The Politics of Housework by Pat Mainardi really struck me. While women are not expected to housewives in the same way they were in 50’s and 60’s we are still expected to do the house chores just the same on top of everything else. Men are simply not taught from an early age how to do the cleaning and the cooking. Women are still, even if not said out loud, seen as natural caretakers and judged if we don’t want children or want to settle down and marry.

I find, even in my own relationship some of the same things said in that essay, said today. My boyfriend has definitely said to me the points of “but we just have different standards”, etc – when it comes to how the household is kept. I even have that womanly shame if someone comes over and the house is not tidy. I think back to when I was a little girl and my mom wouldn’t allow anybody over unless the apartment was spotless. I couldn’t understand it then, but my mom was fearful of people judging how she keeps her place. It’s feelings like this that a man could never begin to understand and I really hope that our newer generations raise our children learning to clean and cook the same as each other.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan is a perfect description of how women’s purpose in life is really treated like it is only in the “fulfillment of their own femininity”. Gender roles in America are very political and they really are a foundation of how capitalism, the work force, education has run in this country. We each have our roles, as either breadmakers or babymakers and besides that it is clear in how society treats us that anything else is less than.