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| {{short description|1963 book by Betty Friedan}}
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| {{Infobox book | | {{Infobox book |
| | name = The Feminine Mystique
| | | image = Germaine Greer - The Female Eunuch.jpg |
| | image = The Feminine Mystique.jpg | | | border = yes |
| | image_size = | | | caption = Cover of the first edition |
| | caption = First edition with a quote from Virgilia Peterson | | | author = [[Germaine Greer]] |
| | author = [[Betty Friedan]] | | | country = United Kingdom |
| | illustrator =
| | | language = English |
| | cover_artist =
| | | series = |
| | country = United States | | | published = 1970 |
| | language = English | | | publisher = MacGibbon & Kee |
| | series = | | | media_type = Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| | subject = [[Feminism]] | | | pages = |
| | publisher = [[W. W. Norton & Company|W. W. Norton]] | | | isbn = 0-374-52762-8 |
| | release_date = February 19, 1963<ref>{{cite book | title=Motherhood misconceived: representing the maternal in U.S. film | first=Heather | last=Addison |author2=Goodwin-Kelly, Mary Kate |author3=Roth, Elaine | publisher=SUNY Press | year=2009 | isbn=978-1-4384-2812-3 | page=29 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eygiAi9bDyoC&q=feminine+mystique+february+19+1963&pg=PA29}}</ref> | | | dewey = 305.42 21 |
| | media_type = Print ([[Hardcover]] and [[Paperback]]) | | | congress = HQ1206 .G77 2001 |
| | pages = 239 | | | oclc = 46574483 |
| | isbn = 0-393-32257-2 | | | followed_by = The Whole Woman |
| }} | | }} |
| '''''The Feminine Mystique''''' is a book by [[Betty Friedan]], widely credited with sparking [[second-wave feminism]] in the United States.<ref name="nytimes2006">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/us/betty-friedan-who-ignited-cause-in-feminine-mystique-dies-at-85.html|title=Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85|date=5 February 2006|author=Margalit Fox|work=The New York Times|access-date=19 February 2017}}</ref> First published by [[W. W. Norton & Company|W. W. Norton]] on February 19, 1963, ''The Feminine Mystique'' became a bestseller, initially selling over a million copies.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s|last=Coontz|first=Stephanie|publisher=New York: Basic Books|year=2011|pages=145–149}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The Feminine Mystique|last=Friedan|first=Betty|publisher=W.W.Norton & Company, Inc|year=2013|isbn=978-0-393-93465-6|pages=xi-xx}}</ref> Friedan used the book to challenge the widely shared belief that "fulfillment as a woman had only one definition for American women after 1949—the housewife-mother."<ref name=":0" />
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| In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former [[Smith College]] classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for ''The Feminine Mystique'', conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to create an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish the work.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/betty-friedan-465800.html |title=Betty Friedan - Obituaries, News |newspaper=The Independent |date=7 February 2006 |access-date=2011-02-18}}{{dead link|date=August 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/04/AR2006020401385_2.html |title=Voice of Feminism's 'Second Wave' |author= Patricia Sullivan|newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |page=2|date=February 5, 2006 |access-date=2011-02-18}}</ref>
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| The phrase "feminine mystique" was coined by Friedan to describe the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. The prevailing belief was that women who were truly feminine should not want to work, get an education, or have political opinions. Friedan wanted to prove that women were unsatisfied and could not voice their feelings.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Feminine-Mystique|title=The Feminine Mystique {{!}} work by Friedan|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2019-06-03}}</ref>
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| ==Synopsis==
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| [[File:Betty Friedan 1960.jpg|thumb|right|Betty Friedan (1960)]]
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| ''The Feminine Mystique'' begins with an introduction describing what Friedan called "the problem that has no name"—the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. She discusses the lives of several housewives from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being married with children.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.enotes.com/feminine-mystique/summary |title=The Feminine Mystique Summary |publisher=Enotes.com |access-date=2011-02-18}}</ref> Friedan also questions the women's magazine, women's education system, and advertisers for creating this widespread image of women. The detrimental effects induced by this image were that it cornered women into the domestic sphere, and that it led many women to lose their own identities.<ref name=":0" />
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| '''Chapter 1''': Friedan points out that the average age of marriage was dropping, the portion of women attending college was decreasing and the birthrate was increasing for women throughout the 1950s, yet the widespread trend of unhappy women persisted, although American culture insisted that fulfillment for women could be found in marriage and housewifery. Although aware of and sharing this dissatisfaction, women in the 1950s misinterpreted it as an individual problem and rarely talked about it with other women. As Friedan pointed out, "part of the strange newness of the problem is that it cannot be understood in terms of the age-old material problems of man: poverty, sickness, hunger, cold." This chapter concludes by declaring: "We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.{{'"}}<ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=http://www.h-net.org/~hst203/documents/friedan1.html |title=The Feminine Mystique |chapter=The Problem that Has No Name | first=Betty | last=Friedan | publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1963 |access-date=2011-02-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604112836/https://www.h-net.org/~hst203/documents/friedan1.html |archive-date=2011-06-04}}</ref>
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| '''Chapter 2''': Friedan states that the editorial decisions concerning women's magazines at the time were being made mostly by men, who insisted on stories and articles that showed women as either happy housewives or unhappy careerists, thus creating the "feminine mystique"—the idea that women were naturally fulfilled by devoting their lives to being housewives and mothers. Friedan also states that this is in contrast to the 1930s, at which time women's magazines often featured confident and independent heroines, many of whom were involved in careers.<ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=http://www.h-net.org/~hst203/documents/friedan2.html |title=The Feminine Mystique |chapter=The Happy Housewife Heroine |first=Betty |last=Friedan |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1963 |access-date=2011-02-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111125031600/http://www.h-net.org/~hst203/documents/friedan2.html |archive-date=2011-11-25}}</ref>
