{"id":2093,"date":"2011-02-05T18:20:19","date_gmt":"2011-02-05T23:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=2093"},"modified":"2011-02-05T18:20:19","modified_gmt":"2011-02-05T23:20:19","slug":"feminism-goes-pop-thoughts-on-coontzs-a-strange-stirring-are-housewives-today-just-as-desperate-as-in-the-era-documented-by-friedan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2011\/02\/05\/feminism-goes-pop-thoughts-on-coontzs-a-strange-stirring-are-housewives-today-just-as-desperate-as-in-the-era-documented-by-friedan\/","title":{"rendered":"POP GOES FEMINISM: Thoughts on Coontz’s A Strange Stirring – Are “Housewives” today just as “Desperate” as in the era documented by Friedan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the fourth in a series this week from Girlw\/Pen<\/a> writers on Stephanie Coontz<\/a>\u2018s new book, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s<\/em><\/a>, which is a biography of Betty Friedan\u2019s iconic book.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Feminine Mystique<\/em>, is a book that, as Coontz notes \u201chas been credited\u2014or blamed\u2014for destroying, single-handedly and almost overnight, the 1950s consensus that women\u2019s place was in the home.\u201d In her new study of the book, its era, and its reception (both at its publication and over the years), Coontz doesn\u2019t shy away from documenting <\/em>The Feminine Mystique\u2019s<\/em> faults (chief among these, the limited view offered by its white heterosexual middle class author that not only silenced issues of working class women and women of color, but also framed homosexuality as a menace).<\/em><\/p>\n


\nThe faults of Friedan\u2019s book have of course been extensively analyzed and debated over the years, constructing Friedan as what Rebecca Traister<\/a> names \u201c<\/em>a revered and reviled feminist foremother.\u201d Coontz current work goes far beyond this debate though, placing The Feminine Mystique<\/em> within the context of its time and then expertly weaving in analysis of how many of its key arguments have resonated in the decades since. As Traister puts it in her New York Times<\/a><\/em> book review, the text functions as \u201ca timely contribution to the conversation about what constitutes progress for women (and for which women) in these days of mommy wars and mama grizzlies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The continuing \u201cmommy wars\u201d and their particular pervasiveness in the contemporary cultural moment makes Coontz\u2019 book (and the book her book is about \u2013 The Feminine Mystique<\/em>) incredibly relevant. As I read it, I could not help but picture the ways in which current females on the cultural radar \u2013 Sarah Palin, Angelina Jolie, Katie Perry, for example \u2013 STILL fit into the wife\/mother-is \u2013tantamount-to-a woman\u2019s-identity model. Yes, Palin is a politician, but she and others actively highlight that it is motherhood and wifery that defines her. Yes, Jolie has famously said she will not marry Pitt until all people have the right to marry, but she is positioned by the press as a global mother, with news of her adoptions\/mothering trumping her acting career. As for Katie Perry \u2013 she is not a mother, but her well documented marriage to Russell Brand (not to mention her bubble gum bright, salaciously sexy 50s era outfits) bring a sexed up cross between June Cleaver and I love Lucy to mind.<\/p>\n

Another cultural zeitgeist \u2013 Twilight<\/em> \u2013 similarly shapes women\u2019s identities as dependent on their relationships to men, famiy, and the home, with the end goal (as it is for the series protagonist) to become an eternal wife and mother.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

And \u2013 a show with a title that would fit very well between the pages of The Feminine Mystique<\/em> \u2013 Desperate Housewives<\/em> \u2013 has largely explored female identity as tied to what goes on in the home, between the sheets, and while chatting by the picket fences that populate Wisteria Lane, a block that, like Friedan\u2019s book, is mired in white middle class heterosexual privilege<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In contrast, a show set in the past, Mad Men,<\/em> is a much more valuable lens through which to view not only The Feminine Mystique <\/em>but also changing gender norms (as Coontz expertly reveals \u2013 with many show spoilers \u2013 here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

So, what does it say that a show set in the 60s is more feminist, more astute about gender norms and the damage they do to both men and women, than too contemporary shows such as Desperate Housewives <\/em>(and, I might add, pretty much all of Reality TV)? What does it say that current cultural icons such as Sarah Palin and Katie Perry (and yes, Bella Swan) would fit better in a 50s\/60s world where women were presented as needing to be tied to the home on the one hand and beholden to the male gaze on the other? Are we, as I have heard so many discuss, heading so far into the backlash that soon the era Friedan and Coontz document will seem more liberated than our own?<\/p>\n

I certainly hope not \u2013 and I hope this concern drives people to read Coontz timely work, a book that taps into something that should concern us a great deal \u2013 the continuing hold post-feminism and \u201cenlightened sexism\u201d<\/a> has over our cultural imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the fourth in a series this week from Girlw\/Pen writers on Stephanie Coontz\u2018s new book, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, which is a biography of Betty Friedan\u2019s iconic book. The Feminine Mystique, is a book that, as Coontz notes \u201chas been credited\u2014or blamed\u2014for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1921,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21110],"tags":[245,21351,21554,3109,21926],"class_list":["post-2093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-goes-feminism","tag-feminism","tag-feminist-history","tag-marriage-today","tag-motherhood","tag-womens-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}