“I feel sorry for this younger generation,” she [McGinley] wrote. “They’ve been told that they’re not contributing to the world if they relax into their normal ocean of domesticity.” In one of her poems, she captured the dissatisfaction of secular feminism: “Snugly upon the equal heights / Enthroned at last where she belongs, / She takes no pleasure in her Rights / who so enjoyed her “Wrongs.”
Phyllis McGinley
1905–1978
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phyllis-mcginley
During a time when many women were entering the workforce and the second-wave feminist movement was gathering steam, McGinley’s poetry and essays championed the virtues of being a housewife. Her popular collection of essays, Sixpence in Her Shoe (1964), was a response to Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique (1963).
Kira G. King 