The article reflects on a conversation where the speaker's mother discusses her experiences as a woman in the past. While affirming that she has good memories, she downplays her frustrations associated with being disregarded, showcasing the struggle many women faced in emotional expression. The author connects these personal insights to a broader historical context, emphasizing the impact of 'The Feminine Mystique' in 1963 which revealed to women like the author's mother that their feelings of emptiness weren't a personal failure, but part of a larger societal issue.
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.
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.
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.
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