Feminine Mystique in the American Culture
Introduction
Under the American culture, women are expected to perform their domestic roles. As such they become enslaved of domestication and most often are deprived of the opportunity to find their identity. Women who merely settled for their housewives roles manifest the predicament of American women. This is the reason why the Friedan’s ideas and imagery of women as dehumanized victims was embraced by Americans. It truthfully depicted their personal lives and can be considered as an effective tool for liberation.
However, as the new generation of women emerged, they came to realize the need to engage in activities outside marriage and motherhood to find self identity. Increasingly, women are breaking out from the norms and expectations of their society. The post war period illustrated the changing role of women as they become wage earning individuals. As they integrate roles outside the family, the American culture and society has been reshaped.
Still, such changes have contributed little in improving the social and economic status of women. Even now, contemporary women are faced with the conflicting terms of performing multiple roles. As they fulfill the desire to develop their potentials they are somewhat conflicted with their domestic responsibilities.
In this sense, contemporary women are conflicted between the society’s expectation and their personal desire to improve their identity.
Familial Roles of Women
The enormous consensus on the propriety of marrying has confined women to domestic roles in the American culture. The social penalties of not marrying for women weighed heavily for them than that for men. American women worry about the anxieties that are brought by spinsterhood. After the war, single women are left with limited educational and occupational opportunities and thus marriage appeared to be the most viable option for them. Both sexes are drawn to the aisle bowing to uphold social conventions. For women, marriage has become a legitimate path out of their home. Young women saw marriage as the logical route to get out of their own family (Weiss24).
The analogy of comfortable concentration camps to women has been accepted as a description of the lives of American women. Such analogy confirmed the understanding of women of their own predicament. As Friedan wrote, “the women who ‘adjust’ as housewives, who grow up wanting to be ‘just a housewife,’ are in as much danger as the millions who walked to their own death in the concentration camps…. “(qtd in Fermaglich205) .The central argument was the American cultural outlets including women’s magazines, colleges and advertising industry exalting the feminine mystique as mothers and housewives at home. Such mystique has suppressed the growth of women by confining them to their homes and to domestic lives. Only through the resistance of such mystique and the breaking away from the life of domesticity can American women grow as human beings.
Friedan’s ideas are eagerly embraced by many women and believed that her image of a dehumanized victim depict their personal lives. These women described their housewives role as “victims”, “trapped” or “servile”. The arguments presented by Friedan are effective tool for liberation. It spoke truthfully enough to inspire women at that time and since (Fermaglich205).
In the final chapter “Progressive Dehumanization: The Comfortable Concentration Camp”, it was argued that women are denied of their humanity by their domestication. Friedan claimed suburban women as dependent, passive and childlike. They gave up their adult frame of reference by living at the lower human level of food and things. Adult capabilities are not required of with such work since it is endless, monotonous and unrewarding (Fermaglich205). Moreover, dependent women are likely to become parasitic who preyed upon their husbands and children. Like inmates of dehumanized concentration camps, American women have come to internalize their inferiority and turned their aggression to their loved ones and even to themselves.
The boredom and bitterness of mothers was eventually sensed by the new generation of women. They moved towards a radical movement as the result of their resistance to the same roles. The feminist novel Burning Questions by Alex Kats Schulman (1978) depicted the generation gap that separated the sixties generation from their parents. The heroine of the novel was provoked by the shallow conformity and the emptiness of materialism that thrive in her middle class suburban family. Ultimately, she explored the burning questions of her lifetime by joining a women’s group (Kerbed et al. 313).
These women as well as the elders of the baby boom formed the women’s liberation movement. They found themselves confronting the contradictions of their aspirations and the subordinate status with men in movement and in their jobs. Young women whatever their age have joined the women’s liberation movement with their personal acquaintance with the power of the Feminine Mystique. This may be in the form of their mothers or the cultural symbol of motherhood during the fifties.
Moreover, daughters find the generation gap as more complicated as they reject the world their mother have lived to live out dreams of their own. As Friedan discovered, many mothers have lost their sense of identity and lived through the lives of their husband and children. Consumed by their family lives, they have forfeited careers and political ideals for the comfort of their homes. Some of them have not even to make dreams for their selves. Because of this, daughters of the fifties have come to recognize the need for independent identity which challenged the feminine mystique’s emphasis on motherhood. The fear of being an ordinary housewife can then be considered as the main drive behind female generation gap (Kerbed et al.316).
Increasingly, women discovered the need to find a self identity and break out from social conventions. In the Beth Bailey’s book, “From Front Porch to the Back Seat: Courtship in 20th Century America, dating elicited shock when it emerged after the turn of the century. Until that decade, women are pursued by men through courtship. Men typically court a woman by calling on her and her parents at their homes. The intent during those days was marriage and the courtship was so structured. Numerous rules govern everything from the proper amount of time to be spent and the appropriate topics for conversations (tad in Judge, 1997). However, such procedure changed with the birth of cities in the early period of the 20th century. Children were lured by the excitement and the freedom associated with the cities. Thus the power went to the women who are once controlled by the particulars of the courting call to the man (Judge10).
Such changes are manifestations of the desire to liberate women’s role in the society. The ambitions to achieve identity became associated with doing something outside marriage and motherhood. With this, the role of American women in the family and the society had its turning point during the early sixties. Middle class American women form 1950s to the 70s turned to become wage earning to contribute to the family life. They have reshaped the American family, the labor force and the society in general. More and more women until their late fifties became more likely to be employed (Weiss 50).
Despite the early marriages and the expectations for their domestic roles, women integrated a role outside their homes into their family lives. The employment of women had important ramification not only in the workplace but in the American society in general. Aside from the better paid industrial positions paid to women, hiring during the wartime loosened the cultural barriers against women employees. However, the employment advances during the war did not at all improve the status of women as workers. Neither did it result to a lasting commitment with the government to solve the dilemmas of working mothers.
Moreover, women are guided by conflicting terms. Like everybody else, they want to develop their personalities to the full while some want a home and develop a family. For women, marriage and child bearing ahs become the main source of identity and prestige. The society through husbands, friends and kin dictates that women must be paragons of domesticity. While they can be career oriented, they still confront conflicting expectations (Moen 37). The dilemma they faced is not employment but how to combine it with motherhood. Since they continue to be the principal caretakers for the children, the problem is how to mesh their familial roles in the course of their lives. It remains debatable whether contemporary women who combine these roles are better off than the traditional full time housewives of the 1950s.
Conclusion
The domestic and passive roles of women as stay home mother have been in existence in the American culture. Because of this, women are regarded as subordinates and are confined to perform activities within the marriage and motherhood roles. It is no surprise that women have settled merely to these housewife roles. However, the new generation of women has shown resistance to these same roles. Women are increasingly realizing the need to break the enslaved status they hold by confronting the contradictions of their dreams with their subordinate status. Thus, the emphasis of the feminine mystique on motherhood is challenged. Ultimately, contemporary women still face the challenge of juggling their roles in the family in their quest for self identity.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Click to see the code!
To insert emoticon you must added at least one space before the code.