It’s understandable that living in what Betty Friedan once called the “comfortable concentration camp” of housewifery could make one briefly take leave of her senses long enough to think she truly wanted to enter the workforce. But perhaps Friedan really didn’t know the full extent of what she was advocating for in The Feminine Mystique. She said women suffer a “slow death of mind and spirit” by remaining confined to the home, but did she take into account that they would die in an even more severe way by going to the office to join the men?
Sure, it might have sounded glamorous at the time (and even Good Girls Revolt tried its best to make it seem that way before being cancelled), what with getting to put on a skirt suit, handling nebulous papers and pouring coffee into a mug that might have an art deco pattern on it. And yes, maybe they briefly wanted to wield something other than a dariole (which Betty Draper might have done well to use as a dildo instead of the washing machine), but, upon discovering what the workplace actually consists of–more bullshit than cooking and cleaning–it’s safe to say that many secretly wanted to crawl back into the cushness of their model homes nestled in culs-de-sac. At least then they could secretly pretend to tend to the affairs of the house that take just as little time as the affairs in an office and subsequently proceed to work on collaging and ensuring barrenness by lightly stabbing oneself in the ovaries with a sewing needle.