Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique exposed the state of affairs for women in the 60’s. Her book portrays an undiagnosed malaise, that women were experiencing in that time period. At the heart of this unknown problem was a profound lack of purpose, stemming from a lack of a career. Doris Lessing’s “To Room Nineteen” demonstrates this problem through housewife, Susan Rawlings.
Most women of the mid 20th Century assumed roles as housewives. As described in “‘The Feminine Mystique’ at 50”, “moms were busy, mainly with several small kids, but they were not overworked. The high point of the day came at 4 or 5, when the chores were done, dinner was in the oven and the women could congregate in someone’s kitchen or on the back porch to drink and talk […. ] followed by [the husband’s] arrival and a second cocktail hour, during which [each spouse] discussed their day…” (2). But before motherhood, some women, including fictional character Susan Rawlings, obtained jobs. Once married and pregnant, Susan gave up her position at an advertising firm and assumed her new job as a mother and wife. She was “now dependent on a husband for outside interests and money” (2544) like majority of women at the time.
Susan’s problems start when her youngest children go off to school for the first time. Her job as the children’s caretaker no longer exists because of their absence during the day. She’s left with nothing to do and drives herself crazy. The narrator writes about Susan, "In another decade, she would turn herself back into being a woman with a life of her own" (2546). But why wait a decade? Typically, women living in Susan’s era could choose to go back to work once their children left for college but while their children were young, a woman’s full-time job was to be a mother. By following these standards of society, Susan's life slowly deteriorates. In hopes of escaping her problems, she isolates herself. In actuality, Susan’s isolation drives her further away from her family and closer to her problems. After some time, her husband Matthew reveals that he’s been having an affair diminishing her role as a