Femininity (35 page)
Authors: Susan Brownmiller
Tags: #Social Science, #Feminism & Feminist Theory, #Women's Studies, #History, #Social History
Selections from Aristotle and Ralph Waldo Emerson appear in Rosemary Agonito, ed.,
History of Ideas on Woman: A Source Book,
New York: Putnam, 1977.
President Reagan’s remark:
Time,
Sept. 12, 1983.
Jesus wept: Luke 19:41.
Mary as
Mater Dolorosa:
Marina Warner,
Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary,
New York: Knopf, 1976.
Muskie’s tears: “Campaign Teardrops,”
Time,
March 13, 1972.
Begin’s grief: “Begin’s Deep Depression,”
Newsweek,
Sept. 26, 1983; “Begin’s Clouds of Gloom,”
Newsweek, Aug.
1, 1983.
Beauvoir on crying: Simone de Beauvoir,
The Second Sex
(1949), trans, from the French by H. M. Parshley, New York: Knopf, 1953.
Studies on crying newborns and little children: Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin,
The Psychology of Sex Differences,
Stanford University Press, 1974.
Raging hormonal imbalance: Edgar Berman,
The Compleat Chauvinist: A Guide for the Bedeviled Male,
New York: Macmillan, 1981.
Depression: Willard Gaylin,
Feelings,
New York: Harper and Row, 1979; Pauline Bart, “Depression in Middle-Aged Women,”
in Gornick and Moran, eds.,
Woman in Sexist Society,
New York: Basic Books, 1971.
Hippocrates and the wandering uterus: Joanna B. Rohrbaugh, Women:
Psychology’s Puzzle,
New York: Basic Books, 1979.
Thyroid gland theories: Louis S. Goodman and Alfred Gilman,
The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics,
New York: Macmillan, 1975.
Nervous prostration: Sarah Stage,
Female Complaints: Kydia Pinkham and the Business of Women’s Medicine,
New York: Norton, 1979.
Premenstrual tension: The pioneer in this field is Katharina Dalton,
The Menstrual Cycle,
New York: Pantheon, 1969.
Inner space: Erik Erikson,
Identity, Youth and Crisis,
New York: Norton, 1968.
Female masochism: Helene Deutsch,
The Psychology of Women
(2 vols.) New York: Grune and Stratton, 1944, 1945.
Maternal guilt is discussed in Shirley Radl,
Mother’s Day Is Over,
New York: Charterhouse, 1973; Angela Barron McBride,
The Growth and Development of Mothers,
New York: Harper and Row, 1973; Adrienne Rich,
Of Woman Born,
New York: Norton, 1976; Jane Lazarre,
The Mother Knot,
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.
Feminine emotions in popular music: Aida Pavletich,” Rock-a-Bye,
Baby,
New York: Doubleday, 1980.
Gender gap in Gallup poll:
Newsweek,
Sept. 19, 1983.
Nurturance: According to Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin
(The Psychology of Sex Differences,
1974), the term “nurturance” was coined by H.A. Murray
(Explorations in Personality,
Oxford University Press, 1938) to describe the giving of aid and comfort to others.
Since then, “nurturance” has been used freely by psychologists, feminists and popular
writers as a shorthand word for supportive behavior that goes beyond the dictionary
definition of “nurture.”
For descriptions of maternal nurturance in the animal world, and the relationship
of maternal rank to the future rank of offspring, see Thelma Rowell,
The Social Behaviour of Monkeys,
London: Penguin Books, 1972; Cynthia Moss,
Portraits in the Wild: Behavior Studies of East African Mammals,
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975; and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy,
The Woman That Never Evolved,
Harvard University Press, 1981.
For a description of the mother-gatherer in the !Kung San, see Richard Borshay Lee,
The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society,
Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Sharon Tiffany’s analysis of motherhood in pre-industrial economies may be found in
Sharon Tiffany,
Women, Work, and Motherhood,
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982.
Pre-monotheistic worship of the Mother Goddess is detailed with attention to sources
in Merlin Stone,
When God Was a Woman,
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.
Status in breastfeeding is discussed in Lawrence Stone,
The Family, Sex and Marriage in England
1500–1800, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977.
The elimination of midwives in nineteenth and early twentieth century America by the
medical establishment is discussed, with documentation, in Barbara Ehrenreich and
Deirdre English, For Her Own
Good:
150
Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women,
New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1978.
One satirical portrait of a woman doctor may be found in Henry James,
The Bostonians
(1886).
For a comprehensive view of femininity from the Freudian perspective, see Helene Deutsch,
The Psychology of Women
(2 vols.), New York: Grune & Stratton, 1944, 1945.
The evolution of Mary is examined in Marina Warner,
Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary,
New York: Knopf, 1976.
The popular classic in the field of blame-the-mother is Philip Wylie,
Generation of Vipers,
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1942, which put the term “momism” into the
vernacular. For a full discussion of mother-baiting in the Forties and Fifties, see
Chapter 7, “Motherhood as Pathology,” in Ehrenreich and English,
op. cit.
For a discussion of the attempts of Freudian psychologists and criminologists to
blame mothers for their sons’ acts of rape, see Chapter 6, “The Police-Blotter Rapist,”
in Susan Brownmiller,
Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape,
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975.
