Academic attentionįascinating Womanhood has gained the attention of academic writers who, in the main, regard the book as detrimental to women in various ways. The classes continue in Namibia, The Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, and in the United States in Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Utah, and Virginia. The now-deceased Helen Andelin maintained a website that received over a quarter of a million visits. Unlike other antifeminism movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the Fascinating Womanhood Movement continues today.
#Whenwas fascinating womanhood published series
By 1975, according to Time magazine, the movement included 11,000 teachers and over 300,000 women had taken the series of Fascinating Womanhood classes. Fascinating Womanhood movementĪlthough the book was published in the mid-1960s when second wave feminism became part of the American mainstream, Fascinating Womanhood's traditional explication of happy marriage resonated in the minds and hearts of millions of women. More sources come from classic literature: Amelia (the original Domestic Goddess) of William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair Agnes and Dora from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Deruchette from Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea. As one of the "real life" women, Mumtaz Mahal of Taj Mahal fame is cited as one of the ideal women who possessed both an Angelic and a Human side. The book takes many of its sources from historical women and from examples provided in classic literature. The book serves as a touchstone for those of the anti-feminist persuasion.
The book's self-published edition sold over 400,000 copies, and since being published by Random House, the book has sold an additional 1.6 million-plus copies. Andelin wrote Fascinating Womanhood when "she felt her own marriage going sour". Historyĭerived from a set of booklets published in the 1920s and 1930s by the Psychological Press, the book seeks to help traditionally-minded women to make their marriages "a lifelong love affair". The book has sold over 2,000,000 copies and is credited with starting a grassroots movement among women. The book recently went into its sixth edition, published by Random House. Fascinating Womanhood is a book written by Helen Andelin in 1963.