Many feminists have certain ideas that they have towards the idea of the housewife with Betty Friedan, Marilyn Frye, and bell hooks ideas being some of the most significant. Take for example Jane the housewife. Jane is a housewife in 1950s America. She is highly capable and bored with her life, and wishes she could get a good job like her husband. Unfortunately, local employers only hire women for low-paying, uninteresting jobs that Jane would not find fulfilling. Friedan, Frye, and hooks all have different opinions about Jane’s situation. Starting off with Betty Friedan, if she were to look at Jane’s situation she would believe that Jane was in a dangerous condition. Friedan believes that being a housewife can create a sense of emptiness,
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Not having a sense of self is dangerous for everyone of course but the problem with Friedan is her point of view. When she is speaking on housewives she is speaking on one specific population only and that is college-educated, middle- and upper class, married white women. These women are bored at home, with children who simply want more in life specifically, a career. In my opinion, there women have a sense of life however; they are craving to make their lives more than what it is. This condition does not describe the majority of women in the 1950s. When Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, many women were in the workforce, not every woman had enough money or time to be a housewife. These working women were the ones that could not identify with this …show more content…
When Friedan wrote her piece she did not think through the minds of women of other races and classes, as if they just did not exist. bell hooks believed that problems and dilemmas of leisure-class white housewives did not consider: economic survival; ethnic, racial, and class discrimination; and sexist discrimination on a select group of women. In bell hooks eyes, Jane is not oppressed, because she is not non-white and/or poor. Not many women had the leisure time or money to be a housewife during this time so her being a part of an oppressed group is not believable. hooks says
“… women do not join organized resistance against sexism precisely because sexism has not an absolute lack of choices. They may know they are discriminated against on the basis of sex, but they do not equate this with oppression.”(hooks, 62)
Just because a woman is a woman does not mean that she is oppressed. Not all women have the same experience. Factors like class, race, religion, and sexual preference create make being a woman a diverse
Not having a sense of self is dangerous for everyone of course but the problem with Friedan is her point of view. When she is speaking on housewives she is speaking on one specific population only and that is college-educated, middle- and upper class, married white women. These women are bored at home, with children who simply want more in life specifically, a career. In my opinion, there women have a sense of life however; they are craving to make their lives more than what it is. This condition does not describe the majority of women in the 1950s. When Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, many women were in the workforce, not every woman had enough money or time to be a housewife. These working women were the ones that could not identify with this …show more content…
When Friedan wrote her piece she did not think through the minds of women of other races and classes, as if they just did not exist. bell hooks believed that problems and dilemmas of leisure-class white housewives did not consider: economic survival; ethnic, racial, and class discrimination; and sexist discrimination on a select group of women. In bell hooks eyes, Jane is not oppressed, because she is not non-white and/or poor. Not many women had the leisure time or money to be a housewife during this time so her being a part of an oppressed group is not believable. hooks says
“… women do not join organized resistance against sexism precisely because sexism has not an absolute lack of choices. They may know they are discriminated against on the basis of sex, but they do not equate this with oppression.”(hooks, 62)
Just because a woman is a woman does not mean that she is oppressed. Not all women have the same experience. Factors like class, race, religion, and sexual preference create make being a woman a diverse