Assignment on:How do you response to your own lived experience or the

experiences of a known personality in relation to ‘the

problem that has no name’ as revealed in “The Feminine

Mystique”

Course-WGS 306: Feminist Theory and Writings: Selected Readingsform the Early to Contemporary Periods.

Submitted to:Umme Busra Fateha SultanaDepartment of Women and Gender Studies,University of Dhaka. Submitted by:

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Labiba Islam Roll-32, Session: 2009-2010 6th Semester, 3rd Year. Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka. Date: 04.07.2012

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

All praises are due to the Almighty Allah who enables me to complete

this assignment successfully. With a sense of respect I express my

heartfelt gratitude to my course instructor Umme Busra Fateha Sultana

for her untiring painstaking guidance, innovative suggestions and

continuous supervision. Without her cordial guidance and invaluable

suggestions at every stage, this work could never have been

materialized. Highly last but not the least I express my cordial

gratitude to my family members and friends for their encouragement,

blessings and sacrifices which enabled me to complete this assignment

with patience and perseverance.

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ABSTRACT:

I have selected to write Assignment no. 02: How do you response to your

own lived experience or the experiences of a known personality in

relation to ‘the problem that has no name’ as revealed in “The Feminine

Mystique”. I have tried to inter relate this problem with experiences

of my known personalities as well as my perception and experience after

reading books and magazines, watching TV and films. The problem

described by Betty Friedan in her book “The Feminine Mystique”

encompassed a generation of women who went back to the kitchen in

droves to raise children and become “Occupation:  Housewife.” Idealized

image of feminity creates this problem which still exists among women

in our country.

Contents:

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Introduction............................

..........................................01

The problem that has no

name...................................02-03

The problem that has no name in

contemporary women’s

lives........................................

...................................03-08

The problem that has no name: New

dilemmas.......09-12

Media perpetuated ‘True Womanhood’:

Behind the problem that has no

name.........................................

.............12-13

Conclusion...,..........................

......................................... 13

Reference...............................

...........................................14

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Introduction:

In her groundbreaking classic book The Feminine Mystique (1963),

eminent feminist Betty Friedan, the mother of second wave

feminism, dared to write about “the problem that has no name.” The

impact of this book was immediate and stunning because of its

denotation about the unhappiness of mid 20th century women in America.

In this book, she discussed the idealized happy-suburban-housewife

image that was marketed to many women as their best if not their only

option in life. The unhappiness that many middle-class women felt in

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their "role" as feminine wife/mother/homemaker was a pervasive problem

that had no name. Women felt this sense of depression because they were

forced to subjugate to men financially, mentally, physically, and

intellectually. The feminine “mystique” was the idealized image to

which women tried to conform despite their lack of fulfilment. 

She identifies “the problem that has no name” as upper-middle classed

suburban women experiencing dissatisfaction with their lives and an

unarticulated longing for something else beside their housewifely

duties. She pins the blame on a media which intentionally perpetuates

an idealized image of femininity, a social construction that tells

women that their role in life is catch a man, keep a man, have children

and put the needs of one’s husband and children first. She pointed out

that for trying to conform to the image of the happy homemaker was

causing women an unendurable pain. In this assignment, I will try to

explore the how ‘the problem that has no name’ is relevant and in what

ways it has entrenched in women’s lives by describing experiences of my

own as well as others.

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The problem that has no name:

“The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of

American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction,

a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century

in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As

she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material,

ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts

and Brownies lay beside her husband at night--she was afraid to ask

even of herself the silent question--"Is this

all?" (Friedan 1963, p.13)

This is the opening paragraph of the first chapter of Feminine Mystique

which introduces the idea of “the problem that has no name”. Betty

Friedan analysed “the problem that has no name” which is the oppressive

emptiness of the life led by educated, affluent suburban housewives.

These women might have everything they were told a woman could want —

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husbands, children, luxurious homes, labour saving gadgets — but they

were unhappy and unfulfilled. The problem, essentially, was the

stifling of women’s personalities and aspirations by domesticity. The

problem Betty Friedan saw was not simply that women were saddled with

doing domestic work; it was that they were restricted to the domestic

sphere and defined exclusively in terms of domesticity, which was

presented as equivalent to femininity itself.

After interviewing former female classmates at Smith College from the

class ‘42, Betty Friedan discovered something entirely different which

she described in her book: These women were vaguely, often

apologetically, dissatisfied with their lives. Many of these women,

serving as a microcosm for American society, displayed desperation with

their status as women without any purpose beyond housecleaning.

