The Women's Room
by Marilyn French
published
1988
(first published 1978)
by Time Warner Paperbacks
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binding
Paperback, 638 pages
isbn
0751505382
(isbn13: 9780751505382)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 533)
Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
those interested in women's studies, domestic life, gender in the 1950s and 1960s
In retrospect, I can say that, while "The Women's Room" wasn't always an enjoyable book, it was an important book, a narrative worthy of my time and attention in that it is a significant perspective of the life of the middle-class woman pre- and post- second wave feminism. It is often difficult for young adult women to appreciate our nearness, in terms of decades, to an American system which legalized and regulated the condemnation of the single woman. However, Marilyn French creates ...more
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One of a circle of neighbors who for a period of months sometime in the seventies gathered nearly every afternoon to talk and have a drink before dispersing to prepare meals for families loaned me this book or recommended it - I think I went and bought my own copy to read. I began it about 4:30 one day and think there may have been pizza at my house for dinner that evening because I barely stopped reading from the moment I began to the moment I finished -- which was around 10:30 the next mornin...more
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Read in January, 1979
An important book for me (and for more than a few women I know). The Women's Room is sort of Betty Friedan/The Feminine Mystique in novel form. The depictions of the middle-class lives of women and mothers in the 1950s and early 1960s are compelling. The stories of the women who moved in or into other realms in the later 1960s and through the 1970s show that sexism certainly didn't evaporate with feminism or with womens' moves out of an entirely domestic sphere.
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I first read this in college and a few times after that. It really brought to life the concepts outlined in The Feminine Mystique. It illustrated the roots of the feminist movement, which were mostly based on women's discontent and emptiness about being limited to the role of wife and mother. The characters are pretty much middle class white women, which is not the voice of all feminists at that time, but still an interesting one.
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Read in May, 2007
not for the faint of heart, but an honest and compelling novel that chronicles the emotional and practical roots of the women's rights rights movement via the personal journey of the protagonist. shows where we came from and how far we still have to go. heartbreaking, but also empowering and enlightening. not an easy read but possibly the most influential book i've ever read (and i've read it 4 times)!
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Read in January, 1996
It had been a really shocking expreince for a girl of 16 in Tehran to read the story of a woman in the 60s who had almost the same situation the women today in Iran have.
I had read a room of one's own & so many other feminist (?) books by the time, but I can not say that they had that great effect on me... It was so awakening.
I had read a room of one's own & so many other feminist (?) books by the time, but I can not say that they had that great effect on me... It was so awakening.
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I thought this book was amazing and eye-opening when I read it in high school (college?) Young and idealistic and raised ina conservative home and all that.
Now it just smacks of a brand and era of feminism that I can't relate to anymore.
Now it just smacks of a brand and era of feminism that I can't relate to anymore.
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Even as a teenager, I knew dreck when I saw it. Gaah!
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
anyone who isn't scared of feminism
The narrator comes right out and says that this book doesn't have a plot (and the narrator's "veiled identity" is actually one of the failures in this book, as it feels rather gimmicky). But this book spends its 600 + pages zooming in on a few specific women's communities that serve to illustrate most of the issues second-wave feminism attempted to tackle. The book's protagonist, Mira, ties the various threads together, as she's the one that the "camera follows" most closely....more
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Read in September, 2007
It's difficult to know what to say about this book. It took me a long time to read this, not because it's long or difficult, but because I could only read so much without needing a break from it. I was a little unsure what to expect when I started reading it, so the first third of the book went quickly for me. Things slowed down when I was forced to acknowledge that yes, it really was that bleak and everything was not going to just magically get better, no matter how hard I wished it would.
...more
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Read in February, 2008
I'm FINALLY moving this book from the 'reading' to the 'read' category.
This book is so feminist I almost stopped reading it completely at several points. It makes me wonder about the author's past to write a story with so much 'man-anger'. I would absolutely recommend this to every woman... and man!
"Fairyland as it appeared in the books was the place I wanted to live, and I judged my surroundings according to how well they matched it. I used to try to concentrate hard enough to make...more
This book is so feminist I almost stopped reading it completely at several points. It makes me wonder about the author's past to write a story with so much 'man-anger'. I would absolutely recommend this to every woman... and man!
"Fairyland as it appeared in the books was the place I wanted to live, and I judged my surroundings according to how well they matched it. I used to try to concentrate hard enough to make...more
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Read in May, 2008
too much to discuss here, too much to think about. a feminist manifesto of sorts, with a not so feminist discussion of rape toward the end that only partially redeems itself... 2 quotes from the passage that challenges me the most (and which might not make sense out of context) : "I've dropped out of that world. I belong to all women's groups now. I shop at a feminist market, bank in a women's bank. I've joined a militant feminist organization, and in the future I will work only in that...more
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2 comments
recommends it for:
people who like reading about oppression
prepare to be horribly depressed. this was a consciousness raising novel written in the 1960s, i think.... in other words, it tells the story of a group of women who are "friends" who all live in the same suburban community in the late 50s and early 60s. they all have depressing and repressed lives... there is the catholic woman with 17 children who is becoming an alcoholic, there is the woman with the frigid husband, the woman with the unfaithful husband, etc. the book's point was to ...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone
Initially I read The Women's Room as a testament to the Bad Old Days, to the fate of women before the social and policy reforms wrought by agitation and uprising during the Second Wave of feminism. As I read more, however, the narrative slowly transformed, and more than disgust at past injustices, I began to feel a deep sadness, and then indignant anger, and finally rage and sickness and utter despair as what I was reading became a truth for now. A truth for the ages. As Val says to the younger ...more
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Read in July, 2008
I read this book for a term paper, which meant that I had to read it fast, which did not aid my appreciation of it as a novel. I think this book probably resonated more strongly in the 1970s, frankly. I was pretty turned off by the whole "Men are all rapists" theme. I also found it frustrating that none of the women in the novel were able to retain their personal integrity and have heterosexual relationships. Actually, no woman was able to retain her independance and have a relationshi...more
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From the Assata Co-op recommended reading list. (Madison, WI)
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Read in December, 1978
I read this book soon after it came out, around 1978-79. I was 30, divorced, raising and supporting two kids alone, working in a traditionally male occupation (a man on the street accused me of "taking a job away from a breadwinner"). The raw truth of this book kept me speechless for weeks. At this point, I remember very little of the story or characters, only my reaction to it. I kept the book for years, wanting to reread it, but in the end I let it go without doing so. I'm not sure I...more
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Read in April, 2008
I should have read this book in the seventies, and yet it is still relevant. Even though much has changed, expectations for women seem to stagnate in many ways, many of them through women's own confusion about their roles. Although this book is fiction, it was once thought of as THE book to read along with those of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. It was well written and yet the characters and their roles in the book were sometimes confusing. Not a timely book, but interesting as part of the...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.90 (411 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 5.00 (1 ratings) number of reviews: 69
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