Betty Friedan and Black Forest Cake
Betty Friedan died yesterday, which should prompt any number of bloggerific retrospectives on feminism, history, and the influence of individuals on the political landscape of America.All of which are excellent topics for bloggers, especially women bloggers who are the beneficiaries of previous waves of feminism. Serious theoretical analysis isn't usually my thing, though, so I'm only going to note three things:
1) I first read The Feminine Mystique in middle school; at the time, I couldn't figure out the point of the book, as women in my family had never stayed home with the children, even if their jobs were usually referred to as "part-time" or "helping out" rather than as careers. I couldn't decide whether I liked the idea of having a stay-at-home mom, or preferred my budding career as a babysitter for my siblings.
By the time I read it again, I was in college and had figured out that there were other ways to view the world; I still wasn't sure how I felt about the book, since I thought I wouldn't really have to worry about much beyond accomplishing my own goals.
I think it's probably time to read it again.
2) In the case of balancing home and career, I've gotten lucky because S, although hopeless at cooking, is willing to do most other housework. As I rarely manage to clean an entire room before wandering away to do something else, he's the difference between our usual cluttered existence and utter chaos. I don't need to worry about meeting up with the creepy guy next door, because S does the laundry in exchange for my cleaning the bathroom.
He still refuses to properly fold the towels. But he moved halfway across the country so that I can work on my phd, so I sometimes let it slide.
This behavior on our parts is totally inexplicable to my parents. It would never occur to my brother that cleaning the house is a routine activity that he should be able to initiate without being asked. On the other hand, I doubt that my sister changes the oil in her car. I think this state of affairs is supposed to bother me.
3) I've just entered The Feminine Mystique into our new LibraryThing account; tonight we also made a black forest cake of sorts. I think Friedan might have appreciated the combination of feminist rant and semi-traditional homemaking, so the recipe is below.
One devil's food cake mix
One jar cherries in light syrup
One package instant vanilla pudding mix
Mix up cake mix, replacing 1/2 c. of the water with cherry juice. Stir in 12 oz. chocolate chips. Pour into 9x13" pan and bake. Remove from oven; cool five minutes and poke several holes in the cake with a fork. Pour remaining cherry juice over the top and let sit 20 minutes.
Mix pudding according to package directions; spread over cake. Add cherries to the top of the pudding. Chilll one hour and serve.
So there you go: a lovely hodgepodge of comments. I'm off to get some more research done so that I can watch the football game tomorrow.
posted by Elizabeth @ 12:05 AM
5 Comments:
I had no clue who Friedan was before yesterday though now the BBC news front page helpfully tells me "US Feminist Friedan dead" so I have all the pertinent info. It also has a one sentence summary of the book you mention, E: "[the FM said] women were not necessarily fulfilled by their roles as wives and mothers".
Seems a bit daft that the issue was even worth arguing about as do the couple of sentences quoted. Though I realise I'm wilfully ignoring millenia-worth of oppression/repression here and the social construction of females in society as prone to passions, "nerves", hysteria and so on and needing to be looked after/confined in the home.
You are indeed. I don't think I expressed the way I felt very well; I was trying to point out that the assumptions that Friedan argued against are still a problem and still in place. Meh. Maybe I'll put something more substantive up later.
Oh, I agree that many of the assumptions that BF argued against (as you put it) are still problems, especially in other parts of the world. I'm just saying that the view that women were fulfilled as wives and mothers is rather outdated now. But, then, she wrote her book in the 1960s so I guess it was revolutionary in her time.
Also, "women" is hardly a homogenous category.
Yes, I'm being argumentative. I just came back from a shite dinner (read email) and want a good fight :-)
Well, unless you start paying attention to the republican party platform.
LOL or you pay attention to anyone on the christian right. I think many of these stereotypes are still at play in workplaces as well, particularly among men who were not exposed to a working mother, and yes there are still some families out there where the woman is homebound, either by her choice or by circumstance.
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