Were the suburbs “comfortable concentration camps” for women in the 1950s as Friedans book said?
WILLIAM CHAFE: I think the story of women in the 1950’s is one of enormous contradiction and paradox. You have on the one hand the feminine mystique that Friedan writes about. You have psychiatrists writing books saying the independent woman is a contradiction in terms, and that all women must find their joy and satisfaction by being dependent on men and on their lives as housewives and mothers. And on the other hand you have this continued growth of women in volunteer organizations and the labor force, the growing number of married middle class women in the labor force. And so it’s really cultural schizophrenia. There are countless numbers of women who feel good about where they are and raising their children, and being involved in a whole variety of volunteer activities. And it is not a bad life. It is a, from a material perspective, and also in many ways from a personal perspective it’s a very rewarding life, and yet there is something missing as well. So, in some ways I think the c
