Episode
Boy moms and Nazi POWs: how "The Feminine Mystique" changed feminism
- Podcast
- The Argument
- Published
- May 7, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3918
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
Betty Friedan thought Korean POWs were dying in captivity because their mothers were housewives. She thought boy moms were making their sons gay. She wrote a whole chapter comparing suburban kitchens to concentration camps — in 1963, while America was still processing what concentration camps actually were. "The Feminine Mystique" is one of those important books that everyone "knows" but no one has actually read. For today's episode of The Argument podcast, Matthew Yglesias and ...