How accurate was Friedans portrayal of American women held prisoner by the feminine mystique?
ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS: One could certainly say that Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique spoke to the lives of middle-class women far more than it spoke to the lives of other women; that is, ordinary women, working-class women, had always worked, if not full-time, then part-time. If they hadn’t gone out to work, they had figured out a way to make money, stretch incomes in their home roles. Still, I think it’s important to note that the kinds of women that Betty Friedan was talking about are not a small number of women in the 1950s. And because the suburban lifestyle is spreading in the 1950s, she spoke to a kind of breakdown of community, of urban community life, as well as to a shift in family values that was occurring in that period. You might want to call it middle class, but I think it was enormously important nonetheless. QUESTION: Why did the feminist movement of the 1960s occur when it did? ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS: I think that it emerged as strongly as it did because the proportions o
