5 thoughts on “The Paper Mirror

  1. “Don’t any of these guys have careers, or not live in New York?” OMG, yes! Why does everything have to happen in New York? What, is the rest of the world just a “flyover state” on the way to NYC? *boggle* (Not so much the careers thing though, careers are for people who don’t spend their entire adult life stuck to a cash register.)

  2. Oh, I just started reading The Feminine Mystique the other day. As a 20 year old woman in 2007 it still resonates with me so damned hard. Alright, maybe I’m not a housewife, but when she describes the identity problem, and the way most women are reported to have felt I’m sitting there going. — That’s me! I feel like that!

  3. Thanks for linking this. I felt similarly through much of my life growing up, and to some extent it continues today. I haen’t quite finished The Feminine Mystique yet (50 pags to go, still), but it’s resonated with me strongly about how little has really changed about the social messages — the “shoulds” — we’re receiving as women today. The only part of the book that I haven’t found some value or truth in was the 5-page spewing of homophobic tripe about 2/3 of the way in. I wrote a big “wtf?!” in the margins of my copy.

    A lot of other books have resonated with me in the same way. Even old books, like A Girl of the Limberlost, which is one of several childhood influences that made me a scientist today. I’m grateful for every one of them for helping me feel less alone.

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