The Problem with No Name
Meet the original desperate housewife.
When someone asks you, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" you might answer, "a doctor," "a lawyer," "a veterinarian," or maybe even "president." But in the 1950s, most girls assumed they would be housewives after they married. Betty Friedan thought women needed more options.
Growing up in the 1920s and '30s in Peoria, Illinois, Betty noticed that her mother didn't have many opportunities to use her skills. Betty's mother had been an editor at the Peoria newspaper, but she quit her job when she married, as most women did back then. Betty shared her mother's love of journalism, so she worked with newspapers in junior high, in high school, and at Smith College. Betty was very fortunate to attend college--only 6% of all U.S. citizens had bachelor's degrees in 1940, and very few of those graduates were women. After college, Betty started studying psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and won a fellowship that would help her continue her education. Betty knew most men felt threatened by smart women in those days, and she didn't want to ruin her chances to get married. So Betty turned down the fellowship.
Instead, she moved to New York and wrote for a union newspaper and then married in 1947. When she had her first child, Betty took the maximum amount of maternity leave allowed--one year without pay. Several years later, Betty became pregnant again, and her boss knew she would probably take another long maternity leave. The newspaper fired her, which Betty knew was unfair.
Betty loved her kids, but she found life as a home maker "stifling" so she started freelancing for women's magazines. Betty also surveyed her former Smith classmates to see if they were satisfied with their lives. She discovered that some of the women were unhappy, and they thought it meant there was something wrong with them.
At the time, most women focused on raising their children and managing their households. In advertisements, women claimed they were content with fancy appliances and time-saving devices. But the women Betty surveyed didn't find complete and utter joy in waxing the kitchen floor. Betty learned that she wasn't the only housewife asking herself, "Is this all?"
Betty called the feelings of emptiness and depression that women were feeling "the problem that has no name." Several magazine editors rejected the article she wrote about it. One editor wrote to her agent, "Betty must be going off her rocker. Only the most neurotic housewife will identify with this."
But Betty knew the problem was widespread, and she wanted women to know they weren't alone. So she expanded her article into a book, The Feminine Mystique, and published it in 1963. The publisher printed only 3,000 copies of the first edition, but it was a hit. Soon, colleges and organizations started inviting Betty to lecture all over the country. Women wrote to Betty and stopped her on the street to tell her that reading her book had changed their lives.
Betty continued to fight for women's rights. She helped organize the Women's Strike for Equality on August 26, 1970--50 years after women won the right to vote--and she led the fight for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA.
"It wasn't enough just to start a movement for women's rights," Betty explained. "You had to make it happen."
Organizing for Change
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination against job applicants or employees based on their sex as well as race, color, religion, or national origin. But Betty was afraid the government wouldn't take Title VII seriously without a watchdog group. So in 1966, she co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) and became its first president. NOW's "first order of business" was to protest sex discrimination against airline stewardesses. At the time, airlines hired only women as flight attendants and forced them to resign if they married, became pregnant, or turned 35. After NOW held simultaneous demonstrations around the country and took legal action, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began enforcing the Title VII law.
NOW Now
Today, NOW is the largest feminist organization in the U.S. with more than 500,000 members. NOW is still fighting for an Equal Rights Amendment. To get involved in NOW's Young Feminist Task Force, go to www.now.org.
By: Young, Cleo, New Moon, Sep/Oct2006
When someone asks you, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" you might answer, "a doctor," "a lawyer," "a veterinarian," or maybe even "president." But in the 1950s, most girls assumed they would be housewives after they married. Betty Friedan thought women needed more options.
Growing up in the 1920s and '30s in Peoria, Illinois, Betty noticed that her mother didn't have many opportunities to use her skills. Betty's mother had been an editor at the Peoria newspaper, but she quit her job when she married, as most women did back then. Betty shared her mother's love of journalism, so she worked with newspapers in junior high, in high school, and at Smith College. Betty was very fortunate to attend college--only 6% of all U.S. citizens had bachelor's degrees in 1940, and very few of those graduates were women. After college, Betty started studying psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and won a fellowship that would help her continue her education. Betty knew most men felt threatened by smart women in those days, and she didn't want to ruin her chances to get married. So Betty turned down the fellowship.
Instead, she moved to New York and wrote for a union newspaper and then married in 1947. When she had her first child, Betty took the maximum amount of maternity leave allowed--one year without pay. Several years later, Betty became pregnant again, and her boss knew she would probably take another long maternity leave. The newspaper fired her, which Betty knew was unfair.
Betty loved her kids, but she found life as a home maker "stifling" so she started freelancing for women's magazines. Betty also surveyed her former Smith classmates to see if they were satisfied with their lives. She discovered that some of the women were unhappy, and they thought it meant there was something wrong with them.
At the time, most women focused on raising their children and managing their households. In advertisements, women claimed they were content with fancy appliances and time-saving devices. But the women Betty surveyed didn't find complete and utter joy in waxing the kitchen floor. Betty learned that she wasn't the only housewife asking herself, "Is this all?"
Betty called the feelings of emptiness and depression that women were feeling "the problem that has no name." Several magazine editors rejected the article she wrote about it. One editor wrote to her agent, "Betty must be going off her rocker. Only the most neurotic housewife will identify with this."
But Betty knew the problem was widespread, and she wanted women to know they weren't alone. So she expanded her article into a book, The Feminine Mystique, and published it in 1963. The publisher printed only 3,000 copies of the first edition, but it was a hit. Soon, colleges and organizations started inviting Betty to lecture all over the country. Women wrote to Betty and stopped her on the street to tell her that reading her book had changed their lives.
Betty continued to fight for women's rights. She helped organize the Women's Strike for Equality on August 26, 1970--50 years after women won the right to vote--and she led the fight for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA.
"It wasn't enough just to start a movement for women's rights," Betty explained. "You had to make it happen."
Organizing for Change
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination against job applicants or employees based on their sex as well as race, color, religion, or national origin. But Betty was afraid the government wouldn't take Title VII seriously without a watchdog group. So in 1966, she co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) and became its first president. NOW's "first order of business" was to protest sex discrimination against airline stewardesses. At the time, airlines hired only women as flight attendants and forced them to resign if they married, became pregnant, or turned 35. After NOW held simultaneous demonstrations around the country and took legal action, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began enforcing the Title VII law.
NOW Now
Today, NOW is the largest feminist organization in the U.S. with more than 500,000 members. NOW is still fighting for an Equal Rights Amendment. To get involved in NOW's Young Feminist Task Force, go to www.now.org.
By: Young, Cleo, New Moon, Sep/Oct2006
posted by James at 2:06 PM
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