housewives. Friedan wrote:
It is no longer possible to ignore that voice, to dismiss the desperation of so many American women. This is not what being a woman means, no matter what the experts say.
This desperation has been fed throughout history by the practice of keeping women in their place by limiting their options. This was accomplished on one level by preventing women from gaining the sort of education offered to men, and while this has changed to a great extent, there are still inequalities in the opportunities offered to men as opposed to women. Susan Brownmiller writes:
The sad history of prohibitions on women's learning is too well known to be recorded here. . . In much of the world women are barred from advanced knowledge and technical training."
Eugene A. Hecker has shown how this attitude has prevailed through history, noting of the Roman era: "The prospect of a learned wife filled the orthodox Roman with peculiar horror." The democratic society founded in the New World was
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