses to it and taking them apart to reveal the real problem – women were being systematically and socially repressed to fit a box that defined them by their gender. Women had more access to education than ever, but less opportunity to use it. They had creativity, ambitions and ideas, but as soon as they hit marriageable age, they were expected to put all of these to use in managing the home and the children, and ultimately to put themselves aside. No wonder they felt unfulfilled, when they were only allowed to express themselves in the same regimented and restricted ways as every other housewife.
It’s hard not to draw comparisons with the contemporary world. Perhaps we focus less on home management, but the wellness industry pretty much thrives on that same sense of being unfulfilled and curiously unhappy. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all of these alternative therapies, fad diets and spa treatments are overwhelmingly aimed at women, in the same way as new home appliances, budgeting systems and decorating fashions were aimed at women back then. We’ve transferred the medium, but the root is the same: expensive treatments for an artificial problem.
I thoroughly enjoyed this foray into Friedan’s brain, and I’m definitely going to pick up The Feminine Mystique to read the full text.
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