"Something is very wrong with the way American women are trying to live their lives," the late Betty Friedan wrote in "The Feminine Mystique," her groundbreaking 1963 book attacking the idea that a husband and children were all a woman needed for fulfillment.
That book effectively launched the modern women's movement. But more than four decades later, writer Leslie Bennetts is trying to sound a very similar message. In "The Feminine Mistake" — the title's no accident — she argues that many young mothers have forgotten Friedan's message, embracing a 21st-century version of the 1950s stay-at-home ideal that could imperil their economic future as well as their happiness.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/...2nMvhA4YvMWM0F
This could easily go in Great Debate. The Feminine Mystique was wrong and so is this book. It's wrong to assume that women are sitting around at home miserable wishing they had a job or that being a SAHP (guys opt out to take care of kids too now) isn't forfilling for some people.
I have not read this book, but I have read the originial. It had important things to say to that generation, but made some faulty assumptions. (ie women are pill popping druggies because they are bored and unforfilled. Whatever reasons people may have for their addictions, I don't think boredom is the number one reason for it. Oh, I'm bored and feeling unappreciated, I think I'll do some drugs?????)
I think my fundamental problem with this book is it makes assumptions that are not true. In the 50s, women had fewer options than they do now. Today SAHP are there because they choose to be and they are happy with that choice. If they become unhappy with that choice they can always choose something else. It's not like anyone is forced to stay home because no one will hire a woman like it was back then.
Also, news flash - money isn't everything.
That book effectively launched the modern women's movement. But more than four decades later, writer Leslie Bennetts is trying to sound a very similar message. In "The Feminine Mistake" — the title's no accident — she argues that many young mothers have forgotten Friedan's message, embracing a 21st-century version of the 1950s stay-at-home ideal that could imperil their economic future as well as their happiness.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/...2nMvhA4YvMWM0F
This could easily go in Great Debate. The Feminine Mystique was wrong and so is this book. It's wrong to assume that women are sitting around at home miserable wishing they had a job or that being a SAHP (guys opt out to take care of kids too now) isn't forfilling for some people.
I have not read this book, but I have read the originial. It had important things to say to that generation, but made some faulty assumptions. (ie women are pill popping druggies because they are bored and unforfilled. Whatever reasons people may have for their addictions, I don't think boredom is the number one reason for it. Oh, I'm bored and feeling unappreciated, I think I'll do some drugs?????)
I think my fundamental problem with this book is it makes assumptions that are not true. In the 50s, women had fewer options than they do now. Today SAHP are there because they choose to be and they are happy with that choice. If they become unhappy with that choice they can always choose something else. It's not like anyone is forced to stay home because no one will hire a woman like it was back then.
Also, news flash - money isn't everything.
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