The Women's Room by Marilyn French

This book was simply epic, following the life of Mira, a woman who grows up and experiences the second wave of the feminist movement firsthand. Mira grows up in the confines of her parents' expectations where she is expected to stay a virgin and marry well. Despite being an incredibly smart child, no one around her ever suggests that she go further with her education and it is simply expected she will become a housewife. Through her marriage she experiences no pleasure in sex, days filled with hard work taking care of children and cleaning the house; she is expected to have dinner on the table and the house spotless when her husband, and aspiring doctor comes home from work. Socially, in her working class neighbourhood there are friendships and relationships that remind me a bit of the TV show Desperate Housewives with affairs and secrets going on left, right and centre. One of her close friends also begins going to university which at the time she thinks is simply shocking but her viewpoint changes throughout the book.

The characters are one of the startling parts about this book. All the characters are portrayed in the book at different times in their lives with different evolving beliefs. Many of the characters' fates show how damaging and tiring the role of a housewife was when it was more prevalent back in the 1950s and 60s. Only when Mira's marriage breaks up and she decides to go to university and gets into Harvard does she meet the people who are part of the student movement for civil rights and gender equality. She also meets the man who sees pleasing her sexually as important, in stark contrast to her husband who never cared. Returning home to her parents' house she finds herself not able to explain her life as it would shock them (divorce has already made her the shame of the family). Her two children who visit her regularly also become important as they symbolise the new generation, much more accepting of her life. It is at this stage of the book that she becomes what she wants to be and who she wants to be, ignoring the people who will not support her.

It also showed some of the class that came to be known as 'radical feminism' and the events that leads one of Mira's best friends to distrust men totally. Throughout the book many of Mira's friends have their lives changed for the worst by reliance on and trust in men. This book is truly a work of its time. At times it has you laughing, and at other times crying and the characters are built up continually through their experiences and discussions as well as their secrets and discomforts. I absolutely loved this book, truly poignant and emotion provoking. Some have criticised it as being a bit too radical, but it wasn't just about bad men, there were also good men and it showed some of the reasoning behind the more radical facets of the movement.

Please, please read this book I can't recommend it enough. You will laugh, you will want to cry and it will open your eyes. I also recommend another of her books Our Father which is similarly sad and amazing.