I'm My Age And I Feel Glorious.

I Realized That What I Was Saying Was Threatening, Somehow, To The Editors Of Women's Magazines. That It Threatened The Very World They Were Trying To Paint, What I Then Called The "feminine Mystique."

What Had Really Caused The Women's Movement Was The Additional Years Of Human Life. At The Turn Of The Century Women's Life Expectancy Was Forty-six; Now It Was Nearly Eighty. Our Groping Sense That We Couldn't Live All Those Years In Terms Of Motherhood Alone Was "the Problem That Had No Name." Realizing That It Was Not Some Freakish Personal Fault But Our Common Problem As Women Had Enabled Us To Take The First Steps To Change Our Lives.

Over And Over Again, Stories In Women's Magazines Insist That Women Can Know Fulfillment Only At The Moment Of Giving Birth To A Child. They Deny The Years When She Can No Longer Look Forward To Giving Birth, Even If She Repeats The Act Over And Over Again. In The Feminine Mystique, There Is No Other Way For A Woman To Dream Of Creation Or Of The Future. There Is No Other Way She Can Even Dream About Herself, Except As Her Children's Mother, Her Husband's Wife.

I Understood Somehow My Mother's Frustration. And That It Was No Good Not Only For Her, But For Her Children Or Her Husband, That She Didn't Have A Real Use Of Her Ability.

Getting Older Is An Adventure, Not A Problem.