More handpicked essays just for you.
What Betty Friedan expresses in the Feminine Mystique
What Betty Friedan expresses in the Feminine Mystique
What Betty Friedan expresses in the Feminine Mystique
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Not only did she encourage women to become educated, but she also motivated women to
Women became housewives during the baby boom. It happened from many men coming out from WW2 and having babies with their wives(Class Notes-Domestic and Economic Changes Notes). If the husband and wife have babies and can't support them, then they would have a more significant impact on losing the babies because of insufficient food resources for the kids and baby. The result of this was that this was unequal for the women's side. When the baby boom began, there were many divorces with the partners.
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.
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
Society has always painted the picture of a “traditional” woman: stay home, raise the children, keep the house, be nurturing, and in a multitude of ways, contribute to American society. However the 1920’s marked the birth
Women throughout history always had the role of a housewife. Their husbands were the breadwinners and the women’s job was to take care of the kids, cook, clean, and other household chores. This was what they would generally do on a day to day basis, they never went out to engage in what we now-a-days consider enjoyable doings like going out with friends, going out for a couple drinks, or simply roaming the streets. Kathy Peiss in her writing Cheap Amusements Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York, argues that in order to understand the construction of gender, one must understand how working women introduced new manners not solely by participating in activities that were once viewed as unacceptable (like going out, meeting
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.
Women have particular roles in which society expects them to carry-out without failing; she is expected to be an obedient wife, a caring mother and conscientious homemaker. Society has painted an image of the “ideal wife” through media, marketing, and norms in which she is restricted to her home and nurturing her family, and gaining the respect of the community. A hard-working housewife was supposed to have dinner ready by the time her husband returned from work, perform and agreed without question. Women were not allowed to go to school, or work, and most times were forced to stay at home causing the housewife role to be the only job
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.
She expanded workplaces for women which was a new
The early part of the 19th century was a time of change for the United States. Up until this time, American’s generally lived in small, rural towns where work was tied to the home. With the onset of industrialization and more advanced forms of transportation and communication the north was becoming more modernized and society began shifting from agrarian to urban. Both men and young unmarried men and women began leaving their rural homes to look for jobs and a better way of life in the city. Because of this change, new gender ideologies began to change the way American’s thought about the roles men and women played in the home and in society.
The goal of the second wave of feminism was to secure the rights of women and have economic equality for women in workplaces and to have protection for
In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan discusses the “problem that has no name.” For years, there was a “strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States” (Friedan, 11). This feeling felt by so many was the result of an idealized image of the suburban housewife. An image presented to women, especially in the middle class, as their only real option. Friedan examines this “problem that has no name” through the first-person narratives of several women who experienced it.
“ I really don't consider it my feminist business that an awful lot of strong and solid women -- Simone de Beauvoir, famously -- are idiots about love and romance any more than I care that Helen of Troy's face started a naval war, because we are all fools for love. But I think it is my concern that all people, with whatever foolishness, are able to provide themselves with gas and food and lodging”. Especially in this day and age where there are so many opportunities for both men and women to become successful I agree that it seems rather ridiculous when women decide that they are okay with being housewives. Feminism should be about women being vulnerable to love and having that being seen as weak. Men are the exact same way!
The Second Wave was a very powerful, social, and political movement that bettered the lives of women. It extended from the outlook of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the increasing self-consciousness of many of the minority groups around the world. Similar to the anti-slavery movement that happened in the nineteenth century, the modern movement encouraged activism of all sorts. This lead to the rise of feminism in the mid to late 60s, especially community-based methods of women’s liberation, was based partly on young women recognizing sexism within much of the movements, largely made up of male-dominated groups like Students for a Democratic Society, among others. The voice of the second wave was increasingly sweeping the nation.
