Friedan could not quit this new analogy. For example Bettelheim’s other prisoners inside the Dachau and you can Buchenwald, residential district lady had «read so you’re able to ‘adjust’ on their physiological part,» got «feel mainly based, passive, childlike,» got «abandoned the mature body type off reference to alive at the down human level of food and things.» Maybe the community very chillingly taken to existence by the Bettelheim are not so distinctive from suburbia after all.

However, there have been big issues with basing this type of reviews on the Bettelheim’s blog site. Since Wolfe found by understanding biographies off Bettelheim, there had been reasons to question brand new veracity off his membership. He’d a track record of fabrication, you start with the brand new academic background you to definitely qualified your to have 1st teaching job, plus plagiarism (allegedly). And more problematically,

Bettelheim’s expert as a specialist from the therapy away from extreme situations try derived from his membership regarding their knowledge in the Dachau and you can Buchenwald. Had been men and women levels and fabricated? On corners these were. . In particular, Bettelheim’s depiction out of his other inmates while the childlike could have been confronted, especially because of the individuals who assert-having big fairness-that it was the brand new Nazis, not the Jews, who have been the poor foes. . (Once the [biographer Richard] Pollak highlights, the story actually started which have Eugen Kogon, and you may was retold by Bettelheim.)

Because Wolfe at some point concludes, «The feminine Mystique talked actually sufficient to convince lots of women one another during the time and since. Yet , about prolonged work at the new defects of your guide loom high. In the event your pursuit of a great cause try followed closely by as well much bad testimony, brand new social critic will eventually lose brand new believe of the extremely subscribers she wants to determine.»

Friedan notices ‘frightening ramifications money for hard times in our nation for the the fresh parasitical softening that’s are passed on on the the fresh new generation of kids.’ Especially, she identifies ‘a present rise in the fresh new overt symptoms of male homosexuality,’ and you may statements:

Really don’t consider it is not related toward federal incorporate of one’s women mystique. For the female mystique features glorified and you will perpetuated the name regarding womanliness and you can couch potato, childlike immaturity that’s passed on of mom so you can kid, also to girl.

‘ . That it ‘murky smog’ ‘s the latest smut, the final ‘dirty word’ about facts of mystique: one brush, female external is actually receive to full cover up a particularly sexy can be off viruses. Income and also the mystique try along with her resulting in ‘bearded undisciplined beatnickery’ and you will an excellent ‘deterioration of your people character.’

Men homosexuality because prevent-area of your female mystique isn’t only phony, a regrettable however, accidental deformation of the truth they overlays: it is a sinister way to obtain cultural toxic contamination

Friedan actually continued to money the expression «Lavender Risk» regarding late sixties within the reference to the chances you to definitely try the website lesbian feminists supposedly posed to help you Now and also to the fresh feminist course while the an entire.

But in 1977, she recognized her error at a ladies fulfilling in the Houston of the pledging assistance having lesbian liberties. Based on Bhaskar A. Shuka’s 2007 book Feminism: Out of Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan, «Whenever Betty Friedan got the fresh microphone in order to hope the woman service to have the fresh lesbian liberties action, lady cheered, certain cried, and all sorts of around the area, 1000s of lavender balloons flower about floors, drifting triumphantly on ceiling.»

Inside her 1992 guide Still In love Anyway These types of Years: Female, Composing and you can Psychoanalysis, cultural-studies scholar Rachel Bowlby provides eloquent sound into matter that Friedan’s book is not just heteronormative however, every so often also outright homophobic

Daniel Horowitz after that tricky brand new book’s legacy together with 1998 book Betty Friedan and also the Making of the Women Mystique. Inside it, the guy established a startling, weirdly absolutely nothing-known truth from the the journalist: She was not whom she said she try.

And you may Friedan together with cited psychologist Bruno Bettelheim’s web log on their experience for the Nazi quantity camps inside her section «Modern Dehumanization: The Comfy Focus Camp.» Friedan try obvious that women on You.S. had they a lot better than the newest Nazi prisoners of your own Holocaust, but due to the fact Wolfe put it,