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| '''Chapter 3''': Friedan recalls her own decision to conform to society's expectations by giving up her promising career in psychology to raise children, and shows that other young women still struggled with the same kind of decision. Many women dropped out of school early to marry, afraid that if they waited too long or became too educated, they would not be able to attract a husband. Friedan argues at the end of the chapter that although theorists discuss how men need to find their identity, women are expected to be autonomous. She states, "Anatomy is woman's destiny, say the theorists of femininity; the identity of woman is determined by her biology."<ref name="Friedan 1963">{{cite book|chapter-url=http://www.docstoc.com/docs/9807682/Friedan_Betty---The-Feminine-Mystique-chapter-3---The-Crisis-in-Womans-Identity | last=Friedan |first=Betty |title=The Feminine Mystique |chapter=The Crisis in Woman's Identity |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1963 |access-date=2011-02-18}}</ref> Friedan goes on to argue that the problem is women needing to mature and find their human identity: "In a sense that goes beyond any woman's life, I think this is a crisis of women growing up—a turning point from an immaturity that has been called femininity to full human identity."<ref name="Friedan 1963"/>
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| '''Chapter 4''': Friedan discusses early American feminists and how they fought against the assumption that the proper role of a woman was to be solely a wife and mother. She notes that they secured important rights for women, including education, the right to pursue a career, and the right to vote.<ref name="neomin1">{{cite web |url=http://howlandpowpak.neomin.org/powpak/cgi-bin/article_display_page.pl?id=thomas.williams&ar=40 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727115123/http://howlandpowpak.neomin.org/powpak/cgi-bin/article_display_page.pl?id=thomas.williams&ar=40 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-07-27 |title=The Feminist Mystique-Simple chapter summaries |publisher=[[eNotes]] |access-date=2011-02-18 }}</ref>
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| '''Chapter 5''': In this chapter, Friedan, who had a degree in psychology, criticizes the founder of psychoanalysis, [[Sigmund Freud]] (whose ideas were very influential in the United States at the time of the book's publication). She notes that Freud saw women as childlike and destined to be housewives, once pointing out that Freud wrote, "I believe that all reforming action in law and education would break down in front of the fact that, long before the age at which a man can earn a position in society, Nature has determined woman's destiny through beauty, charm, and sweetness. Law and custom have much to give women that has been withheld from them, but the position of women will surely be what it is: in youth an adored darling and in mature years a loved wife." Friedan also points out that Freud's unproven concept of "[[penis envy]]" had been used to label women who wanted careers as neurotic, and that the popularity of Freud's work and ideas elevated the "feminine mystique" of female fulfillment in housewifery into a "scientific religion" that most women were not educated enough to criticize.<ref>{{cite book|first=Betty |last=Friedan |chapter-url=http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/friedan.htm |title=The Feminine Mystique |chapter=The Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1963 |access-date=2011-02-18}}</ref>
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| '''Chapter 6''': Friedan criticizes [[Structural functionalism|functionalism]], which attempted to make the social sciences more credible by studying the institutions of society as if they were parts of a social body, as in biology. Institutions were studied in terms of their function in society, and women were confined to their sexual biological roles as housewives and mothers as well as told that doing otherwise would upset the social balance. Friedan points out that this is unproven and that [[Margaret Mead]], a prominent functionalist, had a flourishing career as an anthropologist.<ref name="neomin1"/>
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| '''Chapter 7''': Friedan discusses the change in women's education from the 1940s to the early 1960s, in which many women's schools concentrated on non-challenging classes that focused mostly on marriage, family, and other subjects deemed suitable for women, as educators influenced by functionalism felt that too much education would spoil women's femininity and capacity for sexual fulfillment. Friedan says that this change in education arrested girls in their emotional development at a young age, because they never had to face the painful identity crisis and subsequent maturation that comes from dealing with many adult challenges.<ref name="neomin1"/>
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| '''Chapter 8''': Friedan notes that the uncertainties and fears during World War II and the Cold War made Americans long for the comfort of home, so they tried to create an idealized home life with the father as breadwinner and the mother as housewife.<ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-femininemystique/chapanal008.html |title=The Feminine Mystique |first=Betty | last=Friedan |chapter=The Mistaken Choice |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1963 |access-date=2011-02-18}}</ref> Friedan notes that this was helped along by the fact that many of the women who worked during the war filling jobs previously held by men faced dismissal, discrimination, or hostility when the men returned, and that educators blamed over-educated, career-focused mothers for the maladjustment of soldiers in World War II. Yet as Friedan shows, later studies found that overbearing mothers, not careerists, were the ones who raised maladjusted children.<ref name="neomin1"/>
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| '''Chapter 9''': Friedan shows that advertisers tried to encourage housewives to think of themselves as professionals who needed many specialized products in order to do their jobs, while discouraging housewives from having actual careers, since that would mean they would not spend as much time and effort on housework and therefore would not buy as many household products, cutting into advertisers' profits.<ref name="neomin1"/> Critics of this theory point out that under the circumstances men, not women, would be buying these household products and women having actual careers would increase women's buying power while increasing advertisers profits.
