The Feminine Mystique - Betty Friedan [191]
You do want something more, only you don’t know what it is. So you put even more into housekeeping. It’s not challenging enough, just ironing dresses for your little girls, so you go in for ruffly dresses that need more ironing, and bake your own bread, and refuse to get a dishwasher. You think if you make a big enough challenge out of it, then somehow it will be satisfying. And still it wasn’t.
I almost had an affair. I used to feel so discontented with my husband. I used to feel outraged if he didn’t help with the housework. I insisted that he do dishes, scrub floors, everything. We wouldn’t quarrel, but you can’t deceive yourself sometimes in the middle of the night.
I couldn’t seem to control this feeling that I wanted something more from life. So I went to a psychiatrist. He kept trying to make me enjoy being feminine, but it didn’t help. And then I went to one who seemed to make me find out who I was, and forget about this beautiful feminine picture. I realized I was furious at myself, furious at my husband, because I’d left school.
I used to put the kids in the car and just drive because I couldn’t bear to be alone in the house. I kept wanting to do something, but I was afraid to try. One day on a back road I saw an artist painting, and it was like a voice I couldn’t control saying “Do you give lessons?”
I’d take care of the house and kids all day, and after I finished the dishes at night, I’d paint. Then I took the bedroom we were going to use for another baby—five children was part of my beautiful picture—and used it for a studio for myself. I remember one night working and working and suddenly it was 2 A.M. and I was finished. I looked at the picture, and it was like finding myself.
I can’t think what I was trying to do with my life before, trying to fit some picture of an oldtime woman pioneer. I don’t have to prove I’m a woman by sewing my own clothes. I am a woman, and I am myself, and I buy clothes and love them. I’m not such a darned patient, loving, perfect mother anymore. I don’t change the kids’ clothes top to bottom every day, and no more ruffles. But I seem to have more time to enjoy them. I don’t spend much time on housework now, but it’s done before my husband gets home. We bought a dishwasher.
The longer it takes to wash dishes, the less time you have for anything else. It’s not creative, doing the same thing over and over. Why should a woman feel guilty at getting rid of this repetitive work. There’s no virtue in dishwashing, scrubbing floors. Dacron, dishwashers, drip dry—this is fine, this is the direction physical life should take. This is our time, our only time on earth. We can’t keep throwing it away. My time is all I’ve got, and this is what I want to do with it.
I don’t need to make such a production of my marriage now because it’s real. Somehow, once I began to have the sense of myself, I became aware of my husband. Before, it was like he was part of me, not a separate human being. I guess it wasn’t till I stopped trying to be feminine that I began to enjoy being a woman.
And then, there were others, teetering back and forth, aware of the problem but not yet quite sure what to do about it. The chairman of a suburban fund-raising committee said:
I envy Jean who stays at home and does the work she wants to do. I haven’t opened my easel in two months. I keep getting so involved in committees I don’t care about. It’s the thing to do to get in with the crowd here. But it doesn’t make me feel quiet inside, the way I feel when I paint. An artist in the city told me, “You should take yourself more seriously. You can be an artist and a housewife and a mother—all three.” I guess the only thing that stops me is that it’s hard work.
A young Ohio woman told me:
Lately, I’ve felt this need. I felt we simply had to have a bigger house, put on an addition, or move to a better neighborhood. I went on a frantic round of entertaining but that was like living for the interruptions of your life.
My husband thinks that being a good