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Mfischhoff · Joined: 14 Sep 2009 Posts: 51

Post your found poetry from Betty Friedan's "The Problem That Has No Name" here. Feel free to compliment other folks on their poetry, too.

zmammalton · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 31

The problem is slipcover material
Heard over in voices of tradition
They build children with their own hands
Experts applauded

Swimming through the dangers of childbirth
Freed by scientists
The spotless american suburban
The second sex

mnorton · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 23

Nice job Mammalton Smile

I have a question though. Was the last line "The second sex" actually in the reading as that phrase? Or did you put those words together? And if you put them together why did you use that phrase? I just think it is interesting that women are referred to as "the second sex".

Here's mine (i'm warning you it's crap):

The silent question
Buried, unspoken
The suburban housewife
Partner to man? or women, mothers, alone

Dismiss the desperation
Is this what being a woman means?
The only dream-marriage and children
We can no longer ignore the voice that says "I want something more"

rbennett · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 39

Through the picture window
On the spotless kitchen floor,
A strange stirring
In the voices of the new electric labor dream,
A dishwasher full of poets.

See the problem!
Cried the appliances
Feel the yearning of ambition,
Breastfeed the rebellion with dissatisfaction
And keep the dream from dying young.

She heard them as she made the beds,
When she cooked and sewed in quiet,
Desperation in the houses
Made the women full
With empty choices.

The pretty suburban woman,
Wife, American sex dream;
They were not alone
As they lay besides their husbands,
Yearning
In the millions
For independence,
Or something more.

azellweger · Joined: 19 Oct 2009 Posts: 20

A problem of fulfillment
Spotless kitchen floors
Occupations: housewives
Quiet desperation
Dismiss the desperation of others
Women cried
They were not alone

ewasserman · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 7

The Housewife’s Syndrome

The problem lay buried
Unspoken
Silent.

The question:
Is this all?
Catch a man and keep him,
Buy a dishwasher, bake bread?
Husband, children, home.

Remedies?
Do not dream.
Do not desire.
Feel the mysterious fulfillment from waxing the kitchen floor
and,
Cope.

ewasserman · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 7

This is an answer to Meg's question.

The Second Sex is the title of a book that caused a lot of controversy in the late 1950s. It was written by a French woman, Simone de Beauvoir, and the book was supposedly about French women only. It's mentioned in the 3rd paragraph on page 440 of the packet we got on Friday. Smile

edeangelis · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 25

Friedan Found Poem

"Is this all?"
a problem existed
occupation:housewife
pitied dreams
embarrassing carreer
they suffer the problem...
the first clue to the mystery:
no longer ignore that voice
within women
"Is this all?"
want something more.

jsurinach · Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Posts: 11

Women wanting their independence
Devoting their lives from earliest girlhood to finding husbands and bearing children
Suburban wife = the dream image of young American women
Changing the sheets and kissing their husbands goodbye
With the highest ambition to have a beautiful house
Women without a career
Their occupation: Housewife.

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