PODCAST: Stephanie Coontz on The Feminine Mystique, fifty years later

In 1963, “The Feminine Mystique“, a book often credited with sparking the second wave, was published. Betty Friedan interviewed housewives across America who found themselves unfulfilled in the roles that they were told would make them the most happy. “The problem that had no name,” as it turned out, was not an individual failure on the parts of women, rather the frustration, depression and powerlessness women were experiencing was part of a larger “problem.”

In this episode, I speak with Stephanie Coontz, a professor of family history at Evergreen State College and the author of “A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s”. In a recent article for The New York Times, Coontz argues that, fifty years after the second wave, gender equality has hit a wall.

PODCAST: Stephanie Coontz on The Feminine Mystique, fifty years later
/
Meghan Murphy

Founder & Editor

Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer and journalist from Vancouver, BC. She has been podcasting and writing about feminism since 2010 and has published work in numerous national and international publications, including The Spectator, UnHerd, Quillette, the CBC, New Statesman, Vice, Al Jazeera, The Globe and Mail, and more. Meghan completed a Masters degree in the department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University in 2012 and is now exiled in Mexico with her very photogenic dog.