Tessa on 20th c. Feminism

 The first chapter of the Feminist Mystique discusses the influx of women who had come to feel unfulfilled in their lifestyle and society's reactions to this newfound resistance in the 20th century. I found it interesting how Freidan relates mental and physical health to one's total well-being and how age-old issues long taken for granted in women's health have become increasingly prominent with the burst of early marriage and large families. A common argument was that women were unhappy because they were overbarren by the vast demands of home and family life, connecting this to the tiredness many women reportedly felt - even though they slept more than a healthy amount. It was not that women did not have the capability for their expectations, but that society's confining role had damaged her sense of self and relationship with the world, thus trapping her in “chains of her mind and spirit,” affecting all areas of her life. 

Shaking these chains by listening to one's inner voice is what women began to do, forging a new lifestyle in this world. Women began to voice their feelings with other women, realizing they were not alone in feeling like they wanted something beyond a husband and kids and had unique interests beyond the home and societal pressures. Traction grew amongst women in the early 60s, but as newspapers began to discuss the unhappiness of the American housewife, they invalidated women and pushed superficial reasons for their desperation and distress, like new college educations or voting rights for women. Saying these new opportunities were too much pressure and stress for women on top of their duties to the home, they wanted to push women away from academics, calling the educated housewife a “two-headed schizophrenic,” with her developed mental talents contorted knowing she will forever be confined to the bounds of what is expected of her. Nevertheless, womens feeling of something not being right did not stem from outside influence or education but from themselves and how they had began to see themselves. As women stepped out and broke barriers in their day-to-day lives, the media began to catch up and represent this change in greater society with the depiction of a happy housewife like Donna Reed in the late 50s changing to a confident single woman in the later 60s. 

Suppose historians were to choose television shows to show students in 60 years about the role and status of women in society today. In that case, I presume they would have a much harder time than today with the era of 20th-century feminism. This is obviously due in part to the massive influx in streaming and access to technology, but more importantly, regarding the enormous expansion in expression and possibilities for women in society, no longer a group easily characterized into one common identity of the masses. Ideas like that of a woman's place being the kitchen began to be perceived as unrealistic and comical as women began to explore and expand the possibilities of their daily life and future, illustrating what Freidan means when she boils the issue down to women wanting to have something in their life for themselves.