When it was published in 1963 there was little to suggest that The Feminine Mystique would become one of the most influential books of the decade, if not the century. True, Friedan`s publishers, W.W. Norton, had sold the book club rights before publication and was predicting it would be a block-buster, but because of a long-lasting national newspaper strike, which seriously limited publicity and reviews, it was only after its author, Betty Friedan, a Jewish free-lance journalist from New York, had appeared on numerous TV and radio talk-shows and the paperback edition had appeared, that it really took-off and started climbing up the non-fiction best-seller list; by 1964 it had reached number one.
If the book was relatively slow to make an impact, it had also been slow to research and write, partly as a result of the very phenomenon that it addressed – the situation of women, at least of white middle-class women, living in suburban America. Friedan had been a free-lance journalist for several years previously, writing mainly for the women`s magazines she was to attack so forcefully, and had serious doubts whether she would be able to make the transition from article to book. Without a supportive university post - she had rejected academia to marry her husband, who turned out to be decidedly unsupportive - she was compelled to work in the spaces between fulfilling her responsibilities as wife and mother; sitting at her dining-room table or at a desk in New York Public Library, Friedan`s own situation then, whilst providing a good deal of personal evidence for her argument, was also a barrier to completing her project. Maybe not Catch 22, but something quite close.
Whatever Friedan`s difficulties with the writing and publication of The Feminine Mystique and whatever questions may be asked about its originality or representative scope - and there are several - there is little doubt of the influence it had, providing many women with a rationale and language for the expression of their discontent and making a major contribution to the revival of the feminist movement. Evidence for the personal impact that the book made is relatively easy to find. Letters to the author soon after publication suggest the ways in which it spoke to housewives across the country. Thus, one correspondent writes - `I thought these problems and situations were only mine, and mine alone... and the knowledge that my neighbour-housewives also have problems... came as such relief.` Another comments, `Even if I can`t change any part of my life now, I will feel better knowing I`m not an oddball after all.` And a third says, `You have freed me from such a mass of subconscious and conscious guilt feelings, that I feel today, as though I had been filled with helium and turned loose!` One reader thanked Friedan for giving her `that extra boost I needed, to know I am important to myself and my children and not just a diaper changer.`
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