The Women's Room
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''The Women's Room'' is the debut novel by American feminist author
Marilyn French Marilyn French (; November 21, 1929 – May 2, 2009) was an American radical feminist author. Life French was born in Brooklyn to E. Charles Edwards, an engineer, and Isabel Hazz Edwards, a department store clerk. In her youth, she was a jour ...
, published in 1977. It launched French as a major participant in the
feminist movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality b ...
and, while French states it is not autobiographical, the book reflects many autobiographical elements."Marilyn French dies at 79; author of feminist classic 'The Women's Room by Elaine Woo, ''Los Angeles Times'' May 5, 2009 For example, French, like the main character, Mira, was married and divorced, and then attended Harvard where she obtained a Ph.D. in English Literature. Despite the connection of ''The Women's Room'' to the feminist movement, French stated in a 1977 interview with ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'': "''The Women's Room'' is not about the women's movement … but about women's lives today." ''The Women's Room'' has been described as one of the most influential novels of the modern feminist movement. Its instant popularity brought criticism from some well-known feminists that it was too pessimistic about women's lives and anti-men. ''The Women's Room'' is set in 1950s America and follows the fortunes of Mira Ward, a conventional and submissive young woman in a traditional marriage, and her gradual feminist awakening. The novel met stark media criticism when published but went on to be an international best seller.


Historical context

''The Women's Room'' was published in 1977, but the novel is written as a reflective work, following the main character, Mira, from adolescence in the late 1940s to adulthood and independence in the 1960s. Mira's primary childbearing years were in the
1950s The 1950s (pronounced nineteen-fifties; commonly abbreviated as the "Fifties" or the " '50s") (among other variants) was a decade that began on January 1, 1950, and ended on December 31, 1959. Throughout the decade, the world continued its re ...
, during the
Baby Boom A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase of birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds of defined national and cultural populations. People born during these periods are often ca ...
. Though she had only two children, many of her friends throughout the novel had three or more. The 1950s was also a period in which American women were expected to be
housewives A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which includes caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying a ...
, to prioritize their roles as wives and mothers before anything else, and to dutifully serve their families and find happiness inside their homes and marriages, rather than in a career.
Second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains. Wh ...
emerged in the 1960s. This movement focused on a multitude of issues ranging from women gaining control over their sexuality to women having equality in the workplace. In ''
The Feminine Mystique ''The Feminine Mystique'' is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, ''The Feminine Mystique'' became a bestseller, initially selling ...
'' (1963),
Betty Friedan Betty Friedan ( February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book ''The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the se ...
refers to one of those issues as "the problem that has no name". ''The Women's Room'' encompasses many ideas central to this movement, and Mira experiences much of the dissatisfaction common to housewives, discussed in ''The Feminine Mystique.''


Major characters

*Mira is the main character of the novel. Her life is followed from her teenage years into adulthood, during which time she undergoes several transformations. *Norm is Mira's husband and father of her two children, Normie and Clark Norm is a doctor and spends a limited amount of time at home with Mira and the children. *Martha is Mira's closest friend during her life as a housewife with Norm. Martha and Mira are able to sympathize with each other's respective situations as trapped housewives. *Val is Mira's closest friend in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
. She introduces Mira to second-wave feminist ideas, and Val's comments are some of the most radical in the novel. *Ben is Mira's love interest. He helps her find sexual satisfaction and independence in a relationship.


Plot details

Mira and her friends represent a wide cross-section of American society in the 1950s and 1960s. Mira herself is from a middle-class background. She is mildly rebellious in that she disagrees with her mother's view of the world. In her late teens she dates a fellow student named Lanny; one night, when she was supposed to be out on a date with him, Lanny ignores her, and in response Mira dances with several men. Mira's actions in this instance gain her a reputation for being loose. Through this experience and several others with Lanny, Mira realizes she does not want to marry him because he would leave her at home, alone, scrubbing floors. Later, Mira marries Norm, a future doctor. Mira and Norm have two sons, Norm, Jr. (referred to as Normie throughout the book) and Clark. During the first few years of her marriage, Mira develops friendships with three neighborhood women: Natalie, Adele, and Bliss—all of whom are married with children. The women begin to throw dinner parties in order to create fun evenings together that involve their husbands. At the dinner parties there is flirtation among the different couples. Natalie begins to believe that her husband and Mira are having an affair, but Mira is able to dismiss Natalie's accusation, and their bonds survive until Mira discovers that Bliss and Natalie are having affairs with Adele's husband. The suspicion and actuality of affairs within the group results in irreversible damage to their friendships. Mira and Norm later move to the small town of Beau Reve, where Mira meets fellow married women with children: Lily, Samantha, and Martha. During this time Mira's marriage becomes increasingly routine, and Mira finds herself at home, alone, scrubbing floors. Also while in Beau Reve, Mira witnesses her friends' struggles: Lily goes mad as a result of her son's rebellious behavior, Samantha is evicted after her husband loses his job and leaves her, and Martha takes a married lover who simultaneously gets his wife pregnant. Through her friends, Mira begins to understand the unfair advantages enjoyed by men in relationships. After many years of marriage, Norm files for divorce (it is hinted that he has been having an affair for some time) and remarries, leaving Mira on her own. During this time, Mira, lost without her routine life of wifely duties, attempts to commit suicide. She is found by Martha, who helps her pick herself up. Mira returns the help in due time when Martha, too, attempts suicide when trying to deal with her failed affair and resulting divorce. Following her and Norm's divorce, Mira goes to
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
to study for a Ph.D. in English literature, with which she hopes to fulfill her lifelong dream of teaching. There she meets Val, a militant radical feminist divorcée with a "precocious" teenage daughter, Chris. It is the heyday of
Women's Liberation The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
and Mira, now too, finally able to verbalize her discontent at the society around her, becomes a feminist, although a less radical and militant one than Val. Their circle includes Isolde (a lesbian divorcée), Kyla (married to Harley), and Clarissa (married to Duke). It also includes Ben, a diplomat to the fictional African nation of Lianu, with whom Mira begins a relationship. Mira and Ben have a happy relationship, in which Mira is able to maintain a sense of independence. Mira's development in the relationship contributes to her new unwillingness to live the life of a stereotypical housewife. When Mira's children come to visit her at Harvard, her growth and independence is revealed by a clear change in her views on the dichotomy between motherhood and sexuality. While at college, Val's daughter, Chris, is raped. Following Chris' rape, Val states (over Mira's protests), "Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relationships with men, in their relationships with women, all men are rapists, and that's all they are. They
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes." Mira later ends her relationship with Ben, after realizing that he expects her to return to Lianu with him and bear his children. Soon afterward, she discovers that Val has been shot following a violent protest at the trial of a rape victim. The book ends with a brief summary of where the characters are now. Ben married his secretary and now has two children. Mira is teaching at a small
community college A community college is a type of educational institution. The term can have different meanings in different countries: many community colleges have an "open enrollment" for students who have graduated from high school (also known as senior sec ...
and is not dating anyone. The ending is also a doubling back in which the narrator begins to write the story the reader has just read.