Many of them enjoyed reasonable prosperity, healthy children, and

caring husbands, but they felt "empty," "incomplete," or chronically

"tired." They were talented and well educated but they felt profound

discontent. Friedan labelled this discontent the "problem that has no

name" and she linked it largely to the pressures women faced to conform

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to an idealized vision of femininity. Many young women attained first-

rate educations, and many launched successful careers. But they felt

obliged to abandon their academic or career plans upon marriage. Unable

to pursue their own ambitions, they were forced to construct identities

through their husbands and to find meaning in their roles as housewives

and mothers. When many did not, they felt guilty and inadequate.

he problem that has no name” in

contemporary women’s lives: “TThough Friedan wrote “The Feminist Mystique” in American context, it is

still some way or other relevant to women’s lives in today’s

generation. “The problem that has no name” was faced and still facing

many women in their daily lives. Here, I will try to discuss how this

problem is relevant and in what ways it has entrenched in women’s lives

by describing experiences, some of which are my personal experience,

some of gained by reading books and magazines and watching movies; and

others are simply gained by observing my relatives lives as well as

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simply talking to them (not taken formal interview as they are my very

close).

Idealized image of feminity:

An idealized image of femininity that Friedan described as feminine

mystique was the main cause of dissatisfaction among women. According

to Friedan, women have been encouraged to confine themselves to the

narrow roles of housewife and mother, forsaking education and career

aspirations in the process.

This is also true for one of my aunty. My aunty, Chandni (not her real

name) got married after S.S.C exam. From then until now she is a full-

time housewife. She could not do her further studies after marriage

because she had to take care of her children. After marriage, her

thought was that her ultimate goal and achievement in life was to

become a wife and subsequently a mother and have children, take care of

the children, look after the house, be the proper wife, cook three

meals a day for her family, entertain company, so on and so forth.

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While by keeping and care of her home, husband, and children- now she

is

left with a sense of emptiness. Now, all of her children got

established and she wished that she thought about a career before! She

feels now that if she did further studies after marriage and had fewer

children, she could pursue a career.

Identity crisis:

Friedan thinks that woman's problem today is not sexual but a problem

of identity. Because culture does not permit women to accept or gratify

their basic need to grow and fulfil their potentialities as human

beings, a need which is not solely defined by their sexual role. It is

the responsibility of women to develop themselves and their

intellectual abilities, rather than making a “choice” to be just a

housewife instead of fulfilling their potential. To establish her own

identity my aunty, Chandni (not her real name) joined cooking courses,

beautification courses as she could not study further. She wanted to

establish her own beauty parlour. But she could not fulfil her dream

because at that time social stigma was attached to them

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who own beauty parlours. Her husband also did not support her. Her

husband discouraged her by saying that she could not balance work and

family life. Forsake of her children and husband she stepped back from

her dream.

Usually housewives like my aunty are trapped in an endless cycle of

mundane rituals to fulfil their feminine roles as mother/wife. So, they

forget their individual need and desires. In the film “Poroma” by

Aparna Sen, we can see that the protagonist Poroma forgot that once she

used to play Setar and recite poetry before her marriage. Because after

marriage, she got so much busy to fulfil her housewifely duties that

her personal identity as a human being got lost!

Problem with sharing:

Friedan showed in her book that how due to the ideal image of the

housewife, so deeply entrenched in their surrounding culture; women

were embarrassed to admit their lack of satisfaction in their suburban

domestic lives. Friedan defines this problem as the problem that has no

name. The problem that has no name was common to different ages and

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classes and its symptoms, according to Friedan, were: a sense of

emptiness, lack of desire and an unexplained will to cry.

In her earlier life after marriage, my aunty Chadni (not her real name)

dared not speak about how she felt to any other women as well as

relatives for fear of being seen as incapable or incompetent. Worse yet

was being seen as a failure in marriage or motherhood; failure as a

woman. After 28 years after her marriage, she disclosed this feeling to

my mother and I got to know her deeper very recently by observing.

Like my aunty, most of the women are informed by a multiplicity of

sources that a woman's happiness lay in homemaking, love, marriage,

children, and self-denial. Despite these prescriptions, many women are

not content with their way of life. Yet, without public or legitimated

knowledge about the widespread phenomenon of female disillusionment -

even despair - women, in their isolation, resigned themselves to their

pre-determined lot and blamed their unhappiness on their own

inadequacies. Likewise my aunty, many women reasoned that if they

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possessed everything society deemed necessary for their happiness, yet

did not feel happy, then there must be something wrong with them!