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| '''Chapter 10''': Friedan interviews several full-time housewives, finding that although they are not fulfilled by their housework, they are all extremely busy with it. She postulates that these women unconsciously stretch their home duties to fill the time available, because the feminine mystique has taught women that this is their role, and if they ever complete their tasks they will become unneeded.<ref name="neomin1"/>
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| '''Chapter 11''': Friedan notes that many housewives have sought fulfillment in sex, unable to find it in housework and children. She notes that sex cannot fulfill all of a person's needs, and that attempts to do so often drive married women to have affairs or drive their husbands away as they become obsessed with sex.<ref name="neomin1"/>
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| '''Chapter 12''': Friedan discusses the fact that many children have lost interest in life or emotional growth, attributing the change to the mother's own lack of fulfillment, a side effect of the feminine mystique. When the mother lacks a self, Friedan notes, she often tries to live through her children, causing the children to lose their own sense of themselves as separate human beings with their own lives.<ref name="neomin1"/>
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| '''Chapter 13''': Friedan discusses the psychologist [[Abraham Maslow]]'s hierarchy of needs and notes that women have been trapped at the basic, physiological level, expected to find their identity through their sexual role alone. Friedan says that women need meaningful work just as men do to achieve self-actualization, the highest level on the hierarchy of needs.<ref name="neomin1"/>
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| '''Chapter 14''': In the final chapter of ''The Feminine Mystique'', Friedan discusses several case studies of women who have begun to go against the feminine mystique. She also advocates a new life plan for her women readers, including not viewing housework as a career, not trying to find total fulfillment through marriage and motherhood alone, and finding meaningful work that uses their full mental capacity. She discusses the conflicts that some women may face in this journey to self-actualization, including their own fears and resistance from others. For each conflict, Friedan offers examples of women who have overcome it. Friedan ends her book by promoting education and meaningful work as the ultimate method by which American women can avoid becoming trapped in the feminine mystique, calling for a drastic rethinking of what it means to be feminine, and offering several educational and occupational suggestions.<ref name="neomin1"/>
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| ==Intended sequel==
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| Friedan originally intended to write a sequel to ''The Feminine Mystique'', which was to be called ''Woman: The Fourth Dimension'', but instead only wrote an article by that name, which appeared in the ''[[Ladies' Home Journal]]'' in June 1964.<ref>[http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-03896.html American National Biography Online: Friedan, Betty<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref name="Bradley2004">{{cite book|author=Patricia Bradley|title=Mass Media and the Shaping of American Feminism, 1963-1975|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iU97L2XVGN4C&q=%22woman+the+fourth+dimension%22+1964+ladies&pg=PT312|year=2004|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-60473-051-7|page=312}}</ref>
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| ==Influences==
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| Friedan's chapter on Freud was inspired by the philosopher [[Simone de Beauvoir]]'s ''[[The Second Sex]]'' (1949).<ref>{{cite book |author=Webster, Richard |title=Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis |publisher=The Orwell Press |location=Oxford |year=2005 |page=22 |isbn=0-9515922-5-4 }}</ref>
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| ==Legacy==
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| ''The Feminine Mystique'' drew large numbers of white, middle-class women to the feminist cause.<ref name="W.W. Norton">{{cite book | last1 = Friedan | first1 = Betty | last2 = Fermaglich | first2 = Kirsten | last3 = Fine | first3 = Lisa | title = The Feminine Mystique: The Contexts, The Scholarship on the Feminine Mystique | edition = 1st | place = New York | publisher = W. W. Norton | pages = xvii | date = 2013}}</ref> Her book "took the complicated and jargon-laden ideas of psychologists, economists, and political theorists, and translated them into powerful, readable, relatable prose that touched millions."{{cn|date=February 2021}}
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| Politicians increasingly recognized women's frustrations due in part to Friedan's work. The [[Equal Pay Act of 1963]], signed into law June 10, stipulated women receive the same pay as men for the same work. On October 11 of the same year, the [[Presidential Commission on the Status of Women]] issued its final report and making recommendations for further action to end inequities.
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| ''The Feminine Mystique'' was translated into many languages, including a Catalan translation in 1965: ''La mística de la feminitat''. Friedan was the first feminist thinker to be published during the dictatorship of [[Francoist Spain]].{{cn|date=February 2021}}
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| NOW (The [[National Organization for Women]]) was organized in 1966 with 30 women from different backgrounds; Friedan was one of them, and helped draft the founding statement of NOW. The statement called for "the true equality for all women". NOW demanded the removal of all barriers to "equal and economic advance".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The World Transformed|last=Hunt|first=Michael H.|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199371020|pages=219–226|date=2015-06-26}}</ref> Friedan's influence can be seen in the founding statement; a main emphasis of the book is "women's need for identity and autonomy", and NOW's statement says "NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women first and foremost are human beings, who… must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential."<ref name="W.W. Norton"/>
