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Influence Of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

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The end of World War II marked the beginning of a new era, not only for the United States but for the world. Here in the United States, the end of WWII was met with celebration as well as hope for the future (Sullivan, 2018). Initially, the postwar era was met with some uncertainty because of the threat of conflict with the Soviet Union. There was always the skirting of another war looming on the side lines with Russia and it was said to be terrifying. Americans were tired, and families were torn apart from the war that was fought so heroically for so many years. Although America has emerged as a superpower due to our victory during WWII, it should be noted that thousands of men had spent many years away from their wives, girlfriends, and family. …show more content…

The book was written for the world to see from a woman’s perspective instead of a male point of view like everything else. She basically wrote about women’s mandatory roles and the unhappiness that accompanied it because women were not afforded additional opportunities. The image of women portrayed by the male dominated marketing and advertising firms was untrue and unfulfilling. She wrote about women finding personal fulfillment outside of their traditional homemaker roles. Women who were interested in work, education, and a higher need. Betty Friedan called this “The problem that has no name.” Betty would be hard pressed today to believe that women have come so far mirroring and surpassing our male counterparts in every field from STEM, to Military and Government. Many believe that the book is seen as the beginning of the Women’s Liberation Movement.
There are so many things that can be added to the time capsule to show how women lived and their experiences during this time. Articles on feminism, newspaper clippings of civil rights marches, poster boards of strike signs from women who were not getting equal pay. The things that women went from during the 2nd world war such as working and supporting their families, to going back to being housewives and dependent upon their husbands once again. Women seemed to have gone from independence to going backwards. As time marches on, women will gain the independence they so muchly

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She writes about the trouble she went threw with her husband having to succeed hi father. This was one of the main struggles of the book.

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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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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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Betty Friedan’s article The Feminine Mystique (1963) illustrates that women in 20th century America are dissatisfied with their current state of life and want more fulfilment. Friedan articulates the difficulties women face to try and be satisfied with their mundane lives. She provides analogous antidotes from women who describe their repetitive days and emotional turmoil they feel as a result. The author’s purpose is to show that women who only act as caregivers to their children and as good spouses to their husbands live with depression because they have no true passion. Friedan writes to inform women that it is ok to admit to feeling this way and to show men that this type of society does not exist without flaws.

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Betty Friedan’s writing, “The Feminine Mystique,” explores the perplexity and determined purpose of the “woman,” that existed in the 19th century. Friedan, an activist and feminist, sought to determine the core reason as to why such an astounding amount of American women, privately recounted feelings of depression and desperation in their lives and purposes. Friedan’s primary argument in explaining the reason for the 19th century women to report unhappiness and despair, was her argument that women were forcefully shaped by intense societal pressures that told her what her purpose was. Pressures from husbands, the media, and society, shaped the 19th century women to believe that she was to be a housewife and mother before all, her main purpose

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In her essay, “The Importance of Work,” from The Feminine Mystique published in 1963, Betty Friedan confronts American women’s search for identity. Throughout the novel, Betty Friedan breaks new ground, concocting the idea that women can discover personal fulfillment by straying away from their original roles. Friedan ponders on the idea that The Feminine Mystique is the cause for a vast majority of women during that time period to feel confined by their occupations around the house; therefore, restricting them from discovering who they are as women. Friedan’s novel is well known for creating a different kind of feminism and rousing various women across the nation.

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Although these jobs created a sense of independence for women, as men came back they were quickly shifted back into their pre-war roles, more than 3 million women had to leave their wartime jobs. In short, there was a domestic change in women’s roles within society because Women had to shift from their traditional home roles to new wartime

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While the effort of America was important in winning the war, there was a lot of discrimination and prejudice against blacks, Native Americans, women, and homosexuals within the military. The men who fought in the war saw terrible conditions and many had mental breakdowns. This chapter in the book explains the deaths that many soldiers witnessed and how many men became separated from humanity. This caused many soldiers to become insane. The final two chapters in the book talk about changes in the American society throughout the war and the results from the war.

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Were American women in the 1960s not as happy as originally thought? Betty Friedan in her text “The Feminine Mystique” (1963) described “problem that has no name.” In other words, Friedan made an argument that socialization in American culture made women believe that their identities only existed within domestic realm, making them fundamentally unhappy. Friedan claims that the real problem was rooted in the feminine mystique, the ideology that defines the ideal feminine woman only in terms of traditional marriage and motherhood.

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She conveys what she went through and why she went through it. She explains the differences between men and women. For instance, she states “If I were a man and I said to you, ‘I come from a country which professes to have representative institutions and yet denies me, a taxpayer, an inhabitant of the country, representative rights,’ you would at once understand that the human being, being a man, was justified in the adoption of revolutionary methods to get representative institutions.” She depicts how life as a man you would get more rights and freedom compared to life as a

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U.S. citizens were afraid that the Great Depression could return. Many Americans were tired of helping out other nations and just wanted the war to be over completely. John Lewis Gaddis, the author of The Cold War: A New History, is talking about the fact that just because the war was over, Americans were not necessarily at peace. There were many different economic and social factors that the United States had to deal with in the post World War II years. April 25, 1945

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More specifically, gender’s role on women and their positions in the world. Being a young woman, I fall into the intended audience of the book. The rhetoric in the book appeals to the young girls around the same age of the main character

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To End Stereotypical Ideas of Femininity Living the life of a woman is not as easy as it seems. Everyone often expects a woman to be dependent, passive, or elegant. More so, people expect young girls to stay at home, indulging themselves with books, or playing with other girls, rather than sports. Not only that, women before the 1940’s barely had rights. Females did not have the right to vote or to work in certain jobs, like law or medicine before the mid 1900’s.

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Written by Betty Friedan, the book is highly associated with the revolutions that led to the women liberation movements. The chapter on the “Problem that has No Name,” explains the dilemma of women and the challenges they faced

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Sarah Paroya D period I hate MUSH The end of World War II should have marked a period of relief in America but instead, it lead America into a completely different type of war called the Cold War. The Cold War was an ongoing state of political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. This constant state of tension and fear had been embedded deep in the American public.

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