What do you think?
Rate this book
Young, White, and Miserable: Growing Up Female in the Fifties
Young, White, and Miserable is a critically acclaimed study that compellingly shows how the feminist movement of the 1960s found momentum in the seemingly peaceable time of the 1950s. Wini Breines explores white middle class America and argues that mixed messages given to girls during this decade lent fuel to the fire that would later become known as feminism. Concluding with a look at the life and suicide of social scientist Anne Parsons, this book is a poignant and important look into conditions that led to the women's movement.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 24, 2026
This took me way too long to finish. This book was a really interesting read, especially because it encapsulates how ambivalent society was towards white women during the 1950s. Women were expected to be obedient wives and mothers during a time when there was great economic and cultural upheavals. When there were more opportunities for growth in society, but women weren't expected to really reap those rewards. Breines brings in a great case study of Anne Parsons, a woman who was stifled by societal expectations. She was quite successful in her life when it came to work, but she felt incredibly behind when it came to familial milestones, such as starting a family. But even the women who did manage to do everything that was expected of them in society still couldn't measure up. Books were written about overbearing mothers and passive wives.
Something I appreciate that Breines does is that despite the title of the book, she does make an effort to bring intersectionality into the book. She doesn't focus a whole lot on race, but she did her research, as can be seen in the notes. That being said, she mainly does focus on (upper) middle class white young women who were growing up in the suburbs. Very interesting, but when it comes to my own research, it's not that helpful. (I mean... maybe. I still need to figure out my angle. It's... it's very slow going- it's going to require HOURS of more research and thousands of pages of books, but luckily the notes section in this book is extremely helpful!)
One thing I wish she could've written about more is the Other white women. She does have a chapter dedicated to the ones who never married, the ones who weren't mothers, and the ones who were more interested in Beat poetry and rock and roll, but... but it did seem kind of narrowed in terms of what she was trying to say. These women existed on the fringes, dispassionate by society and doing everything in their power to make something of themselves that didn't require them to be a caretaker. However, the chapter was so short and filled with so many things that it didn't really seem like it went where it was meant to. I would have liked a more in depth look at these women.
Something I appreciate that Breines does is that despite the title of the book, she does make an effort to bring intersectionality into the book. She doesn't focus a whole lot on race, but she did her research, as can be seen in the notes. That being said, she mainly does focus on (upper) middle class white young women who were growing up in the suburbs. Very interesting, but when it comes to my own research, it's not that helpful. (I mean... maybe. I still need to figure out my angle. It's... it's very slow going- it's going to require HOURS of more research and thousands of pages of books, but luckily the notes section in this book is extremely helpful!)
One thing I wish she could've written about more is the Other white women. She does have a chapter dedicated to the ones who never married, the ones who weren't mothers, and the ones who were more interested in Beat poetry and rock and roll, but... but it did seem kind of narrowed in terms of what she was trying to say. These women existed on the fringes, dispassionate by society and doing everything in their power to make something of themselves that didn't require them to be a caretaker. However, the chapter was so short and filled with so many things that it didn't really seem like it went where it was meant to. I would have liked a more in depth look at these women.
September 2, 2021
Young, White and Miserable: Growing Up Female in the Fifties by Wini Breines provides many insights into the world I did not know. I grew up in the 1950s, but in a different world. Thus, this book provides some understanding of the privileged lives that White youth led, even though they were trapped and confined in “Leave It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” worlds. Her book documents the sociology of the day and their focus in the post-World War II days in “progress” and a better life. Their focus was not on the Black community, my world, but the field was still consumed with blaming the victims and waiting for people on the margins to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
I think I was on the margins of her world: listening to music, aware of films with glamorous stars, and the messages about gender and the future. Yet, while many people write about how these images did not include Black girls like me, I was looking at it from a distance because that was not my world. Just as I could read the Dick and Jane primers without it challenging my desire to read, I knew this was not my world. She writes about young girls longing for a trapping of a world that I occupied, but it was not a fantasy to me.
My working-class family struggled to make ends meet, so there was not the illusion of comfort where you could sit in your room and dream of options. I shared the top of a bunk bed with my sister until I was nine, when we moved into a larger apartment with two bunk beds and I finally had my own bed. I did not have my own room until I moved into my own apartment, where I referred to my bedroom as “my room.” Yet, at the age of five, my sister and I took ballet lessons in Greenwich Village in NYC. My father took us on the bus, but my aunt picked us up, often we ate in outdoor cafes surrounded by gay men. I did not have a language about “gayness,” but they were part of my world.