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| ''The Feminine Mystique'' is widely regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century, and is widely credited with sparking the beginning of [[second-wave feminism]] in the United States.<ref name="nytimes2006"/><ref name="Spender">{{cite book |last1=Spender |first1=Dale |title=For the Record: The Making and Meaning of Feminist Knowledge |date=1985 |publisher=[[Women's Press]] |isbn=0704328623 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/forrecord00dale/page/7 7–19] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/forrecord00dale/page/7 }}</ref> Futurist [[Alvin Toffler]] declared that it "pulled the trigger on history."<ref name="nytimes2006" /> Friedan received hundreds of letters from unhappy housewives after its publication, and she herself went on to help found, and become the first president of<ref>{{cite journal|last=McGuire|first=William|author2=Leslie Wheeler |title=Betty Friedan|year=2013|url=http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/246830?terms=The%20Feminine%20Mystique&webSiteCode=SLN_AMHIST&returnToPage=%2fSearch%2fDisplay%2f246830%3fterms%3dThe+Feminine+Mystique&token=F58303DA8EDA843AE8D46ED51A510EE4&casError=False|access-date=January 12, 2013}}</ref> the [[National Organization for Women]], an influential feminist organization.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iv4-Qy82BJ0C&q=it+changed+my+life+betty+friedan |title=It changed my life: writings on the women's movement |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1998|edition=reprint|isbn=0-674-46885-6 |access-date=2011-02-18}}</ref>
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| In addition to its contribution to feminism, ''The Feminine Mystique'' related to many other coinciding movements. "Her work indicates for us the ways that feminism was interconnected with the struggles of working-class men and women, with black and Jewish battles against racism and anti-Semitism… As a result, ''The Feminine Mystique'' had substantial impact on a wide range of political activists, thinkers, and ordinary individuals."<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Friedan | first1 = Betty | last2 = Fermaglich | first2 = Kirsten | last3 = Fine | first3 = Lisa | title = The Feminine Mystique: The Contexts, The Scholarship on the Feminine Mystique | edition = 1st | place = New York | publisher = W. W. Norton | pages = xx | date = 2013}}</ref>
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| By the year 2000, ''The Feminine Mystique'' had sold over 3 million copies and had been translated into many foreign languages.<ref name="nytimes2006"/>
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| On February 22 and 23, 2013, a symposium titled ''React: The Feminine Mystique at 50'', co-sponsored by [[The Schools of Public Engagement (The New School)|The New School for Public Engagement]] and [[Parsons School of Design|The Parsons School of Design]], was held.<ref name="adht.parsons.edu">[http://adht.parsons.edu/events/2013/03/the-feminine-mystique-symposium/ Media Coverage of the Feminine Mystique Symposium<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523042001/http://adht.parsons.edu/events/2013/03/the-feminine-mystique-symposium/ |date=2013-05-23 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.newschool.edu/eventdetail.aspx?id=86919 New Location - React: The Feminine Mystique at 50 (Day 1) | The New School | University Events<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> An accompanying exhibit titled ''REACT'' was also on display, consisting of twenty-five pieces of artwork responding to ''The Feminine Mystique''.<ref name="adht.parsons.edu"/>
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| Also in February 2013, a fiftieth-anniversary edition of ''The Feminine Mystique'' was published, with a new introduction by [[Gail Collins]].<ref>[http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=24766 The Feminine Mystique | W. W. Norton & Company<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
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| Also in 2013, to celebrate its centennial the U.S. Department of Labor created a list of over 100 ''Books that Shaped Work in America'', which included ''The Feminine Mystique.''<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/consuming-interests-blog/bal-consuming-what-the-jungle-and-what-do-people-do-all-day-have-in-common-20131210-story.html|title=What 'The Jungle' and 'What Do People Do All Day?' Have In Common|date=10 December 2013|author=Jamie Smith Hopkins|work=The Baltimore Sun|access-date=19 February 2017}}</ref><ref name="parade.condenast.com">[http://parade.condenast.com/278189/viannguyen/the-department-of-labor-chose-100-books-that-shaped-work-in-america/ The Department of Labor Chose 100+ Books that Shaped Work in America<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> The Department of Labor later chose ''The Feminine Mystique'' as one of its top ten books from that list.<ref name="parade.condenast.com"/>
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| Also in 2013, ''The Feminine Mystique'' was discussed in ''[[Makers: Women Who Make America]]''.<ref name="Kelly">Kelly, Kate (February 25, 2013). "[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-kelly/makers-women-who-make-america_b_2759887.html New PBS Program ''Makers'' Puts Women's Movement in Context]". ''The Huffington Post''.</ref>
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| In 2014 the Betty Friedan Hometown Tribute committee won the Superior Achievement award in the special projects category for its 50th anniversary celebration of the publication of ''The Feminine Mystique.'' They received the award from the Illinois State Historical Society.<ref name="m.pjstar.com">{{cite news|url=http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140428/NEWS/140429004/-1/news|title=Home schooled student, Friedan panel recognized|date=April 28, 2014|work=Journal Star|access-date=19 February 2017}}</ref>
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| ==Criticism==
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| === Disagreement ===
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| Immediately after its publishing, ''The Feminine Mystique'' was the recipient of much backlash against feminism. Significant numbers of women responded angrily to the book, which they felt implied that wives and mothers could never be fulfilled.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book | last1 = Friedan | first1 = Betty | last2 = Fermaglich | first2 = Kirsten | last3 = Fine | first3 = Lisa | title = The Feminine Mystique: The Contexts, The Scholarship on the Feminine Mystique | edition = 1st | place = New York | publisher = W. W. Norton | pages = 419 | date = 2013}}</ref> "Women who valued their roles as mothers and housewives interpreted Friedan's message as one that threatened their stability, devalued their labor, and disrespected their intelligence."<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Friedan | first1 = Betty | last2 = Fermaglich | first2 = Kirsten | last3 = Fine | first3 = Lisa | title = The Feminine Mystique: The Contexts, The Scholarship on the Feminine Mystique | edition = 1st | place = New York | publisher = W. W. Norton | pages = xxviii | date = 2013}}</ref> In a Letter to Editor in ''McCall's'', one woman wrote, "All this time I thought I was happy, and a nice person. Now I discover I've been miserable and some sort of monster in disguise—now out of disguise. How awful!"<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Friedan | first1 = Betty | last2 = Fermaglich | first2 = Kirsten | last3 = Fine | first3 = Lisa | title = The Feminine Mystique: The Contexts, The Scholarship on the Feminine Mystique | edition = 1st | place = New York | publisher = W. W. Norton | pages = 381| date = 2013}}</ref> Another said, "Mrs. Friedan should save her pity for those who really need it—the half starved, oppressed people in the world."<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite book | last1 = Friedan | first1 = Betty | last2 = Fermaglich | first2 = Kirsten | last3 = Fine | first3 = Lisa | title = The Feminine Mystique: The Contexts, The Scholarship on the Feminine Mystique | edition = 1st | place = New York | publisher = W. W. Norton | pages = 380 | date = 2013}}</ref> When women critical of the work were not expressing personal offense at Friedan's description of the housewife's plight, they were accusing her of planning to destroy American families.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Jessica Weiss quoted in her paper, "If the mothers, (or housewives as we are called) took this advice, what would become of our children? Or better yet, the future of the world."<ref name="ReferenceB"/>
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| Historian [[Joanne Meyerowitz]] argues that many of the contemporary magazines and articles of the period did not place women solely in the home, as Friedan stated, but in fact supported the notions of full- or part-time jobs for women seeking to follow a career path rather than being a housewife.<ref>Joanne Meyerowitz, "Beyond ''The Feminine Mystique'': A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946–1958", ''Journal of American History'' 79 (March 1993): 1455–1482. p. 1459 {{JSTOR|2080212}}</ref> These articles did, however, still emphasize the importance of maintaining the traditional image of femininity.<ref name="Schuessler">{{Cite news|title = 'The Feminine Mystique,' Reassessed after 50 Years|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/books/50-years-of-reassessing-the-feminine-mystique.html|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 2013-02-18|access-date = 2015-09-22|issn = 0362-4331|first = Jennifer|last = Schuessler}}</ref>
| | '''''The Female Eunuch''''' is a 1970 book by [[Germaine Greer]] that became an international [[bestseller]] and an important text in the [[feminist]] movement. Greer's thesis is that the "traditional" [[suburb]]an, [[consumerism|consumerist]], [[nuclear family]] represses women sexually, and that this devitalises them, rendering them [[eunuch]]s. The book was published in London in October 1970. It received a mixed reception, but by March 1971, it had nearly sold out its second printing. It has been translated into eleven languages.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wilde |first=W. H. |author2=Hooton, Joy |author3=Andrews, Barry |title= The Oxford companion to Australian Literature|orig-year=1985|edition=2nd |year= 1994|publisher= Oxford University Press|location= Melbourne|isbn=0-19-553381-X |quote= ... the book became almost a [[sacred text]] for the international women's liberation movement of the 1970s, notwithstanding sporadic criticism of aspects of its [[ideology]] from some feminists.|page=271 }}</ref> |
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| === Author and publication process ===
| | A sequel to ''The Female Eunuch'', entitled ''The Whole Woman'', was published in 1999.<ref>Greer. ''The Whole Woman'' Doubleday, {{ISBN|0-385-60016-X}}</ref> |
| Daniel Horowitz, a [[Professor]] of [[American Studies]] at [[Smith College]], points out that although Friedan presented herself as a typical suburban housewife, she was involved with radical politics and labor journalism in her youth, and during the time she wrote ''The Feminine Mystique'' she worked as a freelance journalist for women's magazines and as a community organizer.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.awm-math.org/bookreviews/SepOct99.html |title=AWM Book Review: Betty Friedan |publisher=Association for Women in Mathematics |date=September–October 1999 |access-date=2011-02-18}}</ref><ref>Horowitz, Daniel. "Rethinking Betty Friedan and ''The Feminine Mystique'': Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in Cold War America." ''[[American Quarterly]],'' Volume 48, Number 1, March 1996, pp. 1-42<!-- NOTE: This is not [[Daniel Horowitz]], an [[attorney]], but another Daniel Horowitz, a professor of [[American Studies]] at [[Smith College]]--> {{JSTOR|30041520}}</ref>
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| The W. W. Norton publishing house, where Betty Friedan's work was initially circulated to be published as a book also generated some criticism. In fact an employee under the alias "L M" wrote in a two-page memo that<ref name="Schuessler"/> Friedan's theoretical views were "too obvious and feminine", as well as critiquing her approach by suggesting it to be unscientific. | | ==Summary== |
| | The book is a [[Feminism|feminist]] analysis, written with a mixture of [[polemic]] and scholarly research. It was a key text of the feminist movement in the 1970s, broadly discussed and criticised by other feminists and the wider community, particularly through the author's high profile in the broadcast media. In sections titled "Body", "Soul", "Energy", "Love" and "Hate" Greer examines historical definitions of women's perception of [[Self (psychology)|self]] and uses a premise of imposed limitations to critique modern [[consumer]] societies, [[female]] "[[Norm (sociology)|normality]]", and [[masculinity|masculine]] shaping of [[stereotype]]s quoting, "The World has lost its soul, and I my sex."<ref name="Greer, Germaine 2006">Greer, Germaine. ''The Female Eunuch''. UK: Harper Perennial, 2006.</ref> In contrast to earlier feminist works, Greer uses humour, boldness, and coarse language to present a direct and candid description of female sexuality, much of this subject having remained undiscussed in English-speaking societies. Greer's irreverence towards [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[psychoanalysis]] was inspired by [[Simone de Beauvoir]]'s ''[[The Second Sex]]''.<ref>{{cite book |author=Webster, Richard |title=Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis |publisher=The Orwell Press |location=Oxford |year=2005 |page=22 |isbn=0-9515922-5-4}}</ref> The work bridged academia and the contemporary arts in presenting the targets of the final section of the book, ''Revolution''; it is in accord, and often associated with, a creative and revolutionary movement of the period. |
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| === Excluded groups of women ===
| | Greer argues that men hate women, though the latter do not realise this and are taught to hate themselves.<ref>Wallace 1997</ref> |
| In addition, Friedan has been criticized for focusing solely on the plight of middle-class white women, and not giving enough attention to the differing situations encountered by women in less stable economic situations, or women of other races or trans-women. According to Kirsten Fermaglich and Lisa Fine, "women of color—African American, Latina, Asian American and Native American women—were completely absent from Friedan's vision, as were white working-class and poor women."<ref name="W.W. Norton" /> Despite being written during the Civil Rights Movement, Friedan's text "barely mentions African-American women."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/magazine/the-feminine-mystique-at-50.html?pagewanted=all|title='The Feminine Mystique' at 50|date=23 January 2013|author=Gail Collins|work=The New York Times|access-date=19 February 2017}}</ref> In her ''[[Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center]]'', Black feminist [[bell hooks]] writes "She did not speak of the needs of women without men, without children, without homes. She ignored the existence of all non-white women and poor white women. She did not tell readers whether it was more fulfilling to be a maid, a babysitter, a factory worker, a clerk, or a prostitute than to be a leisure-class housewife. She made her plight and the plight of white women like herself synonymous with a condition affecting all American women. In so doing, she deflected attention away from her classism, her racism, her sexist attitudes towards the masses of American women. In the context of her book, Friedan makes clear that the women she saw as victimized by sexism were college-educated white women".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hooks|first=Bell|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/45502856|title=Feminist theory : from margin to center|date=2000|publisher=Pluto|isbn=0-7453-1664-6|edition=2nd|location=London|pages=2|oclc=45502856}}</ref>
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| Friedan has also been criticized for prejudice against [[homosexuality]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stephaniecoontz.com/articles/article59.htm |title=Puncturing Betty Friedan, but Not the Mystique: An Interview with Stephanie Coontz |publisher=Stephaniecoontz.com |date=2011-01-24 |access-date=2011-02-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927185619/http://www.stephaniecoontz.com/articles/article59.htm |archive-date=2011-09-27 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>Daniel Horowitz, "Rethinking Betty Friedan and ''The Feminine Mystique'': Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in Cold War America", ''American Quarterly'', Vol. 48, No. 1 (Mar. 1996) p. 22 {{JSTOR|30041520}}</ref> In part, this criticism stems from her adherence to the paradigmatic belief at the time that "bad mothers" caused deviance from heteronormative and cisnormative society.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Friedan | first1 = Betty | last2 = Fermaglich | first2 = Kirsten | last3 = Fine | first3 = Lisa | title = The Feminine Mystique: The Contexts, The Scholarship on the Feminine Mystique | edition = 1st | place = New York | publisher = W. W. Norton | pages = xiv | date = 2013}}</ref>
| | In her final title labelled ''Revolution'', Greer argues that change had to come about via [[Social revolution|revolution]], not evolution. Women should get to know and come to accept their own bodies, taste their own menstrual blood, and give up [[celibacy]] and [[monogamy]]. Yet they should not burn their bras. "Bras are a ludicrous invention", she wrote, "but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression."<ref>Foreword to the Paladin 21st Anniversary Edition, 2006.</ref> Greer complains of the "genteel, middle-class ladies" who sit on women's rights committees and spend their time signing petitions to achieve equality. Greer expresses that to gain equality a woman must not be genteel but she should instead seek revolution. |
| | In a foreword added to the 21st anniversary edition, Greer references the loss of women's freedom with the "sudden death of communism" (1989) as catapult for women the world over for a sudden transition into consumer Western society wherein there is little to no protection for mothers and the disabled; here, there is no freedom to speak: |
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| Despite these criticisms, her "language aimed at white American middle-class women won large numbers of supporters to the feminist cause," implying perhaps that Friedan's decision to exclude other groups was deliberate in mobilizing a group of women that had in some cases not thought of the improvement of their rights.<ref name="W.W. Norton" />
| | <blockquote>The freedom I pleaded for twenty years ago was freedom to be a person, with dignity, integrity, nobility, passion, pride that constitute personhood. Freedom to run, shout, talk loudly and sit with your knees apart. Freedom to know and love the earth and all that swims, lies, and crawls upon it ... most of the women in the world are still afraid, still hungry, still mute and loaded by religion with all kinds of fetters, masked, muzzled, mutilated and beaten.<ref>{{cite book |author=Greer, Germaine |title=The Female Eunuch |publisher=Flamingo |location=London |year=1993 |page=[https://archive.org/details/femaleeunuc000gree/page/11 11] |isbn=0-586-08055-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/femaleeunuc000gree/page/11 }}</ref></blockquote> |
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| ==See also== | | ==Reception== |
| * [[Biblical patriarchy]]
| | [[File:Crop (2) of Camille Paglia no Fronteiras do Pensamento São Paulo 2015.jpg|thumb|[[Camille Paglia]] is an ardent fan of ''The Female Eunuch'', highlighting Greer's "brilliant and aggressive voice".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/germaine-greer-professional-contrarian-nature-lover-and-feminist-20180611-h117ny|title=Germaine Greer: professional contrarian, nature lover, and feminist|work=[[Australian Financial Review]]|date=22 June 2018|accessdate=16 January 2023}}</ref>]] |
| * [[Cult of Domesticity]]
| | In a 1971 interview, Greer said of her book that "The title is an indication of the problem. Women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality. They've become suspicious about it. Like beasts, for example, who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master's ulterior motives—to be fattened or made docile—women have been cut off from their capacity for action. It's a process that sacrifices vigor for delicacy and succulence, and one that's got to be changed."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/22/archives/germaine-greer-opinions-that-may-shock-the-faithful.html |title=Germaine Greer -- Opinions That May Shock the Faithful |first=Judith |last=Weinraub |date=22 March 1971 |work=[[The New York Times]] |at=food fashions family furnishings section, page 28 |archive-url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/specials/greer-shock.html |archive-date=5 October 2016}}</ref> In January 1972 ''[[The Age]]''{{'}}s reviewer [[Thelma Forshaw]] described ''The Female Eunuch'' as "the orchestrated over-the-back-fence grizzle ... based on the curious fancy ... we were all men, and then some fiend castrated half of us and gave us a ghastly internal bookie's bag called a womb".<ref name="Ricketson">{{cite book | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ShkiqPn_tToC&pg=PA53 | title = The Best Australian Profiles | chapter = Germaine Greer | last = Dunstan | first = Keith | author-link = Keith Dunstan | editor = Matthew Ricketson | page = 53 | location = Melbourne, Vic | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2004 | isbn = 9781863952934 }}</ref> The newspaper declared that the review "has stirred up a considerable controversy".<ref name="Age1">{{cite news | url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19720120&id=neFUAAAAIBAJ&pg=5321,3108293 | title = Letters to the Editor | page = 8 | work = [[The Age]] | publisher = [[Fairfax Media]] | date = 20 January 1972 | access-date = 13 November 2012 }}</ref> According to the journalist [[Keith Dunstan]], "[t]he reviews of [the book] were extremely mixed. The most famous was by [Forshaw] of ''The Age''".<ref name="Ricketson"/> Dunstan contrasted this with a positive review by [[Sylvia Lawson]] of ''[[The Australian]]'', "[it has] been greeted in Australia with some fantastically myopic, complacent and resentful printed comment ... [the book] is neither dogmatic nor complacent, neither strident nor paranoic ... [it is] ranging, exploratory and questioning".<ref name="Ricketson"/> |
