The Feminine Mistake - A Review
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When I first heard of this book I was determined NOT to like it. In fact I was angry that such a book was written. I mean imagine it…a book that tells stay at home moms that they are doing a disservice to themselves and to their children by staying home with them! The nerve! The book in question is The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts.
Well, I read the book and guess what I like the book….sort of. 
Sure it has its moments of preaching and arrogance but it is an important read nonetheless. I think all women would benefit from at least reading this perspective even if not inclined to incorporate any of its ideas or concepts because at least you will know that there are some risks involved in deciding to defer your economic independence and be a stay-at-home mom, dependent on your husband for all financial support.
The book begins with a story that is supposed to be all powerful in proving that a woman’s choice to stay at home can wreck not only her life but that of her children. It is the story of the Bennetts’s grandmother. In all her 80 years her grandmother never worked outside the home. Okay that sounds nice …what is wrong with that? Well, apparently when her grandmother was around 40ish her husband left her for another woman and cut off ALL financial support to her and their children. When faced with this dire situation the grandmother still chose not to get a job outside the home. Instead she became dependent upon family members and her own children to support her while she spent the rest of her days depressed and “waiting” for her husband to return. Bennetts tries to imply that social norms at the time motivated this behavior…women belonged at home…not in the workforce. Well, this story did not sit right with me. Social norms or not I take care of my kids! I was frankly kind of appalled at this woman…not because she made a bad choice in being a stay at home mom and letting her husband support the family but because she refused to even try and help herself after the marriage had dissolved.
This whole sad story resulted in her daughter having to work outside the home even after marriage and family…to support the mother. But having been raised that family concerns come before secular jobs she often quit her own jobs to stay at home for her daughter’s first year of highschool, her daughter’s wedding preparations, taking care of her much older and ailing husband, etc. She also shot herself in the foot so to speak with large gaps in employment, no wage increases because of turn-over, and no substantial pension accumulated. She faced her own golden years alone with only $6000 a year to live on.
This is where we start to see some of Bennetts story…scarred by the experiences of her mother and grandmother, coming of age during the feminist movement, and successful and dedicated to her career and NOT willing to relinquish that financial independence to anyone.
She goes on to explain why she wrote the book and how she sees what she claims is a disturbing trend. Young moms are deciding to stay at home and raise their kids and forgo a career or they leave an established career to do the same. It is in fact becoming a status symbol to have the mom stay home. It is a symbol that shows that the husband is successful.
This sounds all well and good until you meet some of the women interviewed in the book whose husbands left them or died after they devoted years to raising kids while ignoring the cultivation of any job skills that may have proven invaluable in their time of crisis. These moms are hocking precious possessions, working like dogs in low paying jobs, and even finding themselves homeless because they were thrown into a raging river without a life raft. They gave their life raft to their husband and he walked away with it. Here is a quote:
In an era when parents scrupulously outfit their windows with child guards and their cars with baby seats, when they babyproof every square inch of their homes and scour Consumer Reports to research the safest strollers, it is hard to understand why so many women are willing to turn over their ability to feed their children to another person who - if history is any guide - may not always live up to that responsibility. No matter how lovely their homes are, economic dependency is the proverbial elephant in the room - the enormous issue that is almost universally ignored despite its power to destroy everything in it path.
Now then the book did veer off into a place I did not like so much whereby the author talked about how the stay at home moms were overall very ashamed of their place in the world and they didn’t want to use their real names when they were interviewed for this book. The working moms, however, almost always let their real names be used and they spoke openly about their situation and they were proud of their work and life accomplishments.I also did not like the assumption that Bennetts made that most women who choose to stay at home were motivated to do so because they had unsatisfying careers and staying home was an easy out for them. Bennetts admitted to having a lot of anger towards the “Full Time Mom” title that stay at home moms often get and use. It is Bennetts belief that stay at home moms are no more “full time” than working moms…even if they are delegating some of the mom tasks to hired nannies or babysitters. She also claims that working moms do just about everything that stay at home moms do…the cooking, the cleaning, the PTA meetings, the carpooling, etc. They just seem to miraculously fit it all in.
I was a mom working outside the home and I can tell you personally that stay at home moms generally get more quality time with their kids…that is just the simple truth of it. Of course I am not one of those stay at home moms that spends hours at the gym, salon, tanning booth, etc. and very little time at home. This was another mom type that Bennett really dislikes. I think she has some anger issues she needs to work out. One of the working moms she interviewed had the audacity to say that he had a brain and she wanted to use it, implying that stay at moms are functioning without brain power. I also found it shocking that Bennetts herself claimed that her work was so personally satisfying that she would never give it up…not even for her “precious children”. Myself…I don’t think there is much of anything I wouldn’t do for my kids. That Bennetts can elevate her career to a place higher than her children is sad to me.