Not finding time for own:

Domestic drudgery makes women so tired that they can not spend time for

their own sake. “She can never spend more than 15 minutes on any one

thing; she has no time to read books, only magazines; even if she had

time, she has lost the power to concentrate. At the end of the day, she

is so terribly tired that sometimes her husband has to take over and

put the children to bed.” (Freidan 1963, p.27)

My aunty, Chadni (not her real name) also revealed that though she

sometimes get help from maid servant to do housework, she rarely finds

time to entertain herself such as watching TV or reading magazines. As

she has five children, some way or other she remains busy with them. It

becomes sometimes stressful for her.

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I found a similar case like my aunty in Daily Star Magazine on the

Write to Mita section-which is given below can describe the situation

more properly-

Source: Write to Mita;-The Star Magazine; The daily Star, 1 June, 2012,

p.46

Society glorifies motherhood in way that it seems an easy job. But stay

at home moms like my aunty and letter writer lady mentioned before have

to be full-time employed for their children sacrificing their own

personal needs!

Education:15

A century earlier, women had fought for higher education; now girls

went to college to get a husband. By the mid-fifties, 60 per cent

dropped out of college to marry, or because they were afraid too much

education would be a marriage bar.................... A new degree was

instituted for the wives--"Ph.T." (Putting Husband

Through)..............(Friedan 1963, p.14)

This is very much related to our society. My aunty, Chadni (not her

real name) believes that higher degree of can give her daughter the

chance to get married to an eligible bachelor. So she admitted her

daughter in North South University for B.B.A. I have also some friends

who are studying in leading universities of Bangladesh but they are

pursuing their higher degree to get a good proposal for marriage as

they haven’t any kind of ambition for future career! They are desperate

to get married as early as possible. Though they are getting higher

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education, these friends of mine want to be ‘happy homemakers or stay

at home moms’ in near future!

We can relate this situation to Talima Nasrin’s book “Nirbachito Colum”

where she told that-

Source: Nasrin 2009, p.29

Education can use to maintain the traditional roles of women by

teaching them domesticity. When I was in class seven, girls could not

take Agricultural Study as a optional subject. All girls had to take

Home Economics. Though I hate that subject, I had to take that as I am

female!

Problem that has no name: New dilemmas

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Contemporary women in Bangladesh is facing new kinds of dilemmas in

their lives which create various dimensions ‘the problem that has no

name’ described by Betty Friedan in mid-twenth century.

Career vs. Family:

According to Friedan, though many young women attained first-rate

educations, and many launched successful careers, they felt obliged to

abandon their academic or career plans upon marriage. Unable to pursue

their own ambitions, they were forced to construct identities through

their husbands and to find meaning in their roles as housewives and

mothers. When many did not, they felt guilty and inadequate. Once

promising women who dreamed of attaining educations or achieving

personal goals, were reminded of their natural duties that awaited

them. If a woman wanted to use her education to be a better wife that

was fine, but there was no way any respectable woman would dare to

strike out on her own or set her terms in a relationship or in society.

This situation is still relevant in this generation. I have a cousin

named Brishty (not her real name), who got a job in Banglalink Telecom

Company after passing her M.B.A from Dhaka University. But she left her

job after conceiving her first child. She can’t balance family life and

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work. Working in Telecom Company is really stressful and time

consuming. Sometimes she have to work for longer hours which

perpetuates her to opt for ‘homemaker’ option.

And when paid work is experienced as oppressive rather than fulfilling,

the domestic sphere, popularly conceived as ‘the opposite’ of work,

starts to look less like a cage and more like the refuge! The message

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a new variation on the old theme that one is forced to choose — home or

work, family or career. But since women who choose ‘career’ do not

thereby escape from domesticity, they may well be tempted by the idea

of escaping into it. Until housework really is shared equally between

women and men, until women do not have to work a ‘second shift’, it

will be hard to see being ‘homemaker’ as an uncoerced choice.