Reception

''The Women's Room'' received both praise and criticism. The novel was a ''New York Times'' bestseller the year it was released, 1977."Best Sellers" ''New York Times'', December 4, 1977 In June 2004, a sample of 500 people attending the ''Guardian'' Hay Festival included ''The Women's Room'' in their list of the top 50 essential contemporary reads, demonstrating that time has not diminished the importance of French's novel, and as of 2009, ''The Women's Room'' sold over 20 million copies and was translated into 20 languages.Sulzberger and Mitgang Many women found ''The Women's Room'' relatable and stimulating; they were able to recognize their own lives in Mira's.
Susan G. Cole Susan G. Cole (born February 9, 1952) is a Canadian feminist author, activist, editor, speaker and playwright. She has spoken out on a number of issues, including free speech, pornography, race and religion. As a lesbian activist and mother, sh ...
remembers "riding the subway after 'The Women's Room''came out in paperback and noticing five women in one car devouring it."
Susan Faludi Susan Charlotte Faludi (; born April 18, 1959) is an American feminist, journalist, and author. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991, for a report on the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores, Inc., a report that the Pulitze ...
viewed the novel as capable of " nspiringan outward-looking passion and commitment in its readers," which "was no small feat."
Gloria Steinem Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in ...
states that ''The Women's Room'' "expressed the experience of a huge number of women and let them know that they were not alone and not crazy." Much of the negative criticism of ''The Women's Room'' is based on the lack of dynamic male characters in the book. The failure to have any man in the novel that did not blur together with other male characters allowed negative criticism to home in on the view of an expressed anti-male sentiment, which discredited much of the positive and true portrayal of women in the novel. Ellen Goodman discusses this idea that within ''The Women's Room'', the women are dynamic characters, whereas the male characters lack depth. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt concurs with Goodman and feels that while women may relate to the novel, there is little comfort for men within ''The Women's Room.'' Anne Tyler goes a step further than Goodman and Lehmann-Haupt by stating that the entire novel is "very long and very narrow" and very biased. Cole said "critics thought it was hard on men, but the average woman did not." French's novel was a turning point for feminist fiction. While non-fiction works, such as ''The Feminine Mystique'', were helping to recruit feminists, feminist fiction was still not widely read and was considered reading for only "hardcore" feminists. French's ''The Women's Room'' changed that, as shown by its wide reception and ''New York Times'' bestseller ranking.


Other media

* ''The Women's Room'' (1980), is a three-hour made-for-TV movie that aired on
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
, starred
Lee Remick Lee Ann Remick (December 14, 1935 – July 2, 1991) was an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film ''Days of Wine and Roses (film), Days of Wine and Roses'' (1962), and for the 1966 ...
(as Mira) and
Ted Danson Edward Bridge "Ted" Danson III (born December 29, 1947) is an American actor. He achieved stardom playing the lead character Sam Malone on the NBC sitcom ''Cheers'', for which he received two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. He ...
(as Norm), and earned three
Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
nominations. The producer, Philip Mandelker, stated that in making the movie they wanted to "create as much controversy as possible, with the purpose of getting men and women to talk to each other." Consequently, it is not surprising that the reviews varied widely. For example, Tom Shales found the movie annoying and a "stinker". In contrast, John J. O'Connor said the movie was a successful adaptation of the book, he thoroughly enjoyed it, and: "No one will be bored." *''The Women's Room'' (2007), is a
BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...
dramatization.


References


Further reading

*DuBois, Ellen Carol, and Lynn Dumenil, ed. Through Women's Eyes: An American History, Volume 2: Since 1865, Second Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. *Tess Cosslett, Celia Lury, and Penny Summerfield
Feminism and Autobiography: Texts, Theories, Methods
London: Routledge, 2000. * Kim A. Loudermilk
Fictional Feminism: Representing Feminism in American Bestsellers
London:Routledge, 2004. * Deborah G. Felder
A Bookshelf of Our Own
New York: Citadel Press, 2006


External links



* * ttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/sep/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview36 Review at the GuardianSeptember 13, 2003 {{DEFAULTSORT:Womans Room, The 1977 American novels Feminist novels Fiction set in the 1950s Simon & Schuster books Self-reflexive novels American novels adapted into films 1977 debut novels