For the most part though, Bennetts seems to feel that women are living under some kind of delusion. They will not admit that they are sacrificing their independence and financial security by becoming dependent on their husband. They do not think their husbands will ever leave them and they are not prepared to accept that he might die either. They are living in fantasy land until cold, hard reality slaps them in the face and they find themselves at square one again….alone with no income and no skills set that would enable them to get an income.If, ten years from now, you knew your husband was going to leave you and you would end up living in a one bedroom apartment with your kids, and be working for minimum wage at the Gap, wouldn’t you prepare ahead of time and avoid that fate? Well, basically this book asks…why not prepare for that anyway?Another quote from Bennetts:
I have always been puzzled by such attitudes; no matter what one’s circumstances, that kind of blind optimism strikes me as highly unrealistic. Although I have been married for nearly two decades, I have never felt it was safe to depend on any man for financial support, for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with my husband as an individual. To me, it is only sensible to think about financial contingency plans, just as it is sensible to protect yourself and your family with medical insurance or home insurance.
Think about some of the points made in this book. When a marriage dissolves, in the best cases, a woman might walk away with a few years of alimony (which isn’t guaranteed against death, disability, or lay-off), child support until the kids are grown (but remember 69.7% of child support case in 2005 had money owed in arrears), and perhaps half of the assets. Your husband walks away with half of the assets, his career you helped him pursue, future earning potential, and his pensions and retirement plans. Who is better off in this scenario? The woman’s retirement plan isn’t looking so good if you ask me.So what is a woman to do? Well, obviously Bennetts feels that having a career is your insurance:
Finding an institutional structure that can accommodate family needs - or becoming an entrepreneur and building your own - is crucial to many women’s success at combining careers and children.
I actually really like this statement because as an entrepreneur this is exactly what I have done. Did I do it for the reasons she feels I should have? No, but I have built a stable at home business nonetheless. I take more comfort in that now than I ever have before.I am also not one to think my marriage in invincible. I love my husband and I am 100% positive that he loves me but things can change. My husband’s parents are proof of that. They were together for all my husband’s younger years until he was married and his youngest sibling was almost out of high school. That is when my husband’s dad announced he wasn’t in love anymore and he was taking a job out of state to start over…with a new woman. My mother in law was devastated and I won’t get into the details but the events that took place afterwards were heart breaking. Reality tells me that no marriage is secure enough to warrant blind faith.
And beyond divorce there is death, disability, and terminal illness….all these events could catapult Susie Homemaker into the role of sole breadwinner at a moments notice.
One of the last parts of the book goes off course IMO and discusses how men should be our domestic partners as well…doing 50% of the housework and menial family management tasks. I didn’t really agree with her logic because I really do feel as though there are tasks that I am better suited to than my husband and it just makes more sense for me to do them. I may change more poopy diapers then he does but he always changes the oil on the car. We might share the cooking responsibilities but I always do the clean-up. Why? Because I do it better. When the sink is plugged up or the disposal is acting funny, my husband is the man. It doesn’t need to be text book fair…it just needs to work for us.
So what does Bennetts suggest we do? Well, I found her book to be a bit long on the preach and a little short on the practical side when it comes to actual steps women can take. I would have liked a list with bullet points but here are some of the indirect tips
* Learn a valuable skill
* Get a job and stick with it…moving up in pay and position
* Keep bank accounts separate from your husband
* Always look for opportunities to educate or improve yourself
* Make sure bills and household tasks are divided fairly
* Have a plan for worst case scenarios and be able to manage them if they do occur…divorce, death, injury, lay-off* If you are already married and not working, get a post-nuptial agreement, whereby you get a set amount for every year you out of the job market, in the event of a divorce
So..now it is your turn? What do YOU think?
WIN this book! I am giving away my copy of The Feminine Mistake to a reader. Just leave me a comment below and tell me what you think…linking to me is not required but it will get you an extra entry! 
I will award a winner on September 26th! Thanks for reading!
- Posted in Book Reviews, Contests, Family Life, Marriage, TidBits on September 12th, 2007
September 13th, 2007 at 6:36 am
I’m very interested in reading this for myself. Count me in.
September 13th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I thought the only mistake women make is that they “fail to see their WORTH”.
This book is very interesting to read. 
