Fascinating Womanhood is the title of a book written by Helen Andelin

Helen Andelin

Helen Berry Andelin is the founder of the Fascinating Womanhood Movement, beginning with the women's marriage classes she taught in the early 1960s...

 in 1963. The book recently went into its sixth edition, published by Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=565. The book has sold over 2,000,000 copies and is credited with starting a grassroots movement among women.

History

Derived 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"http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553384277. According to Time Magazine, Mrs. Andelin wrote Fascinating Womanhood when "she felt her own marriage going sour"http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917212,00.html. The book's self-published edition sold over 400,000 copies http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917212,00.html, and since being published by Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

, the book has sold an additional 1.6 million-plus copies http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553384277. The book serves as a touchstone for those of the anti-feminist persuasion as well as those seeking to live in a system based on patriarchy

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...

.

Sources

The book takes many of its sources from historical women and from examples provided in classic literature. As one of the "real life" women, Mumtaz Mahal

Mumtaz Mahal

Mumtaz Mahal born as Arjumand Banu Begum was a Mughal Empress and chief consort of emperor Shah Jahan...

 of Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is a white Marble mausoleum located in Agra, India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal...

 fame is cited as one of the ideal women who possessed both an Angelic and a Human side. More sources come from classic literature: Amelia (the original Domestic Goddess) of William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...

's classic Vanity Fair; Agnes and Dora from David Copperfield (novel)

David Copperfield (novel)

The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery , commonly referred to as David Copperfield, is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a novel in 1850. Like most of his works, it originally appeared in serial...

 by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

; and Deruchette from Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

's Toilers of the Sea

Toilers of the Sea

Toilers of the Sea , is a novel by Victor Hugo.The book is dedicated to the island of Guernsey, where Hugo spent 15 years in exile.The story concerns a Guernseyman named Gilliatt, a social outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of a local shipowner, Mess Lethierry...

.

The Fascinating Womanhood Movement

Although the book was published in the mid-1960s when second wave feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

 became part of the American mainstream, Fascinating Womanhoods traditional explication of happy marriage resonated in the minds and hearts of millions of women. 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.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917212,00.html?iid=chix-sphere

Unlike other antifeminism

Antifeminism

Antifeminism is opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms. Modern antifeminists say that the feminist movement has achieved its aims and now seeks higher status for women than for men.-History:...

 movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the Fascinating Womanhood Movement continues today. The now-deceased Helen Andelin

Helen Andelin

Helen Berry Andelin is the founder of the Fascinating Womanhood Movement, beginning with the women's marriage classes she taught in the early 1960s...

 maintained a website that received over a quarter of a million visits.http://www.fascinatingwomanhood.net The classes continue in Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

, The Philippines, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Malaysia, and in the United States in Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, and Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

.http://www.fascinatingwomanhood.net

Academic Attention

Fascinating Womanhood has gained the attention of academic writers who, in the main, regard the book as detrimental to women in various ways. In 1978, psychologist Martha L. Rogers wrote an article ("Fascinating Womanhood as a Regression in the Emotional Maturation of Women") positing the argument that women who follow the teachings of Fascinating Womanhood were doing so out of a fear of being self-actualized individuals.
Juanne N. Clarke of Wilfrid Laurier University

Wilfrid Laurier University

Wilfrid Laurier University is a university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It also has campuses in Brantford, Ontario, Kitchener, Ontario and Toronto, Ontario and a future proposed campus in Milton, Ontario. It is named in honour of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the seventh Prime Minister of Canada....

wrote that the Fascinating Womanhood movement used Kanter's Model of Commitment Mechanisms to analyze the techniques used to gain women's allegiance to the movement. More recently, Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons, authored by Lynn Peril, cited Fascinating Womanhood as part of a body of literature that seeks to promote "an idealized version of womanhood"(Peril, page 215). Finally, communications writer Julia Woods discusses the Fascinating Womanhood movement in Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture.