Reddit reviews The Feminine Mystique

How do you interpret this quote?

" I read Betty Friedan’s book [The Feminine Mystique] because I was very curious about it, and it’s so whiny, it’s just enough to drive a modern person mad to listen to these suburban housewives from the late ’50s ensconced in their comfortable secure lives complaining about the fact that they’re bored because they don’t have enough opportunity. It’s like, Jesus get a hobby. "

You are of course entitled to your interpretation of feminism and your political opinions, but I must respectfully disagree.

I don't think feminism is the same thing as libertarianism, it is not about celebrating that women have the chance to make choices that subordinate women to men without any consideration for how patriarchy leads both men and women to find those choices expected, natural, inevitable and therefore (by way of sour grapes and sublimation) desirable. Its about problematizing inequality and gender based hierarchy and relationships of subordination whether they are on some level chosen or not.

Feminism requires that second level of analysis rather than subsuming all politics into the mantra of choice without consideration for how those choices impact society and are shaped by patriarchal ideology and social necessities.

The position that all choices are equally desirable and there can be no further inquiry into the political desirability of a relationship, regardless of power dynamics, as long as it can be understood as 'chosen' on some level, is not a feminist view of society. Thats a libertarian view of society.

I would encourage you (and other people following this thread) to read The Second Sex and The Feminine Mystique if you haven't already.

I want to be clear : housework isn't bad. Cleaning isn't bad. Cooking isn't bad. In fact, I do all of those things.

What's bad is social norms preventing a person from doing anything else. My mother, for example, had to fight for the right to pursue an advanced degree.

The constitutional amendment banning discrimination based on gender in (among other places) schools and workplaces was passed in her lifetime. Prior to that it was perfectly legal.

The (tedious, stupid) "get back in the kitchen" jokes reference that cultural climate without challenging it.

What's more, the legacy of that cultural climate is that there are so few women participating in technology in general and (by extension) reddit specifically.

These (constant and ubiquitous) jokes maintain a boy's club atmosphere and do nothing to indicate to the few female participants we have that they're welcome here and recognized as full equal members.

I'm not trying to censor anyone. I believe that each and every person on this website has the right to say anything -- even that all women are dumb fucking cunts and that anyone who complains about that characterization just needs some deep dicking.

But I reserve the right to call people out on their dumb, lazy, misogynist bullshit. The free speech pendulum swings both ways.

If you're genuinely curious for a fuller, more intelligent explanation of why that's so bad, I will buy you this book. No joke. PM me your mailing address or make an amazon wishlist with that item and send me the link if you're concerned for your privacy and think I have nefarious intentions. If you're reading, I'm buying.

I don't think you can disprove an opinion. I think you can contest an opinion, however, and I think some opinions are better than others. Let's use a more straightforward example. "The world is a better place when black people are enslaved." There is no way to objectively prove this untrue, and yet I think it's a worse opinion than the inverse. And, y'know, contesting the other opinion in this case meant fighting a war. If you think that Peterson's opinion isn't that bad, that's a different matter, but it being an opinion does not itself change the value of contesting. Given that he thinks that women fighting the fact that they were forced into the role of housekeepers were just whining about being bored, and that their complaints were therefore trivial, I think his opinion is quite worth arguing.


Here's that quote, for the record: "I read Betty Friedan’s book [The Feminine Mystique] because I was very curious about it, and it’s so whiny, it’s just enough to drive a modern person mad to listen to these suburban housewives from the late ’50s ensconced in their comfortable secure lives complaining about the fact that they’re bored because they don’t have enough opportunity. It’s like, Jesus get a hobby."

>Adult Fiction:

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Grass by Sheri Tepper

Native Tongue by Suzette Haden-Elgin

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Their Eyes Are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson


>Adolescent Lit:

Speak by Laurie Halse-Anderson


>Nonfiction:

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

And I agree with others, Simone de Beauvoir is a great read

This is a randomly amazing contest of random amazingness.

Morthy Demands:

Posh Old Englishman in Londontown [Found on "Little Bit of Everything!"]

Oh God! [Found on "Read or GTFO!"]

So phallic right now [Found on "Little Bit of Everything!"]

Akeleie Demands:

Geektastic! [Found on "Read or GTFO!"]

Reach for the Stars! [Found on "Little Bit of Everything!"]

Deserted Island! [Found on Little Bit of Everything!]

This was hilarious to me!

You could use a URL shorterner, possibly? The Amazon links are really, really long.

Ooh! Ooh!

After some googling, I learned that you can directly shorten amazon's links: See here.

So, for example:

amazon.com/The-Feminine-Mystique-Betty-Friedan/dp/0393322572/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342892808&sr=8-1&keywords=the+feminine+mystique

becomes

amzn.com/0393322572

And it doesn't even redirect to some random page. It goes straight to it. :D

Who's got book recommendations? Here are mine:

• I recently read Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust and it was AMAZING! It's a graphic novel/memoir (which there seem to be a lot of lately and I love it because it combines two of my favorite things) about the author's time as a young adult traveling around Italy in the 80s. It starts with her and her friend turning tricks to raise money for the trip and gets crazier from there. A lot of it was about her dealing with the fact that men are only interested in her to sleep with her, and her disillusionment with the punk/runaway society she makes herself part of.
  
• I also read Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris's new book, and it was good. I laughed. BUT it didn't recapture the hilarity I felt reading Me Talk Pretty One Day or Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. But still, I recommend it if you like Sedaris.
  
• And I just started reading The Feminine Mystique but I haven't gotten into the actual book yet because there are like 4 introductions. I'm excited to read it, though.