My father, high school educated, was limited to service work, but he made the best of it. During elementary school, he worked as a bartender in a jazz club in Greenwich Village, so that music is part of my background with musicians coming in and out of our small apartment in the neighborhood that would become the East Village. Family members were part of that music scene, occupations that were open to them, but I still heard stories of how they faced discrimination. Visits to the village in high school, meant I heard these musicians. My parents were progressive, as were many of the White and Black people in their circle of friends. It is not just growing up in NYC, but the community and the village that raised me—even as we moved to different parts of the city.
My mother must have picked neighborhoods carefully, because I did not have the isolated experiences of the Black women Breines cites in her book. In fact, I was president of the student government in a predominantly White high school in the 1960s. There might have been advantages to remaining in Manhattan, while other boroughs meant more challenges—as I could see in the book about Nellie McKay. I also learned politics at the kitchen table that gave me a lens for thinking about what I faced in my schools. I also was part of the civil rights movement, active in NY High School Friend of SNCC. There were sites where I developed confidence. I could question the incoming messages from the mass culture and later would use those skills to questions the fields I studied.
Yet, Breines helps me understand the White middle-class female students in my high school, less so in college, because as a commuter student there were few students knew well. Most of my friends were first generation college students. We were directed to employment, since that was the culture. There was no finding a man who would support you, evidence of married Black women’s high levels of labor participation. I knew I would work, but what work was the question. In my research on Black college graduates in the late 1960s, many saw themselves as “career only” while in college; even when they would later marry and have children. Their mindset was different from their White classmates, who were expected to get the MRS degree. Reading this book, I could better understand the tensions of friends, tensions I did not share and perhaps they could not vocalize.
I always knew Talcott Parson’s daughter committed suicide, but none of the details. Anne Parson was clearly a victim of her era and she did not have the resources to challenge the establishment. In graduate school I had a psychiatrist, at a reduced rate, but he was clearly in training. He could not help me cope with the systemic racism I faced teaching part-time. He found my own behavior questionable, but a quiet dinner with friends who supported me during these rough times was an asset. In terms of this therapist, if Freud did not cover it, then it was not on the agenda. I had enough support over my life to dismiss his visions that I could see came from his own limited experience as a White male. Sorry Anne did not have the resources, but again her story reveals a racial line.
Yes, there is much to rethink. The fact that many Black women rose to leadership positions in the Civil Rights movement is worthy of comment here. They were also leaders in the labor movement. I was often perplexed about why White feminists moved to issues of personal sexual desire, but this book helps me understand it. My own mission was more about social and racial justice along many dimensions. I guess this is what I learned in my Black, working-class home. Breines helps fill in pieces of the puzzle.
I think I was on the margins of her world: listening to music, aware of films with glamorous stars, and the messages about gender and the future. Yet, while many people write about how these images did not include Black girls like me, I was looking at it from a distance because that was not my world. Just as I could read the Dick and Jane primers without it challenging my desire to read, I knew this was not my world. She writes about young girls longing for a trapping of a world that I occupied, but it was not a fantasy to me.
My working-class family struggled to make ends meet, so there was not the illusion of comfort where you could sit in your room and dream of options. I shared the top of a bunk bed with my sister until I was nine, when we moved into a larger apartment with two bunk beds and I finally had my own bed. I did not have my own room until I moved into my own apartment, where I referred to my bedroom as “my room.” Yet, at the age of five, my sister and I took ballet lessons in Greenwich Village in NYC. My father took us on the bus, but my aunt picked us up, often we ate in outdoor cafes surrounded by gay men. I did not have a language about “gayness,” but they were part of my world.
My father, high school educated, was limited to service work, but he made the best of it. During elementary school, he worked as a bartender in a jazz club in Greenwich Village, so that music is part of my background with musicians coming in and out of our small apartment in the neighborhood that would become the East Village. Family members were part of that music scene, occupations that were open to them, but I still heard stories of how they faced discrimination. Visits to the village in high school, meant I heard these musicians. My parents were progressive, as were many of the White and Black people in their circle of friends. It is not just growing up in NYC, but the community and the village that raised me—even as we moved to different parts of the city.
My mother must have picked neighborhoods carefully, because I did not have the isolated experiences of the Black women Breines cites in her book. In fact, I was president of the student government in a predominantly White high school in the 1960s. There might have been advantages to remaining in Manhattan, while other boroughs meant more challenges—as I could see in the book about Nellie McKay. I also learned politics at the kitchen table that gave me a lens for thinking about what I faced in my schools. I also was part of the civil rights movement, active in NY High School Friend of SNCC. There were sites where I developed confidence. I could question the incoming messages from the mass culture and later would use those skills to questions the fields I studied.
Yet, Breines helps me understand the White middle-class female students in my high school, less so in college, because as a commuter student there were few students knew well. Most of my friends were first generation college students. We were directed to employment, since that was the culture. There was no finding a man who would support you, evidence of married Black women’s high levels of labor participation. I knew I would work, but what work was the question. In my research on Black college graduates in the late 1960s, many saw themselves as “career only” while in college; even when they would later marry and have children. Their mindset was different from their White classmates, who were expected to get the MRS degree. Reading this book, I could better understand the tensions of friends, tensions I did not share and perhaps they could not vocalize.
I always knew Talcott Parson’s daughter committed suicide, but none of the details. Anne Parson was clearly a victim of her era and she did not have the resources to challenge the establishment. In graduate school I had a psychiatrist, at a reduced rate, but he was clearly in training. He could not help me cope with the systemic racism I faced teaching part-time. He found my own behavior questionable, but a quiet dinner with friends who supported me during these rough times was an asset. In terms of this therapist, if Freud did not cover it, then it was not on the agenda. I had enough support over my life to dismiss his visions that I could see came from his own limited experience as a White male. Sorry Anne did not have the resources, but again her story reveals a racial line.
Yes, there is much to rethink. The fact that many Black women rose to leadership positions in the Civil Rights movement is worthy of comment here. They were also leaders in the labor movement. I was often perplexed about why White feminists moved to issues of personal sexual desire, but this book helps me understand it. My own mission was more about social and racial justice along many dimensions. I guess this is what I learned in my Black, working-class home. Breines helps fill in pieces of the puzzle.
May 11, 2011
I'm such a nerd for stuff like this. Though this is from an academic press, Breines writes with an accessible style as she explores the decade of the 50s. Her angle is an analysis of the culture that eventually led to the women's rights movement on the 60s/70s. She uses survey results from the time as well as interviews and personal experience to piece together the repressive and contradictory culture that led some women to rebellion.
It's a thorough overview. Breines covers the Beatniks, race issues, as well as generational conflicts of the time. Her use of interviews allows her to illustrate her conclusions using the first-hand accounts of actual women from that time.
Definitely worth a look.
It's a thorough overview. Breines covers the Beatniks, race issues, as well as generational conflicts of the time. Her use of interviews allows her to illustrate her conclusions using the first-hand accounts of actual women from that time.
Definitely worth a look.
February 13, 2019
Breines delivers an insightful look into the problems faced by young white women in the 50s that led to their eventual participation in the women's movement of the 60s and 70s. While I did think some of her writing could have been a bit...smoother? I found some phrases repeated a lot and she did not introduce the authors she quotes enough, leaving me lost as to the context sometimes. However, this book gave me many things to think about regarding what prompted the women's Lib movement. Definitely something I would recommend to anyone studying that period of American women's history.
February 8, 2022
Four and a half stars.
October 16, 2024
Pretty similar to Homeward Bound, so I think that’s why I didn’t like it as much, felt repetitive. Overall though, interesting perspective
February 24, 2026
"I am certainly revolting against something, and it has taken a long time to figure out just what."
November 15, 2008
Wini Breines' objective for this book, she says, is “to understand how young women who had grown up in the narrowly defined gender environment of the 1950s became feminists.” Her answer? Future feminists only ambivalently internalized the ‘50s ideals, and in some cases rejected them outright.
July 1, 2014
It was definitely an interesting book to read and showed what the 1950s for middle-class, white women was like. Anyone who thinks they would want to live in the 1950s should read this book, and then decide if it's worth the trip back in time.
March 4, 2012
I enjoyed this book tremendously. Well researched and fascinating.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews