From Housewife to Heretic

Sometime around 1982, my mom read this book. Mom had not grown up Mormon, like Johnson, but had been similarly indoctrinated in many ways - old school morals, the necessity of marriage in order to live a fulfilled life as a woman... She married my dad, who felt entitled to her life as well as his own, and set to being a good wife and mother. This is not to say that she didn't think for herself, but just that her thoughts didn't really matter to my dad, and her life was lived entirely for the purpose of taking care of others. She credits this book with waking her up, making her a radical feminist, starting her on a path that led to going back to school to finish her undergraduate degree and get her masters, and then divorcing my dad.

So I show more read the book to gain some more understanding of my mom. At first, I didn't understand the appeal, in spite of their similar beliefs that were pushed on them while growing up. But reading of Johnson's involvement in the ERA fight of the 70s and subsequent excommunication from the Mormon church, I recognized her influence more in my mom. It was a fascinating book for her own story - but far more so since it was so much a part of my mom's story, and therefore of my own. show less

... Wow.