Women Want Different Things

     For this blog post, I'd like to discuss Betty Friedan's article "The Problem That Has No Name" because it made me think a lot. I partially agree with her, but at the same time, think her approach is a bit harsh and narrow-minded. Friedan talks about how life was in the 1950's, and how women were eager to have the image of the housewife because it was a glorified image. However, she fails to not that some women truly wanted this life.
     While I cannot imagine ever getting married right now, entering motherhood, and being a stay-at-home mother for the rest of my life, I know that there are women out there who really want that. One of my friends always says how she cannot wait to be a mother. This is not because she has been taught this way; it is because she adores children and wants to have as many as she possibly can. Another example is my own mother. I frequently ask her if she was absolutely sure that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom her whole life, and she said yes. My mother loves being a mom. It's something I will never understand, because it's something that I definitely do not want for myself, but I understand that other women think differently.
     I realize that this article was written about fifty years ago, but I still think that women could have wanted motherhood. Additionally, Friedan talks about women who chose to be mothers or have less prestigious careers, like the girl who turned down the Johns Hopkins fellowship. Maybe it is because I did not live in that decade, but I do not see why the girl turned it down. Would she really face that much adversity if she had taken the fellowship? I think I would have taken it, but then again, I live in a different time, and I also don't really care all that much about what other people think. I would have done what I wanted to do.
    Furthermore, I'm not sure what Friedan was trying to get at with the discussion about women's obsession with beauty. I just did not see how it was related to the rest of the article. I understand that it is an issue that still exists and that I think is totally unfair to women, but it did not seem to add anything to the article as a whole. I think the issue of beauty expectations for women is another topic altogether.