At home by choice:

An obvious difference between the 1950s and now is that contemporary

middle class and upper middle class women who embrace domesticity do so

by choice rather than compulsion like my cousin Brishty as I mentioned

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before. Today it is the decision not to take up a profession or to

leave it permanently when a woman marries or has children, that

educated woman have to justify. The expectation, however unrealistic,

is that an educated middle class woman can and should ‘have it all’,

meaning a fulfilling family life and an equally fulfilling career. The

idea that domesticity is a choice tends to go along with the idea that

it is an equal opportunity activity, which simply happens to be chosen

by more women than men. One argument against this is economic: since

men usually earn more, if one member of a couple is going to give up

paid work it will often make financial sense for it to be the woman.

This ‘choice’ is obviously conditioned by a persistent structural

inequality between the sexes. So, if we want to liberate women fully,

we have to redress the inequalities currently persisting in labour

force,

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Rebellion against feminine fulfilment: Fear of

becoming unfeminine

Friedan ultimately concluded that "the problem that has no name" is not

a loss of femininity, too much education, or the demands of domesticity

but a stirring of rebellion of millions of women who were fed up with

pretending that they were happy with their lives and that solving this

problem would be the key to the future of American culture. The

Feminine Mystique encouraged a generation of women to challenge the

expectations and restrictions that were placed on them, but it did so

using some very familiar rhetorical conventions. It also encouraged a

generation of women to challenge the expectations and restrictions that

were placed on them. So, what has happened to those women who rebel

against traditional feminine adjustment, feminine fulfilment- let’s

take a look at following case.

My cousin, Azra (not her real name) is working The World Fish Centre in

a higher position after graduating from BRAC University. She is now

nearly 29 years old. She does not believe in marriage. She wants to

establish her career. But her family consistently is trying to convince

her to get married as if marriage is the main goal of a woman’s life!

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As she is not marrying, she has become a hot topic for gossiping among

the so-called aunties. Some of my relatives have started to call her

‘Unfeminine’! Some make colourful stories of breaking up love affairs

as her main reason for not marrying! So, it seems that it is not easy

for women to rebel against traditional tide to make their own choices.

I found a similar case like my cousin in Daily Star Magazine on the

Write to Mita section-which is given below-

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Source: Write to Mita;-The Star Magazine; The daily Star, 25 June,

2010, p.46

edia perpetuated “True Womanhood”: Behind

‘the problem that has no name’MAccording to Friedan, women have been encouraged to confine themselves

to a very narrow definition of "true" womanhood, forsaking education

and career aspirations in the process by experts who wrote books,

columns and books that told women during that era that their greatest

role on the planet was to be wives and mothers. The role of a "real"

woman was to have no interest in politics, higher education and careers

and women were taught by these experts to pity women who had the nerve

to want a life beyond the cult of true womanhood. If women expressed

dissatisfaction with their charmed lives, the experts blamed their

feelings on the higher education they received before becoming a

housewife.

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Betty Friedan noted the unhappiness of many housewives who were trying

to fit this feminine mystique image, and she called the widespread

unhappiness “the problem that has no name.”

If we see the advertisements of beauty cream for fair-complexioned skin

which are aired in Bangladeshi channels, we can easily understand how

women are dehumanized. In these ads we can see that women are simply

valued for their beautiful skin. In the ad of “Ponds Age Miracle”, it

shows that a wife is praised by her husband because of her glowing skin

after 10 years of marriage. So, it seems that women always need to

beautify to impress men and men don’t want need “Ponds Age Miracle” as

if they does not get old! There are also so many ads where a women’s

housewifely and caring roles are showed.

Conclusion:

‘The problem that has no name’ described in The Feminine Mystique

remains important to today’s generations. Yet despite the many gains

and incredible advancements, women today still face the challenges of

trying to combine successful careers with the still vaunted roles as

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women and mothers. Friedan’s book reminds us that remnants of ‘the

problem with no name’ continue to permeate many aspects of social and

gender constructs several decades later. This book instructs readers

that there are still prevailing attitudes that touch on and affect

women’s choices. Women have made immense progress over the last few

decades but the glass ceiling remains stubbornly shatterproof for the

time being. The Feminine Mystique is the hammer that Friedan has left

as her legacy for generations to come.

Reference:

Friedan, B., 1963. The Feminine Mystique. London: Penguin Books.

Nasreen, T., 2009. Nirbachito Column. 17th ed. Kolkata: Anando

Publishers.

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Write to Mita. The Daily Star. The daily Star Magazine. 25 June,

2010, p.46

Write to Mita. The Daily Star. The daily Star Magazine. 01 June,

2012, p.46

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