September 13th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Thanks for sharing that Tiffany. About 3 years ago I wrote an article online about why moms *should* start a home business and it’s by far my most published article. I talked about how men cheat, die, leave, become disabled… and then what? A marriage takes two people working hard to make it work, but one can wreck it! That’s the sad truth.
I for one am so glad that I can have the best of both worlds… I’m my kids primary caretaker AND have my business.
Don’t count my comment as an entry.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Man, I am taking a huge chance displaying my opinion in here, but here it goes. The grass is not always greener on the other side. I certainly understand your perspective but let me share some of the grass from the other side in just a little rebuttal to this statement.
When a marriage dissolves, in the best cases, a woman might walk away with a few years of alimony (which isn’t guaranteed against death, disability, or lay-off), child support until the kids are grown (but remember 69.7% of child support case in 2005 had money owed in arrears), and perhaps half of the assets. Your husband walks away with half of the assets, his career you helped him pursue, future earning potential, and his pensions and retirement plans. Who is better off in this scenario? The woman’s retirement plan isn’t looking so good if you ask me.So what is a woman to do? Well, obviously Bennetts feels that having a career is your insurance:
When I was 19 years old I married my girlfriend. Two months later, I was a father, and a proud one at that. Soon thereafter, my wife gave birth to a second child—like the first, a boy. In our fifth year of marriage, however, we decided to split up. In almost no time at all, the mother reunited with an old flame. Initially, my wife filed for divorce. Later, I would file as well, but not until I had learned some shocking information about the children.
In the early stages of the divorce proceedings, the mother and the boys moved in with her ex-boyfriend. This act raised my suspicions, and they were confirmed when my ex-wife’s eldest son informed me that the ex-boyfriend was his real father (his mother told him as much). Despite this information, the court refused my several requests for a DNA paternity test because the mother testified repeatedly under oath that I was the biological father.
The court was less than sympathetic to my plight. My original counsel advised me that if I wanted to contest paternity, I needed to request a stay to seek new counsel. I immediately did so and obtained new counsel. The new attorney was unable to attend the judgment on such short notice, however, and I had to petition the court myself. Three times I asked for a stay to determine paternity and for representation, and three times I was denied. Over my objections, the judge entered the divorce judgment. The judge patronizingly added that his children were adopted yet he loved them as his own. What difference, he seemed to imply, does paternity make?
After the initial proceedings had concluded, the court honored my request for a paternity test on the condition that its results be used only for medical purposes and not for legal purposes. The test was done and I awaited the results. In the meantime, my attorney appealed my case to the circuit court on the grounds that the judge had abused his discretion in denying my earlier requests in light of the disputed paternity.
Also during this period, my ex-wife declared her intention to isolate me from the two children, although the ex-boyfriend and biological father of the oldest son still refused to officially acknowledge his paternity. In furtherance of that effort she offered me a settlement, via our attorneys, that would eliminate my required child support and health insurance payments in exchange for my forfeiture of all visitation rights for both children. The FOC had brokered this deal and my attorney advised me to accept it and petition later to reinstate my visitation rights.
Against my better judgment and swayed by the specter of complete alienation from my son if I continued to fight, I accepted the deal. We went to court to finalize the settlement. The judge asked the mother if the settlement reflected the outcome she wanted, and she indicated that it did. But instead of asking me the same question, he accused me of wanting to sell my children, and began crossing terms off of the settlement. When he finished, he had eliminated my visitation rights and reinstated my child support and health insurance obligations for my ex-wife’s son. Somehow, I had gone from an unfavorable settlement to an unconscionable “agreement” that required me to pay a father to support his own son but prohibited me from ever seeing that child (or my own child).
B. The Aftermath
Over the years following the decision, I had to develop coping mechanisms to deal with the anguish of alienation from my son and the burden of paying child support for another’s child. I learned to live with the child support and health insurance payments by thinking of them as taxes that came out of each paycheck—as a forgone conclusion of money I would never see. But I could not come up with any clever device for coping with the separation from my son or his brother. I would often find myself wondering what they were up to, how they were doing in school, and what they looked like. I also wondered what they were being told about the source of the money their mother received each month.
Eventually I remarried. At first, I was adamant that we would not have any children. My past experience had cut deeply and, although it seemed well outside the realm of possibilities in this relationship, I could not bear the thought of reliving the experience. As the passage of time assuaged my pain, however, I learned that this relationship was different. My lovely wife and I have now been together for 14 years and have a wonderful three-and-a-half year old son.
Although the pain healed somewhat, my curiosity about how this could have happened remained strong. I had paid over $80,000 in child support, and my employer had been billed almost $70,000 for child health care premiums. I had to investigate.
