Web Letter: Stephanie Coontz Responds to Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Web Letter: Stephanie Coontz Responds to Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Web Letter: Stephanie Coontz Responds to Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Stephanie Coontz responds to Cynthia Fuchs Epstein:

In her review of my book, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, sociologist Cynthia Fuchs Epstein says that I underestimate Betty Friedan?s role in building the women?s movement and attack Friedan for neglecting African-American women. Epstein then provides an accurate and inspiring account of Friedan?s pivotal place in the women?s movement, starting with the founding of the National Organization for Women and continuing with Friedan?s years of activism after that.

It?s true that I do not deal with Friedan?s heroic accomplishments after the founding of NOW. But my book was never meant to be a biography of Friedan or the story of the women?s movement. Many wonderful scholars, including Epstein, have dealt with those topics in great detail.

A Strange Stirring began as an investigation of why Friedan?s book had such an influence on so many women, and of which women were especially influenced by it. After the interviews I conducted with 188 women and men who had read The Feminine Mystique in 1963 and 1964, my book morphed into a collective biography of a layer of women I came to think of as the sidelined wives and older daughters of the so-called ?Greatest Generation,? by which most pundits have traditionally meant only the men of that era.

In my introduction, I describe my initially conflicted reaction to reading The Feminine Mystique, which had inspired my own mother back in 1963, in the twenty-first century. I was troubled by the book?s focus on middle-class wives and mothers and by Friedan?s prejudices against homosexuals (which, to her credit, she later overcame).

But the rest of my book explores why it was legitimate?in fact, desperately needed?for Friedan to voice these women?s pain. And I explicitly point out, quoting Epstein herself, whose work I greatly admire, that in writing the statement of purpose for NOW with black feminist Pauli Murray, Friedan addressed the special needs of African-American and white working-class women. The projects that NOW embarked on were a huge benefit to working women.

It saddens me that my attempt to assess the strengths and limitations of The Feminine Mystique from a fifty-year perspective has led a few of Friedan?s friends to dismiss what I think is a ringing endorsement of what Friedan accomplished in reaching out to a layer of women whose talent and compassion might have gone to waste had Friedan not convinced them that the frustrations they felt were not the result of a personal inadequacy but of a social injustice. On the other hand, it is also great testimony to Friedan?s influence and charisma that her friends remain so loyal to her memory, and I respect that immensely.

Stephanie Coontz is the author of A Strange Stirring and teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College.

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein replies:

Thanks to Stephanie Coontz for a clarification of her position on the contributions of Betty Friedan to the women?s movement. However, I did not intend for my contribution to ?Arguing the World? to be a complete review of Coontz?s book, but rather a consideration of her views about Friedan?s deficiencies, which I view as prototypical of other feminists of Coontz?s generation. (In the blog post, I considered not only Coontz?s book but also her webpage. My quotes were from both these sources.)

As Coontz points out, Friedan?s book was focused on the problems white middle-class women faced. (And she notes how this struck a chord with women of her mother?s generation.) Friedan?s focus was the same as that of Simone de Beauvoir, and of Mirra Komarovsky. Coontz faulted Friedan for not writing a book on subjects she would have preferred. And, as I pointed out, so do others of her generation. This is an odd thing to criticize her for. It?s like faulting Martin Luther King for not focusing on women in his ?I Have a Dream Speech?! When Friedan went to the barricades to organize women a few years after the publication of her book, she did, in fact, insist that society address the problems of black and working-class women. (Further material on this can be found in Judith Hole and Ellen Levine?s book The Rebirth of Feminism).

As for Friedan?s (and other NOW members?) concern with homosexuality?really lesbianism?it is important to recognize she was reacting to the cultural stances taken by Ti-Grace Atkinson, then the president of the New York chapter, who wished to refute NOW?s aim of furthering the rights of women ?in full partnership with men.? In addition, Atkinson supported Valerie Solanas, who wrote a manifesto for her organization SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) that argued for the annihilation of men. Although Atkinson didn?t endorse that part of SCUM?s platform, her closeness to Solanas worried women who felt that the mission of NOW would be conflated with the extremist views expressed by those regarded as radical feminists.

As one can see, the history of the period bears some recounting. Issues that seem to have obvious answers today have developed in a different cultural climate, with a different sense of legitimacy.

So much for history. I am now glad to see that Coontz acknowledges and gives a ringing endorsement to Friedan?s contributions to the women?s movement.

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Among her books are Woman?s Place, Women in Law, and Deceptive Distinctions.