The passage of sperm into the uterus is described in Constance R. Martin,
Textbook of Endocrine Physiology,
Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1976.
Women’s decision-making is discussed in Carol Gilligan,
In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory of Women’s Development,
Harvard University Press, 1982.
C
OLLECTING RESEARCH MATERIAL FOR
this project in its early stages took a special intelligence and a pioneer spirit;
I would like to thank Barbara Mehrhof for tracking through the scientific journals
and for her keen professional interest in primate studies. Those who volunteered to
read drafts of chapters—Myra Terry, Diana Russell, Jane Alpert, Susan Jacoby, Marilyn
Kaskell, Barbara Milbauer and Ann Jones—will see that their insights and observations
are reflected in the final copy. I am grateful to Sharon Frost, who took on the role
of chief adviser in matters of art and esthetics, and to Leslie Leinwand, who offered
a crash course in genetics and molecular biology.
Doris O’Donnell, Dianne Burden, Helen Payne, Marta Vivas, Lillian Lent, Jo Whitlow,
Minda Bikman, Andrea Dworkin, Alice Straus, Lilia Melani, Ruby Rohrlich, Andrea Eagen,
Mary Cantwell, Charles Mee and Eden Lipson passed along books and articles and suggested
fresh avenues of inquiry. Discussions with Holly Forsman, Lynne Shapiro, Merle Rubine,
Arthur Rubine, Maggie Smith, Florence Rush, Ros Fleigel, Alison Owings, David Gurin,
Dan Stewart, Susan Braudy, Nancy Milford, Lois Gould, Paula Weideger, Wendy Weil,
Claudio Ugalde, Don Conte, Lynn Campbell, Dorchen Leidholdt, Rosetta Reitz and Carol
Rinzler turned into paragraphs which I know they will recognize. The in-house editing
of Paul Johnson, who never said that he minded when I interrupted his own writing
labors, smoothed many a sentence and clarified many ideas.
Once again I am indebted to the New York Public Library for the privilege of stashing
my typewriter in the Frederick Lewis Allen
Room while I roamed its divisions. The Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public
Library, the New York Academy of Medicine Library, and the Fashion Institute of Technology
Library, with its open shelves and knowledgeable personnel, were indispensable storehouses
of enlightenment and information.
The formal interviews I conducted were exceedingly valuable. I would like to thank
William G. Hamilton, M.D. (orthopedics and dance), Richard M. Bachrach, D.O. (osteopathy
and movement), Ronald G. Levandusky, M.D. (plastic surgery), Peter M. Pressman, M.D.
(oncology and breast surgery), Norman Orentreich, M.D. (dermatology), Marcia Storch,
M.D., and Shelley Kolton, M.D. (gynecology), and Ronni Kolotkin (electrolysis) for
their cooperation, their expertise and their candor.
For the second time I have had the good fortune to work with that energizing corporate
entity known as Simon and Schuster. Marjorie Williams of The Linden Press applied
her elegant sensibility to the manuscript pages. Gerry Sachs, Carol Wilson and Fran
Ross made some graceful catches. Joni Evans, as editor, was a sustaining force from
inception to publication. Her unflagging determination produced a better book.
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pants feminized with,
94–95
acting, cosmetics and,
161
,
162–63
Adam’s apple,
105–6
adulterous women, veiling of,
97
Afghanistan, women in,
96
Africa,
40
breast shape in art of,
41–42
hairstyles in,
58–59
nurturance and,
228
aging,
165–67
Alcott, Louisa May,
63–64
Allen, Woody,
44
Alone of All Her Sex
(Warner),
226–27
Andersen, Hans Christian,
131
androgens,
27
,
105–6
,
182
,
201
,
202
acne and,
136–37
baldness and,
58
Angelico, Fra,
70
anger:
in men,
210
women’s inhibition of,
210–12
animals:
movement in,
192
size of,
30–32
anorexia,
32
in adolescence,
49–50
anthropological theories:
of superior size of males,
28
of upright walking,
42
Aristophanes,
155
Aristotle,
207–8
Armstrong, Helen,
66
art,
27
African,
41–42
ideal feminine form in,
23–24
,
37
,
41–42
,
46
,
105
,
132
,
133
,
153–54
Artificial Face, The
(Gunn),
138
Aryan supremacy, cult of,
71
breasts of,
43
voice of,
114–15
athletic women:
breasts of,
43
femininity of,
195–96
Bacall, Lauren,
100
baldness,
58
ballet, feminine movement and,
181
,
182–83
Barney, Natalie,
93
Baryshnikov, Mikhail,
181
Baxter, Anne,
229
beards,
138–40
Beauvoir, Simone de,
194
,
195
,
208–9
,
210
Begin, Menachem,
209
Bell, Quentin,
84
Bentley, Elizabeth,
216
n
“Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (Fitzgerald),
63
Bettelheim, Bruno,
61
Bible,
99
hair references in,
59
sex-distinctive dress in,
81–82
bifurcation, in Victorian and Edwardian eras,
83
birth-control pills, freckles and,
137
Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman
(Wallace),
135
blacks:
skin color of,
134–35
Blackstone, Sir William,
112
blonde, “dumb,”
71
blondenesss, cult of,
68–72
Bloomer costume,
88–91
blush, maidenly,
212–13
body,
21–51
girl’s assessment of,
25–26
hourglass,
46–47
