91短视频

Phyllis McGinley

• February 3, 2010

• By Diane Daniel

“Profession: Housewife,” a look at the life of author Phyllis McGinley by 91短视频 History Professor Jessica Weiss, will be among the university’s observances of “Women’s History Month.”

This presentation from 2-3:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 10 in the Oak Room of CSUEB's Concord Campus (4700 Ygnacio Valley Road), will be hosted by the university’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The program will be free to OLLI members and those with a CSUEB ID. Admission is $5 to all others. Advance registration is required.

McGinley is known today for witty aphorisms like "Kindness is a virtue neither modern nor urban." 

In the 1950s, McGinley was one of the nation's leading poets, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for a book of verse. She is a champion of America's housewives, taking on even the formidable Betty Friedan of “Feminine Mystique” fame. 

Weiss will analyze McGinley's public pronouncements, poems, and private journals, to learn more about the writer who, to the surprise of many, found peace in suburban rituals.

“McGinley piqued my interest when I discovered she was billed as the champion of the American homemaker and published a 'rebuttal' to Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique, and that she, not Friedan, graced the cover of Time Magazine in 1965," Weiss said. 

“I’ve read her fan mail and found her readers eager to read her praise of homemaking. But I’ve also read her private letters and journals,” said Weiss.

Weiss's talk will delve into the contradictions between McGinley’s public pronouncements about domesticity and her private struggles with it. While her prose and poetry portray comfort and complacency with post World War II women’s domestic role, her precarious balance between the calls of work and family will resonate for women of 2010.

Registration for this event will take place in the lobby of the Academic Service Building of 91短视频's Concord Campus, online at , by phone at 925.602.6776, or by mail to OLLI at 91短视频, Concord Campus, 4700 Ygnacio Valley Road, Concord 94521. Campus parking permits are $7 per day. Parking permit machines accept quarters and dollar bills.

91短视频 welcomes persons with disabilities and will provide reasonable accommodation upon request. Please call the CSUEB History Department at (510) 885-3207 well in advance if special accommodation is needed.