| * [[History of feminism]]
| |
| * [[Home economics]]
| |
| * [[Sex and the Single Girl]]
| |
| * ''[[Father Knows Best]]''
| |
| * ''[[The Female Eunuch]]''
| |
| * ''[[The Stepford Wives]]''
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| ==References== | | [[Laura Miller (writer)|Laura Miller]] of ''[[Salon (website)|Salon]]'' described the book as a "fitful, passionate, scattered text, not cohesive enough to qualify as a manifesto. It's all over the place, impulsive, and fatally naive—which is to say it is the quintessential product of its time."<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/06/22/greer | title = Germaine Greer | access-date = 2007-05-22 | author = Laura Miller | date= 1999-06-22 | work = Brilliant Careers | publisher = Salon | pages = 1 of 2 | quote = They didn't become megastars, but they became a librarian or something. I've heard women say again and again when the subject of Germaine comes up: 'Well, her book changed my life for the better.' And they'll be modest women living pretty ordinary lives, but better lives." Women entirely unlike Germaine Greer, the feminist who improved the world in spite of herself. }}</ref> The neuroscientist [[Simon LeVay]] wrote in ''[[Queer Science]]'' (1996) that subsequent scientific research contradicted Greer's claim that there are no differences between the brains of men and women.<ref>{{cite book |author=LeVay, Simon |title=Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality |publisher=The MIT Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |year=1996 |pages=139–143 |isbn=0-262-12199-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/queerscienceusea00leva/page/139 }}</ref> The critic [[Camille Paglia]] called ''The Female Eunuch'' a "marvelous book", and described Greer's international tour to promote it as "the zenith of twentieth-century feminism".<ref>{{cite book |author=Paglia, Camille |title=Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism |publisher=Pantheon Books |location=New York |year=2017 |page=131 |isbn=978-0-375-42477-9}}</ref> |
| '''Notes''' | |
| {{reflist}} | |
|
| |
|
| == Further reading == | | ==Notes== |
| * [[Stephanie Coontz|Coontz, Stephanie]]. ''A Strange Stirring: "The Feminine Mystique" and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s'' (Basic Books; 2011) 222 pages {{ISBN|0-465-00200-5}}
| | {{Reflist}} |
| * Meyerowitz, Joanne. "The Myth of the Feminine Mystique" in ''Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II''. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (eds.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY. {{ISBN|1-881089-97-5}}
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| ==External links== | | ==External links== |
| * [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/magazine/the-feminine-mystique-at-50.html "''The Feminine Mystique'' at 50"], [[Gail Collins]]' essay in ''[[The New York Times]]'', an excerpt from her introduction to the 50th-anniversary edition of ''The Feminine Mystique'' | | {{Wikiquote|Germaine Greer#The Female Eunuch|The Female Eunuch}} |
| * [http://www.c-span.org/video/?170790-1/writings-betty-friedan "Writings of Betty Friedan"], focusing on ''The Feminine Mystique'' from [[C-SPAN]]'s ''[[American Writers: A Journey Through History]]''
| | * [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/133_wbc_archive_new/page3.shtml Germaine Greer discusses ''The Female Eunuch''] on the BBC ''[[World Book Club]]'' |
| * [http://cf.en.cl/ Cheerless Fantasies, A Corrective Catalogue of Errors in Betty Friedan's ''The Feminine Mystique'']
| | * ''[https://archive.org/download/TheFemaleEunuchGermaineGreer/The%20Female%20Eunuch%20-%20Germaine%20Greer.mobi The Female Eunuch]'' (.mobi) at [[Archive.org]] |
| * {{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/feminist-author-betty-friedan-dies-on-85th-birthday-465745.html|title=Feminist author Betty Friedan dies on 85th birthday|date=6 February 2006|author=David Usborne|work=The Independent|access-date=19 February 2017}}
| | {{Radical feminism}} |
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| {{Second-wave feminism}}
| | {{DEFAULTSORT:Female Eunuch, The}} |
| {{Feminism}}
| | [[Category:1970 non-fiction books]] |
| {{Authority control}}
| | [[Category:Books by Germaine Greer]] |
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Feminine Mystique}} | |
| [[Category:1963 non-fiction books]] | |
| [[Category:American non-fiction books]]
| |
| [[Category:Books by Betty Friedan]] | |
| [[Category:English-language books]] | | [[Category:English-language books]] |
| [[Category:Feminist books]] | | [[Category:English non-fiction books]] |
| [[Category:1950s in the United States]] | | [[Category:Gender studies books]] |
| [[Category:1960s in the United States]] | | [[Category:Non-fiction books about consumerism]] |
| [[Category:Obscenity controversies in literature]] | | [[Category:Radical feminist books]] |
| [[Category:Second-wave feminism in the United States]] | | [[Category:Second-wave feminism]] |
| | [[Category:MacGibbon & Kee books]] |
Template:Infobox book
The Female Eunuch is a 1970 book by Germaine Greer that became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. Greer's thesis is that the "traditional" suburban, consumerist, nuclear family represses women sexually, and that this devitalises them, rendering them eunuchs. The book was published in London in October 1970. It received a mixed reception, but by March 1971, it had nearly sold out its second printing. It has been translated into eleven languages.[1]
A sequel to The Female Eunuch, entitled The Whole Woman, was published in 1999.[2]
Summary
The book is a feminist analysis, written with a mixture of polemic and scholarly research. It was a key text of the feminist movement in the 1970s, broadly discussed and criticised by other feminists and the wider community, particularly through the author's high profile in the broadcast media. In sections titled "Body", "Soul", "Energy", "Love" and "Hate" Greer examines historical definitions of women's perception of self and uses a premise of imposed limitations to critique modern consumer societies, female "normality", and masculine shaping of stereotypes quoting, "The World has lost its soul, and I my sex."[3] In contrast to earlier feminist works, Greer uses humour, boldness, and coarse language to present a direct and candid description of female sexuality, much of this subject having remained undiscussed in English-speaking societies. Greer's irreverence towards Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis was inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.[4] The work bridged academia and the contemporary arts in presenting the targets of the final section of the book, Revolution; it is in accord, and often associated with, a creative and revolutionary movement of the period.
