Almost every time an excerpt from the book appears I nearly laughed out loud.Įven so, Neuffer offers a sympathetic but not uncritical portrait of Andelin, the book she wrote, and the movement she fostered up until the late 1990s. Helen Andelin seemed to be focused on the same problems as feminists like Betty Friedan, but she offered a radically different solution to women's dissatisfaction in a self-help book called "Fascinating Womanhood." Why did that book, comical to may present-day readers (but not universally so), attract hundreds of thousands of women?Īccording to Neuffer, Andelin was adept at taking the worst of Mormonism (vis a vis unquestioning obedience and rigidly-prescribed gender roles) and combining it with flippant "how-to-catch-a-man" advice from 1920s pop culture into a stew that appealed to the taste of dissatisfied wives around the United States and beyond. Helen Andelin seemed to be focused on the same problems as feminists like Betty Friedan, but she offered a radically different solution to women's dissatisfaction in a self-help book called "Fascinating Womanhood." Why did that book, comical to may present-day readers (but not universally so), attract hundreds of thousands of women? According to Neuffer, Andelin was adept at tak This is an engaging book about an under-examined aspect of feminism and the twentieth century women's rights movement. This is an engaging book about an under-examined aspect of feminism and the twentieth century women's rights movement. Winner of the Mormon History Association's Best Biography Award.more This study provides an evenhanded and important look at a crucial, but often overlooked cross section of American women as they navigated their way through the turbulent decades following the post-war calm of the 1950s. Undeterred, she became a national celebrity, who was interviewed extensively and appeared in sold-out speaking engagements.Īndelin’s message calling for the return to traditional roles appealed to many in a time of uncertainty and radical social change. As Andelin’s notoriety grew, so did the backlash from her critics. A woman’s true happiness, taught Andelin, could only be realized if she admired, cared for, and obeyed her husband.
The book, which borrowed heavily from those 1920s advice booklets, the Bible, and classical literature, eventually sold over three million copies and launched a nationwide organization of classes and seminars led by thousands of volunteer teachers.Ĭountering second-wave feminists in the 1960s, Andelin preached family values and urged women not to have careers, but to become good wives, mothers, and homemakers instead. In 1963, at the urging of her followers, Andelin wrote and self-published Fascinating Womanhood. She began leading small discussion groups for women at her church. Andelin took her new-found happiness as a sign that it was her religious duty to share these principles with other women. He bought her gifts and hurried home from work to be with her. She applied the principles from the booklets and found that her disinterested husband became loving and attentive. As she studied a set of women’s advice booklets from the 1920s, Andelin had an epiphany that not only changed her life but also affected the lives of millions of American women. A religious woman, she fasted and prayed for help. She applied the principles from the b In 1961, Helen Andelin, housewife and mother of eight, languished in a lackluster, twenty-year-old marriage.
In 1961, Helen Andelin, housewife and mother of eight, languished in a lackluster, twenty-year-old marriage.
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