I Overheard 2 Women Discuss The 'Good Old Days.' Here's The Unpleasant Truth People Seem To Forget.
My mom is a force of nature. At age 91, she still works part time as a consultant, mixes a killer martini and is an avid reader. Three years ago, we were discussing books when Betty Friedan’s 1963 bestseller, “The Feminine Mystique,” came up.
“That book changed my life. Did I ever tell you?”
She hadn’t.
As soon as she started to explain how Friedan’s book had impacted her and her closest friends, four intelligent, energetic, ’60s-era housewives who couldn’t understand why “having it all” — husband, children, house in the ’burbs — left them feeling so empty, I knew what my next novel would be about.
I read stacks of books for research, but the greatest insights about how stultifying life was for a certain class of women in the early ’60s came from conversations with my mom. Though reading Friedan’s book brought things to a head for her, the inequality between the sexes had rankled since childhood.
“When I joined the Scouts, it bugged me that the boys got to go camping but all the girls got to do was make paper flowers and learn to set the table,” she said, curling her lip with disgust.
Sexism was just as firmly engrained at her small Catholic high school, which got a new basketball court when my sports-crazy mom was a sophomore. “The boys had access to the gym every afternoon. The girls got it once a week, and only for two hours. We were only allowed to play half court, just for fun. The boys got to play full court, on a real team. All my life, it bothered me. Boys got to do things. Girls just got to watch them do it.”
That urge to do things, and the frustration she experienced when being told women couldn’t, was a frequent theme in our conversations. At one point, her exasperation led her to consider taking the veil, joining the Maryknoll order.
“Those nuns had adventures,” she told me, eyes glittering with awe and envy. “They traveled, went to Africa. Rode motorcycles!”
However, after one year at her state college, an institution that required female students to wear dresses to class, hats and gloves to football games, and offered coeds a semester-long course on Clothing Selection (Mom got a D), she fell in step with many women of her generation, got married and dropped out of college to take care of hearth, home and husband.
Mom birthed four daughters in a 10-year period, and did all the things mothers were supposed to do — cook, clean, can vegetables, sew matching dresses for her girls, become a Girl Scout den mother. She also worked alongside my dad in our family’s small grocery store.
Mom says she didn’t mind, that she liked keeping busy. Knowing her as I do, I’m sure that’s true. However, though she didn’t say so at the time, having to ask my father for money any time she wanted to buy something, even though she was working full time at the store, irritated her.
“It wasn’t that I expected to get a paycheck; we were both working to support the family. And it wasn’t that he was ungenerous. I can’t remember him ever saying no when I asked for money. But the fact of having to ask did bother me. He never asked me if he wanted to buy a new boat or a truck. He just did it, never consulted me at all.”
Boats weren’t the only purchases Mom wasn’t consulted on.
When it came time for my parents to buy their first house, Mom had her eye on a cute starter home with a $12,000 price tag. It was a stretch for a young couple, but Mom knew they could afford the payments. Just as they were getting ready to make an offer, my dad and maternal grandfather went out and bought another, much less appealing house, for $3,000. “They never asked me a thing about that house, just went ahead and bought it. By the time I actually got to see it, the deal was done.”
I could see Mom was still ticked off about that house, and I was ticked on her behalf. However, when it came to obstacles faced by women of my mother’s generation, failing to have a vote in family decisions was the tiny tip of a very big iceberg.
It wasn’t until 1965 that married couples were guaranteed access to contraception and not until 1972 for the unmarried. 1972 was also when Title IX of the Education Amendment was passed, ending sex discrimination in all aspects of education, including athletics.
Until 1974, women could be excluded from juries merely on the basis of sex. After the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed in the same year, credit card companies and banks could no longer discriminate on the basis of sex or marital status, or require a woman to have a male cosigner to apply for a personal credit card or loan. Guaranteeing those same kinds of rights to female entrepreneurs took much longer. But finally, in 1988, the Women’s Business Ownership Act brought an end to state laws requiring women to have a male relative as a cosigner to obtain a business loan.
When I talk to younger women, they’re often shocked to learn so many rights we take for granted today weren’t available to women even a generation ago. When I tell them it took until 1981 for the Supreme Court to strike down state “head and masters” laws, which granted husbands universal control over jointly owned marital property, their jaws drop. And rightly so. Because it is shocking. Shocking and infuriating.
During our conversations, my mom went to pains to assure me that it wasn’t all bad, that her experiences were “just the way things were back then,” and that she had many good memories of my dad and our happy times as a family.
I think that was true, by and large. I, too, have good memories of my father and our family.
But I think Mom was less truthful — or simply less self-aware — when it came to discussing how being disregarded and patronized because she was a woman made her feel. “Didn’t it make you mad?” I asked after she finished telling the house story.
“No. Not really. More irritated. But I didn’t dwell on it. I never really got angry at your dad,” she said, repeating her “just the way things were” line.
Yet, only minutes later, she related a story about buying a box of mismatched dishes at a thrift store, then going into the barn and hurling plates at the wall, one after another, taking out her frustrations on an entire case of crockery.
Becoming angry, expressing negative emotions of any kind, was frowned upon for women of my mother’s generation. Another example of the many things that boys got to do, and which girls only got to watch.
I wouldn’t call my mother typical; I’m not a believer in typicality for anyone, of any gender. But researching my novel showed me that Mom wasn’t the only ’60s-era housewife who was working hard to stuff down her emotions, or silently wondering why reaching the supposed pinnacle of feminine existence — kids, husband, house — left them feeling so empty inside, feeling guilty for feeling empty, convinced the fault must lie with them.
In February 1963, when “The Feminine Mystique” was published, women like my mom started to realize that they weren’t at fault, and they weren’t alone.
“It’s hard to explain how I felt when I was reading it,” Mom told me. “But I remember thinking, ‘My God! There’s going to be a revolution!’”
Though there were all kinds of forces building, and multiple voices advocating for change, Friedan’s book did seem to break things open. Many consider it a catalyst of second-wave feminism, at least for a certain kind of woman — women like my mom who were white, college-educated, and middle to upper class.
As much as the supposedly good old days sucked for my mom, they sucked even more for those Friedan left out of the equation — women of color, poor women and those who never had an opportunity for higher education.
And yet, for all of its imperfections and limitations, there is no denying that “The Feminine Mystique” opened a lot of eyes and helped spark a national conversation about women’s roles and rights.
For my mother, what came next was less a revolution than a quiet rebellion, or perhaps an awakening. She decided she wanted to go back to college and started taking night classes.
One night, she walked into the wrong classroom and ended up staying for the lecture. At the end of class, the professor noted that she wasn’t on his list. When Mom explained her mistake, he invited her for coffee in the student union. “So,” he said when they sat down, “tell me your story.”
Mom did, saying more than she’d intended, bursting into tears after admitting her marriage was on the rocks. The professor listened intently. When she finished, he said, “You know something? I think you’d make a great parks and recreation major.”
He was absolutely right about that. However, according to Mom, she’d have signed up for astronaut training if he’d suggested it. “Nobody had ever told me I could be anything before.”
She declared her major the next day.
Though my dad never came out and said he was threatened by the prospect of being married to a woman who was better educated than he and was starting to think for herself, his actions in the next few years would indicate he did. There were multiple separations, and repeated attempts to patch things up and save the marriage.
During one such period, they went to a marriage counselor. Mom, who was still working at the store, still taking care of the house and us kids, all while going to night school, recalls the male therapist looking at her and saying, “The problem in this marriage is that you’re irresponsible.”
Mom was furious. Even so, she didn’t give that guy the verbal smackdown he so richly deserved. But she did get to her feet and walk out of the session. “And I never paid his bill,” she reported, jerking her chin.
It was a small act of defiance but a big step for my mother. She’d get better at it in time.
The divorce was messy. And our family grocery store, which had been struggling for some time, went under. Mom got a job at a bookstore and kept going to school at night. Money was tight; child support payments were small and frequently went unpaid. Mom took my father to court.
Dad had remarried by that time, and his new wife had three daughters of her own. When Mom asked the court to compel my father to make up the missed payments, the judge said, “He can’t afford that. He has a new family to support now.”
Mom threw out her hands while relating the story, still aghast by the judge’s words and attitude. “OK, but what about his old family? What about the kids he already had?”
Though forced to play with a stacked deck, Mom somehow made it work. She finished her degree, raised her kids and eventually climbed the ladder to the top levels of her chosen profession.
But it would have been even harder, perhaps even impossible, if Mom hadn’t had considerable work experience and a college degree. A lack of education and professional skills had a direct and negative financial impact on many of her peers, trapping them in unhappy or even abusive marriages.
In many ways, Mom was one of the lucky ones. But I still give her props. Because even then, it wasn’t easy. Not at all.
“God, but we were broke! To this day, I still don’t know how I did it,” she said, her grin signaling pride that, against all odds, somehow she had. “Everything was so hard! But it was easier too, because I had control. I could make decisions.
“Back then, a married woman was supposed to keep the peace. She had to make sure her kids, and her husband, and her house was OK. But nobody ever asked if we were OK. Everybody else’s needs were more important than yours; you didn’t even dare have needs. And, of course, you were never supposed to get mad about it.”
My mother’s lament echoed through my own experiences as a wife and mother, and I know it also rings true in the lives of my three daughters-in-law.
Women working full time still earn only 84% of what their male counterparts earn, and are also 14% less likely to be promoted. Although some gains have been made, women still face significant barriers when it comes to education and careers in science, math and technology.
There are challenges on the home front, too. Studies show that women are still doing the greater share of housework and child care, even when working full time.
Real equality between the sexes has yet to be realized. However, my conversations with Mom have made me more cognizant of how unequal, unjust and just plain hard life was for women only a few short decades ago. It’s also given me a deeper appreciation of all that her generation did to secure the rights and freedoms we take for granted today.
A few months ago, I overheard two middle-aged women in a coffee shop discussing “the good old days.” The conversation included much clucking of tongues and was peppered with references to “eroding family values.”
At one point, one of them said, “I don’t think feminism helped women much. Sure, there were a few good things. But look at all we gave up and how unstable everything is now.”
I didn’t know those women, so I didn’t insert myself into their conversation. But as the release of my novel draws nearer, I keep thinking about them. In a time when movements and factions are trying to roll back the rights our mothers fought for, we must be vigilant and active. We must be informed about the threats facing us and all we stand to lose should those factions succeed.
Because if they want to know the truth about the “good old days,” all they’d need to do is ask my mom.
Marie Bostwick is the author of “The Book Club For Troublesome Women,” available on April 22 from Harper Muse.
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