The Feminine Mistake
Prologue
My grandmother made the world's best rhubarb pies and sewed extraordinary silk
garments with exquisite craftsmanship worthy of a French couturier. Raised to
devote her all to marriage and family, she worshipped her talented husband,
doted on her children, and baked homemade bread whose enticing aroma drew
everyone to the kitchen. Although she lived for nearly eighty years, she never
worked outside the home or held a paying job.
Such latter-day paragons of traditional femininity often make people
nostalgic for bygone times, but even then, the truth was frequently a lot darker
than the champions of conventional gender roles like to admit. Although my
grandmother's life adhered faithfully to the old-fashioned stereotypes so often
held up as a modern ideal, the result was a disaster, not only for her but also
for her children and relatives.
In 1932, when my mother was nine years old, her father left the family for
his mistress, a stylish black-haired beauty unencumbered by the mundane burdens
of domesticity. For my grandmother, who came from a well-to-do family, the
emotional devast ... read full excerpt from The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? ebook