Greer argues that men hate women, though the latter do not realise this and are taught to hate themselves.[5]
In her final title labelled Revolution, Greer argues that change had to come about via revolution, not evolution. Women should get to know and come to accept their own bodies, taste their own menstrual blood, and give up celibacy and monogamy. Yet they should not burn their bras. "Bras are a ludicrous invention", she wrote, "but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression."[6] Greer complains of the "genteel, middle-class ladies" who sit on women's rights committees and spend their time signing petitions to achieve equality. Greer expresses that to gain equality a woman must not be genteel but she should instead seek revolution.
In a foreword added to the 21st anniversary edition, Greer references the loss of women's freedom with the "sudden death of communism" (1989) as catapult for women the world over for a sudden transition into consumer Western society wherein there is little to no protection for mothers and the disabled; here, there is no freedom to speak:
The freedom I pleaded for twenty years ago was freedom to be a person, with dignity, integrity, nobility, passion, pride that constitute personhood. Freedom to run, shout, talk loudly and sit with your knees apart. Freedom to know and love the earth and all that swims, lies, and crawls upon it ... most of the women in the world are still afraid, still hungry, still mute and loaded by religion with all kinds of fetters, masked, muzzled, mutilated and beaten.[7]
Reception
Camille Paglia is an ardent fan of
The Female Eunuch, highlighting Greer's "brilliant and aggressive voice".
[8] In a 1971 interview, Greer said of her book that "The title is an indication of the problem. Women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality. They've become suspicious about it. Like beasts, for example, who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master's ulterior motives—to be fattened or made docile—women have been cut off from their capacity for action. It's a process that sacrifices vigor for delicacy and succulence, and one that's got to be changed."[9] In January 1972 The Age's reviewer Thelma Forshaw described The Female Eunuch as "the orchestrated over-the-back-fence grizzle ... based on the curious fancy ... we were all men, and then some fiend castrated half of us and gave us a ghastly internal bookie's bag called a womb".[10] The newspaper declared that the review "has stirred up a considerable controversy".[11] According to the journalist Keith Dunstan, "[t]he reviews of [the book] were extremely mixed. The most famous was by [Forshaw] of The Age".[10] Dunstan contrasted this with a positive review by Sylvia Lawson of The Australian, "[it has] been greeted in Australia with some fantastically myopic, complacent and resentful printed comment ... [the book] is neither dogmatic nor complacent, neither strident nor paranoic ... [it is] ranging, exploratory and questioning".[10]
Laura Miller of Salon described the book as a "fitful, passionate, scattered text, not cohesive enough to qualify as a manifesto. It's all over the place, impulsive, and fatally naive—which is to say it is the quintessential product of its time."[12] The neuroscientist Simon LeVay wrote in Queer Science (1996) that subsequent scientific research contradicted Greer's claim that there are no differences between the brains of men and women.[13] The critic Camille Paglia called The Female Eunuch a "marvelous book", and described Greer's international tour to promote it as "the zenith of twentieth-century feminism".[14]
Notes
- ↑ Wilde, W. H. (1994). The Oxford companion to Australian Literature, 2nd. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-553381-X. “... the book became almost a sacred text for the international women's liberation movement of the 1970s, notwithstanding sporadic criticism of aspects of its ideology from some feminists.”
- ↑ Greer. The Whole Woman Doubleday, Template:ISBN
- ↑ Greer, Germaine. The Female Eunuch. UK: Harper Perennial, 2006.
- ↑ Webster, Richard (2005). Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. Oxford: The Orwell Press. ISBN 0-9515922-5-4.
- ↑ Wallace 1997
- ↑ Foreword to the Paladin 21st Anniversary Edition, 2006.
- ↑ Greer, Germaine (1993). The Female Eunuch. London: Flamingo. ISBN 0-586-08055-4.
- ↑ Germaine Greer: professional contrarian, nature lover, and feminist. Australian Financial Review (22 June 2018). Retrieved on 16 January 2023.
- ↑ Weinraub, Judith. Germaine Greer -- Opinions That May Shock the Faithful, The New York Times, 22 March 1971.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Dunstan, Keith (2004). “Germaine Greer”, Matthew Ricketson: The Best Australian Profiles. Melbourne, Vic: Black Inc. ISBN 9781863952934.
- ↑ Letters to the Editor, The Age, Fairfax Media, 20 January 1972, p. 8.
- ↑ Laura Miller (1999-06-22). Germaine Greer. Brilliant Careers 1 of 2. Salon. “They didn't become megastars, but they became a librarian or something. I've heard women say again and again when the subject of Germaine comes up: 'Well, her book changed my life for the better.' And they'll be modest women living pretty ordinary lives, but better lives." Women entirely unlike Germaine Greer, the feminist who improved the world in spite of herself.”
- ↑ LeVay, Simon (1996). Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 139–143. ISBN 0-262-12199-9.
- ↑ Paglia, Camille (2017). Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0-375-42477-9.
External links
Template:Wikiquote
Template:Radical feminism
_of_Camille_Paglia_no_Fronteiras_do_Pensamento_S%C3%A3o_Paulo_2015.jpg)