tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post2527765321245986236..comments2024-03-29T06:44:19.414-04:00Comments on the daily howler: On rereading The Feminine Mystique!<b>bob somerby</b>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02963464534685954436noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-70984531660844579612020-11-25T05:08:50.973-05:002020-11-25T05:08:50.973-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Edward Pitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12512865863036190076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-4502414133732068142013-02-28T11:46:45.076-05:002013-02-28T11:46:45.076-05:00Yes, the term "spanking" must by definit...Yes, the term "spanking" must by definition represent a sexist assault on Dowd, whose own work, never dirtying itself with such clearly gender-based trifling, extends light-years beyond Somerby's range.<br /><br />No wait, that's nonsense. <br /><br />All of Dowd is about avoiding seriousness and reveling in offensive gender stereotyping.<br /><br />Should we be shocked, Anonymous, that you exemplify for us those generations of useless people who find small, tedious problems?Nona Nymhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10311052324455523247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-82689933624809439342013-02-27T21:25:55.049-05:002013-02-27T21:25:55.049-05:00But remember as you read it, after all the GOP &qu...But remember as you read it, after all the GOP "War on Women" last year, Mitt Romney still got 56 percent of the married, white female vote -- the very people Betty Friedan wrote about.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-68496447950060534832013-02-27T20:06:51.296-05:002013-02-27T20:06:51.296-05:00I've had it sitting on my shelf for probably 1...I've had it sitting on my shelf for probably 10 years. This seems like a good time to actually read it. "The Daily Howler Book Club".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-69093130402503918222013-02-27T19:17:13.598-05:002013-02-27T19:17:13.598-05:00My late mother, 51 when this book was published an...My late mother, 51 when this book was published and "just a housewife," was thunderstruck by it, carried it around with her for days with glassy eyes, looking like enlightenment had just hit for the first time in her life. She didn't talk much about it (I was too young to have a clue anyway) and it didn't change her life at that point. But what it did for her is what it did for so many women of that era, it described and validated so much of what they felt and experienced, feelings they thought were oddball and not experienced by other women.<br /><br />I finally read it myself some 15 years later, by which time the women's movement was well under way and it was thought "old hat" and a bit conservative. It knocked my socks off and I understood that odd, wide-eyed look my mother's eyes had while she was reading it and thinking about it.<br /><br />Young people today I think have a hard time even imagining how suffocating life was for married women in the '50s and '60s and how they were so routinely belittled. It's worth seeing that documentary about Gloria Steinem that's gotten some publicity. It's peppered with clips from television news broadcasts and newsreels of that era that enraged me to the point of sputtering obscenities all over again at their mocking condescension.<br /><br />Anybody who wants to complain and nitpick about the book, especially women, can just STFU as far as I'm concerned.<br />gyrfalconnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-61889875782389086802013-02-27T17:11:45.670-05:002013-02-27T17:11:45.670-05:00Now after you have finished re-reading this book, ...Now after you have finished re-reading this book, Bob, go back into your incomparable archives and read all the posts you wrote about the "spanking" Maureen Dowd got from Clark Hoyt.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-23685121183526675302013-02-27T16:35:30.827-05:002013-02-27T16:35:30.827-05:00Thank you for this. I'm going to get a copy of...Thank you for this. I'm going to get a copy of the book to read. And any "scholar" who thinks in 1963 things were "primed" to be sympathetic to feminists is dumber than a bag of hammers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com