C. The Investigation
I began to request records from the FOC office. Even as a person with no legal training, I knew something was terribly wrong. My instincts led me to involve the media, who seemed to share my skepticism. They were more successful at obtaining documentation that I could not access. Several outlets aired revealing exposés that all asked the same question: how did this happen?
I began receiving a good deal of positive feedback from the public. My phone rang constantly and I received many letters expressing outrage and support, with some urging me to crusade for other victims of paternity fraud. Even a state senator, during a television interview, agreed that my case raised serious concerns and one must strain to fathom the judge’s reasoning.
In the meantime, I filed a motion to erase all debts owed to the mother and the biological father. This time, the court ruled in my favor. Furthermore, I was granted visitation to see my biological son, whom I had not been allowed to contact in over 15 years.
As my investigation moved forward, I began to learn just how out of the loop the FOC and the court had kept me. For example, I discovered that the mother, having abandoned both children to the eldest’s father’s care, had petitioned the court to redirect my child support payments to the father. Moreover, the court granted the request without any regard for the requirement that it notify all parties within 30 days to allow an opportunity for objections. Rather than notifying me within 30 days, the court allowed me to find out through my own personal investigation many years later.
Based on this information and a FOC bureau memorandum I discovered, that directed FOC offices and Chief Judges to adhere to the 30-day notice requirement, I filed a grievance against the FOC. Shortly thereafter, the State Inspector General’s office contacted me concerning an investigation into the mother’s welfare fraud. Apparently, as I was paying for her child’s health care, she was also receiving duplicative health care payments from other providers. Furthermore, the FOC knew that the mother had received payments from providers but shirked their duty to inform me, which would have allowed me to stop my payments.
The more I learned, the more I wanted to dig deeper. With this new welfare fraud information, I filed another grievance against the FOC. I wondered how the FOC could award the mother, and then the father of the eldest son, sole custody in light of these revelations. The FOC should have known these facts, and yet it still concluded that living with these two, completely cut off from me, was in the best interest of the children—even my biological child. This, however, paled in comparison to what I learned next.
Recall that the mother and the FOC conspired to redirect my child support payments to the biological father without notifying me. This took place around 2001, soon after the court allowed the mother to abandon the children to the biological father, whose legal status was no more than “live-in boyfriend.” My research, however, uncovered the father’s felony complaint and arrest warrant from only four years prior. He had been convicted of a felony with a firearm and assault with a dangerous weapon.
Ironically, the state’s main witnesses included my ex-wife, some of her girlfriends, and the father’s own son. The episode involved the father returning home intoxicated and abusive. He brandished a rifle and took his own family hostage, destroying property and breaking windows. The son testified that the father told them they would all die. The police surrounded the home, and the father surrendered after a lengthy standoff.
Certainly, the court had access to these records, yet this felon is the man whose parental duties I had been subsidizing all those years. He is the man who the court deemed fit to raise my son and his. He is the man to whom the court awarded my son, entrusting him to keep my son and forbidding the boy from ever seeing me.
The FOC proved as unhelpful in the grievance process as it was in the proceedings. My first complaint went unanswered well past the 30-day limit. So did my second complaint. I filed a third grievance with the Chief Judge who, along with the FOC bureau, assured me an answer was forthcoming. After the time limit for all three grievances had come and gone, I received notice that each was outside the scope of the grievance process.
I appealed my denials to the Chief Judge, and once again received a negative response, this time with the word “DENIED” in all capitals. I also appealed to the FOC to try to stop my wage garnishment, which the state was using to reimburse the mother’s fraudulent health insurance payments. Although the state was aware of the fraud, they refused to stop my garnishment, meaning that I was forced to pay the state for money it had already been reimbursed. I have refused to pay, but to this day, the state continues to pursue my wages, placing a garnishment against my tax returns
September 14th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Sounds like this book is going to open a can of worms with SAHMs. I think even as a WAHM it is slightly offensive to assume all SAHMs are lazy or feel like they don’t have to work since they can be dependent on their husband’s wallet - there are numerous why one would choose to be a stay at home mom. Some people cannot afford a baby-sitter, daycare or nanny and there are some others who don’t feel comfortable with someone else watching their kids (who can blame these days?).
September 14th, 2007 at 3:38 am
Lesha,
I support any woman to build her own independence by all means, which does build self worth. That feeling of security is great for ones soul. It is also great morals to install in our children by leadership.
