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On the 50th anniversary of the first volume of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, what better time to reconsider Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, first published 50 years ago? This book was an important part of the Zeitgeist into which CP was born. On rereading The Feminine Mystique with the knowledge of what occurred after its publication, it is possible to appreciate how much Friedan accomplished in furthering the cause of women's equality. In particular, her critique of the Freudian position on female development is still fresh and vibrant. But, with hindsight, it is clear what she got wrong.
My Aunt Margy, who died in 2004 at the age of 86, was a brilliant housewife. Margy's apartment was spotless and she was an expert on cleaning products and procedures. If I couldn't remove a spot from a blouse or get the crud off a pan, I’d call her and she knew what to do. A favorite family story about her: She got some greasy dirt on her white pants and exclaimed, “I couldn't even Shout it out!” referencing the commercial for Shout, the laundry stain remover.
Margy once told me she would never go to a “woman doctor”—women were just not as capable or smart as men. She did not understand why I wanted a job outside the home and frequently commented on my lack of expertise regarding the removal of dirt. I was damaging the children by having a career. Margy exemplified the postwar generation of women who opted out of the work force in favor of becoming moms and housewives. These were the women Betty Friedan wrote about in The Feminine Mystique.
Fifty years after its publication, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique continues to influence how women think about what “makes them tick.”
Friedan got a lot right, but 50 years later, it's easy to see she got some things wrong as well.
Friedan's book catapulted the Women's Movement into the public eye. She identified the “problem that has no name”: the boredom, depression, and empty lives of educated women who had given up careers to ca