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Betty Friedan's Statement Of Purpose: Equality For Women

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In 1966, Betty Friedan wrote a document called “Statement of Purpose” which helped fight equality for women to be treated as equals with men. This document spoke out for feminists during, what was called, the “second wave”, of feminism. The audience of this document was targeted towards people who opposed equal rights for women and men. Women were often expected to stay home to take care of their children, and if they were employed they were often paid a significant amount less than men. In the document, it states, “…fulltime women workers today earn on the average only 60% of what men earn…” Friedan also talks about how women are often stuck with jobs such as working in a factory, cleaning, or hospitals attendants. Statement of Purpose speaks
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In this chapter, Betty Friedan introduces the idea of ‘glorified femininity,’ and to further explain this vision, she makes use of several rhetorical devices such as simile when she talks about how, in recent year, it’s been ‘popular [amongst men] to laugh at feminism as history's dirty joke’ but what these self-proclaimed comedians fail to see is that through feminism, women were not only able to gain suffrage but to end child labor and help win the great war, thus they not only made history for themselves, but also for America. Moreover, Friedan also makes use of an epithet when she talks about how most men thought that women were neurotic victims of ‘penis envy’ just because they denied their very nature of being a woman, which fulfills

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During World War 2, women began to enter the workforce on a large scale, making up almost 50% by 1960. Despite making up a large portion of the workforce, there was still a need for major reform, as businesses paid women less than men for the same work, and women had limited access to high-paying, prestigious jobs, like doctors or lawyers. In addition, many housewives felt dissatisfied and undervalued, as depicted in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. The increase in female workers, coupled with the changing expectations of women, led to the growth of the women’s movement.

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Susan Oliver writes an exceptional biography that describes in detail the life, success, struggles and failures of Betty Friedan. From her childhood as a divergent American-Jew living in Peoria, Illinois to being an outstanding student and writer in school, finding her path as a strong feminist at Smith College, her struggles as a mother and wife to mothering the second feminist movement. Susan Oliver explored all the factors that contributed to Betty Friedan’s strong private and public persona. Betty Friedan, a driving force of the second feminist movement, is barely recognized for the emancipation of women. Mostly known as the author of the Feminine Mystique, Susan Oliver made sure to demonstrate that Betty Friedan was more than a mere

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Industrialization in the United States created increased employment opportunities in factories and metropolitan regions, liberating women from conventional homemaking responsibilities. Consequently, women sought independent lives, gaining financial independence and personal expression (Source 4). Women from various racial and cultural backgrounds, particularly those from working-class neighborhoods, entered the workforce, advocating for better working conditions and fair pay. These advancements shattered preconceived notions of gender roles, laying the groundwork for future women's rights

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After WWII, women were expected to go back to their traditional roles In reality, many women took jobs outside the home to help pay bills and make a living. Economic boom = more workers Women were paid lower and limited to jobs such as teachers, nurses or secretary In 1962, Betty Friedan 's book The Feminine Mystique captured the frustration and despair of a generation of college-educated housewives who felt trapped and unfulfilled. While Friedan 's writing largely spoke to an audience of educated women, her work had sparked the "second wave" of the feminist movement.

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Women played a major role in WWII which lead on to one of the greatest social movements in history. Betty Freidan was an important pioneer of feminism and played a critical part to women’s right movements or also know as "the mother of the modern feminist movement.” Freidan was born on February 4, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois. Freidan excelled at Smith college in 1942, graduating with a bachelor’s degree psychology. Friedan became an activist while at Smith College, reeling at injustices through the power of her writing in regard to causes such as labor reform, academic freedom, and political issues leading to World War II(Terry 2).

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The purpose of this document is to show that women are helping in duties outside the household. This is important because this was unconventional at the time. Additonally, there is a chart that shows that there was a significant increase in jobs held by women in professional fields such as clerical, professional, service, and sales workers which shows that women were climbing up the ladder in terms of jobs. This increase in women in the workforce is further confirmed with the drop in jobs such as household, factory, and farm workers (Doc 3B). Women are now taking on more professional jobs that were typically for men and that alone is a significant change.

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The women endured additional burdens like campaigns against hiring women because they thought jobs should go to male breadwinners and then three quarters of the school districts in the country banned married women from being hired as teachers (Henretta, 2009). The women in Minnesota in breadlines were subject to sit in employment bureaus and hoped for work to try to provide for their family (Bethel University, 2005). The women here are those who are middle-aged, some have families, while some have raised the children and now they are alone (Bethel University, 2005). The others are those who have men that are out of work (Bethel University, 2005). These women are left to struggle to fed many mouths by themselves, while the women who pride gets the best of them starves silently, leaving the children to find work (Bethel University, 2005).

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Females go through their whole lives without being noticed of what they do or did for men because they were and may still be seen as just a “keeper.” Woman stopped being known as the “Keeper” because in 1960, Betty Friedan fought back and females everywhere joined in to fight the oppression and the idea roles they were suppose to portray as housewives and

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Liberal feminists argue that women have the same capacity as men for moral reasoning and work habits, but that patriarchy, particularly the sexist division of labor, has historically denied women the opportunity to express and practice this reasoning. These dynamics serve to shove women into the private sphere of the household and to exclude them from full participation in public life. Hence, gender inequality is a hazard not only to the highly capable, talented and deserving women but also to the economy as a whole. Both awareness of the existing gender inequality and implementation of policies that address gender inequities need to be strengthened. Reducing the amount of time women spend on unpaid work is also essential.

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