The Feminine Mystique

when there is no specific reference to women. Thus, in defining the beginnings of
“identity” in the child, Erikson says in
Childhood and Society (p. The growing child must, at every step,
derive a vitalizing sense of reality from the awareness that his individual way of mastering experience (his ego synthesis) is a successful variant of a group identity and is in accord with its space-time and life plan.
In this children cannot be fooled by empty praise and condescending encouragement. They may have to accept artificial bolstering of their self-esteem in lieu of something better, but their ego identity gains real strength only from wholehearted and consistent recognition of real accomplishment—i.e., of achievement that has meaning in the culture Nanette E. Scofield,’ some Changing Roles of Women in Suburbia A Social
Anthropological Case Study transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol, 6, April, 1960.
4.
Polly Weaver, Whats Wrong with
Ambition?” Mademoiselle, September Edna G. Rostow, The Best of Both

Worlds Yale Review, March, 1962.
6.
Ida Fisher Davidoff and May Elish
Markewich, The Postparental Phase in the
Life Cycle of Fifty College-Educated
Women,” unpublished doctoral study,
Teachers College, Columbia University. These fifty educated women had been full-time housewives and mothers throughout the years their children were in school. With the last child’s departure, the women suffering severe distress because they had no deep interest beyond the home included a few whose actual ability and achievement were high these women had been leaders in community work, but they felt like phonies frauds earning respect for work a ten-year-old could do The authors own orientation in the functional- adjustment school makes them deplore the fact that education gave these women
“unrealistic” goals (a surprising number,
now in their fifties and sixties, still wished they had been doctors. However, those women who had pursued interests—which in every case had begun in college—and were working now in jobs or politics or art,
did not feel like phonies or even suffer the expected distress at menopause. Despite

the distress of those who lacked such interests, none of them, after the childbearing years were over, wanted to go back to school there were simply too few years left to justify the effort. So they continued
“woman’s role by acting as mothers to their own aged parents or by finding pets, plants,
or simply people as my hobby to take the place of their children.
The interpretation of the two family-life educators—who themselves became professional marriage counselors in middle age—is interesting:
For those women in our group who had high aspirations or high intellectual endowment or both, the discrepancy between some of the values stressed in our success-and-achievement oriented society and the actual opportunities open to the older, untrained women was especially disturbing. The door open to the woman with a skill was closed to the one without training, even if she was tempted to try to find a place for herself among the gainfully employed. The reality hazards of the work situation seemed to be recognized by most,
however. They felt neither prepared for the kind of job which might appeal to them, nor

willing to take the time and expend the energy which would be required for training, in view of the limited number of active years ahead. The lack of pressure resulting from reduced responsibility had to be handled. As the primary task of motherhood was finished, the satisfactions of volunteer work, formerly a secondary outlet, seemed to be diminishing. The cultural activities of the suburbs were limited. Even in the city, adult education’
seemed to be busywork leading nowhere….
Thus, some women expressed certain regrets It is too late to develop anew skill leading to a career If I had pursued a single line, it would have utilized my potential to the full But the authors note with approval that the vast majority have somehow adjusted themselves to their place in society.”
Because our culture demands of women certain renunciations of activity and limits her scope of participation in the stream of life, at this point being a woman would seem to bean advantage rather than a handicap. All her life, as a female, she had been encouraged to be sensitive to the

feelings and needs of others. Her life, at strategic points, had required denials of self.
She had had ample opportunities for dress rehearsals for this latest renunciation of along series of renunciations begun early in life. Her whole life as a woman had been giving her a skill which she was now free to use to the full without further preparation Nevitt Sanford, Personality Development
During the College Years Journal of

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