As millions of people completed the annual U.S. census during the post-World War II ‘good life’, there was a common theme amongst suburban white women, “occupation: Housewife”. Following the World War II, the U.S. experienced times of economic prosperity as the middle-class was as strong as it had ever been, home ownership was at an all-time high, and more purchasing power allowed for a mass consumption society. However, there was one major underlying problem, one that was coined in Betty Friedan’s, The Feminine Mystique, as ‘the problem that has no name’. The problem of no name, one that can only be understood by the women experiencing it, was the implicit unhappiness of women adhering to the fabricated image of the happy housewife depicted
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The housewife can barely even dream about herself, only as her children’s mother and her husband’s wife (Friedan 59). As Friedan further explains, “Forbidden independence, they finally are swallowed in an image of such passive dependence that they want men to make the decisions, even in the home” (Freidan 44). Seceding to the feminine mystique, women lose individual identity and rely on the togetherness of the home. A letter to the editor from an edition of Ladies Home Journal published in 1954 titled “Bread Next to Babies”, provides a primary source of how women adhered to the feminine mystique, resulting in a loss of individual identity. In the letter she discusses her husband’s desire for her to bake bread, saying, “Arnold has told me that I should learn to bake bread: ‘Much more important to bake a good loaf for your husband than write a book.’”, and also, “Arnold came home soon afterward. Nothing I have done ever pleased him more (with the exception of the babies)!” (Jeannette Edwards Rattray). This letter to the editor further shows that women were viewed simply as that, women. Everything revolved around the husband or the children, while hardly any personal satisfaction was gained outside of pleasing one’s significant other, which was the root of the ‘problem that has no
The housewife can barely even dream about herself, only as her children’s mother and her husband’s wife (Friedan 59). As Friedan further explains, “Forbidden independence, they finally are swallowed in an image of such passive dependence that they want men to make the decisions, even in the home” (Freidan 44). Seceding to the feminine mystique, women lose individual identity and rely on the togetherness of the home. A letter to the editor from an edition of Ladies Home Journal published in 1954 titled “Bread Next to Babies”, provides a primary source of how women adhered to the feminine mystique, resulting in a loss of individual identity. In the letter she discusses her husband’s desire for her to bake bread, saying, “Arnold has told me that I should learn to bake bread: ‘Much more important to bake a good loaf for your husband than write a book.’”, and also, “Arnold came home soon afterward. Nothing I have done ever pleased him more (with the exception of the babies)!” (Jeannette Edwards Rattray). This letter to the editor further shows that women were viewed simply as that, women. Everything revolved around the husband or the children, while hardly any personal satisfaction was gained outside of pleasing one’s significant other, which was the root of the ‘problem that has no