The Feminine Mystique
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| Discontinuities in Cultural Conditioning. 10. See William J. Goode, After Divorce, Glencoe, Ill, AC. Kinsey, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Philadelphia and London, p. 259, pp. The male contempt for the American woman, as she has molded herself according to the feminine mystique, is depressingly explicit in the July, 1962 issue of Esquire, “The American Woman, A New Point of View.” See especially The Word to Women—No’” by Robert Alan Aurthur, p. The sex-lessness of the American female sex-seekers is eulogized by Malcolm Muggeridge (Bedding Down in the Colonies,” p. 84): How they mortify the flesh in order to make it appetizing Their beauty is avast industry, their enduring allure a discipline which nuns or athletes might find excessive. With too much sex to be sensual, and too ravishing to ravish, age cannot wither them nor custom stale their infinite monotony.” 13. Kinsey, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. See Donald Webster Cory, The Homosexual in America, New York, preface to second edition, pp. xxii ff. Also Albert Ellis, op. cit., pp. 186—190. Also Seward Hiltner,’ stability and Change in American Sexual Patterns in Sexual Behavior in American Society, Jerome Himelhoch and Sylvia Fleis Fava, eds, New York, 1955, p. Sigmund Freud, Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, New York, 1948, p. Kinsey, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, pp. 610 ff. See also Donald Webster Cory, op. cit., pp. 97 ff. 17. Birth out of wedlock increased 194 percent from 1956 to 1962; venereal disease among young people increased 132 per cent. (Time, March 16, Kinsey, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, pp. 348 ff, 427—433. Kinsey, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, pp. 293, 378, Clara Thompson, Changing Concepts of Homosexuality in Psychoanalysis in A Study of Interpersonal Relations, New Contributions to Psychiatry, Patrick Mullahy, ed, New York, 1949, pp. 218 ff. 21. Erich Fromm, Sex and Character the Kinsey Report Viewed from the Standpoint of Psychoanalysis in Sexual Behavior in American Society, p. Carl Binger, The Pressures on College Girls Today Atlantic Monthly, February, 1961. 23. Sallie Bingham, Winter Term,” Mademoiselle, July, Chapter 12. PROGRESSIVE DEHUMANIZATION: THE COMFORTABLE CONCENTRATION CAMP Marjorie K. McCorquodale, What They Will Die for in Houston Harper’s, October, 1961. 2. See David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd; also Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, New York and Toronto, 1941, pp. 185— 206. Also Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society, p. 239. 3. David Riesman, introduction to Edgar Friedenberg’s The Vanishing Adolescent, Boston, 1959. 4. Harold Taylor, Freedom and Authority on the Campus in The American College, pp ff David Riesman, introduction to Edgar Friedenberg’s The Vanishing Adolescent. 6. See Eugene Kinkead, In Every War but One, New York, 1959. There has been an attempt in recent years to discredit or soft- pedal these findings. But a taped record of a talk given before the American Psychiatric Association in 1958 by Dr. William Mayer, who had been on one of the Army teams of psychiatrists and intelligence officers who interviewed the returning prisoners in and analyzed the data, caused many pediatricians and child specialists to ask, in the words of Dr. Spock Are unusually permissive, indulgent parents more numerous today—and are they weakening the character of our children (Benjamin Spock, Are We Bringing Up Our Children Too Soft for the Stern Realities They Must Face Ladies” Home Journal, September, 1960.) However unpleasantly injurious to American pride, there must be some explanation for the collapse of the American GI prisoners in Korea, as it differed not only from the behavior of American soldiers in previous wars, but from the behavior of soldiers of other nations in Korea. No American soldier managed to escape from the enemy prison camps, as they had in every other war. The shocking 38 percent death rate was not explainable, even according to military authorities, on the basis of the climate, food, or inadequate medical facilities in the camps, nor was it caused by brutality or torture. “Give-up-itis” is how one doctor described the disease the Americans died from they simply spent the days curled up under blankets, cutting down their diet to water alone, until they were dead, usually within three weeks. This seemed to bean American phenomenon. Turkish prisoners, who were also part of the UN force in Korea, lost no men by disease or starvation; they stuck together, obeyed their officers, adhered to health regulations, cooperated in the care of their sick, and refused to inform on one another Edgar Friedenberg, The Vanishing |