I do not want my comments to go sideways, the intention was not to set a negative floor, and I think this level of communication is long over due. The can of warms NEEDS to be opened and people need to be educated. My story I shared with you and all readers could be misinterpreted and redirected in many ways. Even though I obviously hold some issues that, need closure with my ex-wife. All must remember both the mother and biological father committed these acts.
The problem that I am trying to expose is the family courts; their motivation is to keep good loving families separated, and as long as they have jurisdiction in and out of the courtroom Reconciliation, communication and best interest of the child will remain a facade. I understand many will draw a conclusion I am off topic from the original, but reading between the lines with an open mind will prove im not.
The fight between the sexes must stop; our government COUNTS on the inability of unity between the sexes to continue to rape us of our constitutional rights to reap high levels of federal funding. OUR lives and families are being sold out. As long as the separation of communication remains, we will continue to fail in escalading numbers.
I honestly thank the woman reading this post and not directly attacking me; god knows I have had plenty of abuse. To the author I apologize, as I am not intentionally trying to redirect your original topic, but merely expand on the level of discussion.
For the record, I am a 42-year-old happily married father that has worked in the same field for over 20 years. This year I walked away from my career to start my own Business witch will take several years to garner the appropriate income to support my family.
Right now, my wife is the main breadwinner in my family; I work limited hours trying to generate a customer database to work from. When I am not working, I am with our 3-year-old son to eliminate the added expenses to our budget, even though many would frown upon this, IT IS TEAM efforts by my self and wife and we came to this conclusion together. So I am a stay home father concluding, I see our son off daily to pre-school cook the family meals and accomplish all household duties. Every father should at least for a period experience this as I have determined this is a full time job and stay home mothers are not given the deserved credit.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Frankly, I don’t want to win the book…no offense to you! I like your site.
I just wanted to say that the reason I do not want to win is the comments I have heard/read from this author. She’s abrasive, divisive, and condescending.
There are other things women can do to protect their futures and preserve their skills, beyond working full-time outside of the home.
Some women choose to or have to work full-time outside the home, but it isn’t the only good option for an educated woman.
Raising children is important and fulfilling, too.
Anyway, I’m glad you were able to glean something of value from her book!
September 15th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Book sounds controversial! Would love to read it myself and decide if it holds some facts or is just a delusionment of the author.
September 16th, 2007 at 9:50 am
This book sound very interesting to read.Enter me Please!
September 19th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
It would be wise for any married woman to have a legally binding agreement with her spouse, but the traditional postnup (an after-marriage version of a prenup) is too negative and money-grubbing IMO.
After more than 30 years of helping thousands of couples get better divorces, I realized I could take the same techniques I use successfully to help divorces go more smoothly, and apply them to a new kind of legal agreement that would help couples stay together, and hopefully prevent divorce altogether. I created the Couples Contract as a positive, loving, legal agreement that any couple can use instead of a prenup or postnup to not only make their relationship better, but also make the same financial agreements that are handled in the traditional prenup or postnup, but in a much more pleasant way.
My new relationship agreement is featured in my two books, “The Couples Contract for a Lasting Relationship” and “Legal Essentials for California Couples.”
Ed Sherman
Family Law Attorney
Founder of Nolo Press
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Got to page 3 and threw it out the window, thats how much I liked it.
October 4th, 2007 at 5:00 am
So, who won the book?
October 4th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Sorry I did not post this here earlier. The winner is Ashley R!
October 11th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
(just getting caught up on my bloglines heh.)
I gotta say, I think the whole premise sounds like more feminist propaganda.
I went to college and got a degree because I wanted something to fall back on in case my life didn’t go as planned.
I chose to have a child. I don’t think it is fair to my son to hand him off to someone else from the time that he is 6 weeks old. I did not decide to stay home because I’m lazy or a martyr. I decided to stay home because I belive that parents should be with their babies. If my husband made more money than me and wanted to stay home, that would have worked too.
It has been a sacrifice finantially. It just bothers me that everyone assumes that you have to be well off to stay home with your children. Sure we all go through rough spots and I would never be ashamed to work at the Gap if that meant I was taking the best care of my children. But having a new car (or two) or whatever else just isn’t worth it. Not to mention all the $$ we would be dumping into daycare, eating out, transportation, professional wardrobe, etc.
Sure, sometimes things happen. I was raised by a single mom and I know I could handle it if I ever found myself in that situation. But I’d rather invest time in my marriage, take out a life insurance policy and raise my children. At the end of my life I am not going to look back and say… “Gee I wish I had made more money.” Our children are our legacy. They are the only thing that we leave behind.
Ok, I’m kinda rambly, but I really find the whole thing insulting. (not anything you said Tiff, just the premise of the book)
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