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Saturday, February 04, 2006

Somewhere, Kate O'Beirne is doing the happy-happy dance
Posted by Jill | 9:34 PM

Betty Friedan has died at the age of 85.

Conservatives, of course, blame Betty Friedan for ushering in a world in which women were no longer content to spend their days keeping house and waiting for hubby to come home. We've all received this alleged excerpt from a 1950's home economics textbook:

1. Have dinner ready: Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal - on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him, and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospects of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed.

2. Prepare yourself: Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be happy and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift.

3. Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives, gathering up school books, toys, paper, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too.

4. Prepare the children: Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and faces if they are small, comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.

5. Minimize the noise: At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of washer, dryer, dishwasher, or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. Be happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad to see him.

6. Some DON'TS: Don't greet him with problems or complaints. Don't complain if he's late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day.

7. Make him comfortable: Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest he lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind.

8. Listen to him: You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first.

9. Make the evening his: Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment; instead try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his need to be home and relax.

10. The Goal: Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can relax.


Note how a place where the woman can relax and unwind never comes into play. On balance, that women have choices other than marriage or old maidhood; other than housewifery or being shunned, is a good thing. No, it isn't possible to "have it all" and do everything well, and all choices have consequences. If you take time off to rear children, you may not find the job market open to you later on. If you delay childbearing, you may have infertility problems. But it's still better to have choices than not.

And Betty Friedan was hugely instrumental in allowing us to even have these choices.

By the time I read The Feminine Mystique, it already seemed quaint, because the women's movement was already in full flower. But although much of what the book discussed was already outmoded, its power and its themes remained resonant.

Conservatives would have you think that the housewife of the 1950's was the norm in American society until people like Betty Friedan came along and ruined things for men. The reality, for those with an interest in American social history, is that it was that postwar period which was the anomaly. From the factory and sweatshop workers of the WWI era, to the flappers and even the married women of the 1920's, to the female riveters of the WWII era, women have always sought the choices that came finally to fruition in the 1970's. Feminists have been with us at least since the suffrage and birth control movements of the early 20th century -- and men managed to survive.

If the contemporary women's movement as launched by Betty Friedan in 1963 made mistakes, it was in its focus on the fulfillment ambitions of middle-class white women instead of opening its eyes to the very real struggles that women of color and poor women in rural communities face, as well as in neglecting to realize that men were as oppressed by the system as were women. Perhaps if men hadn't been made the enemy, but instead had been made our allies in fighting the system, we wouldn't see so much hostility to women today, in the form of pharmacists refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, male legislators thinking they have the right to decide what happens to our bodies, and media pundits claiming that women are taking jobs away from men.

For all that we seem to be headed backwards, away from the notion Betty Friedan put forth in 1963 that men and women are created equal, her death reminds us that we still have time to reverse that tide, that we don't need to return to the anomalous era into which I and my peers were born. Women have been fighting this battle in this country for a hundred years....and we will continue to do so.
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