Sue’s Reviews > The Feminine Mystique > Status Update

"'Early domesticity has always been most characteristic of most savages, of most peasants, of the urban poor....'" Was quoted in the context that academic institutions were dumbing down women's curriculums as women felt the life of the mind was unfeminine. Women were running from challenges with personal growth and self realization, they fled to positions as wives/mothers and chose to remain as a shell of a human.

She's writing about the impact of Freudian theory on the US; being the grandfather of documenting the systemic oppression of women. Penis envy, my ass.

Betty quickly builds the historical/cultural context of how women were demoralized. Her interviews with 1950's working women stunned me as I hadn't realized their moms were "Rosie the Riviter" and their grandmothers were suffragettes. These career women found themselves were watching 50 years of progression fizzle out in front of their eyes. Has Dorothy Parker been a woman of the 1950's, she'd have been ignored.