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Summary Of The Feminine Mystique

644 Words3 Pages

In “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan, she analyzes through her research that highly educated, intelligent suburban housewives like her, found themselves discontent and dissatisfied with their lives. Throughout the book, she analyzes women’s identities, femininity, the sexualization of women, gender roles, and most importantly- the dehumanization of the female existence in our society.
Friedan and many other suburban housewives had everything a woman in the 1950’s was supposed to have—a loving husband, great children, financial security, and a beautiful house in the suburbs—but she and many other women continued to feel like they weren’t completely satisfied. In those times, society had normalized the perfect housewife ideal that a fulfilled …show more content…

The reader is challenged to look into the lives of women and their satisfaction with life in the 1950s and 1960s. “The problem that has no name,” a feeling of discontent and dissatisfaction rooted deep into society's standards for women. Friedan desperately looked for an answer for the problem with no name. At a time when being a housewife was championed, women found themselves getting married and raising children before they were 25. Girls began to “go steady” at the age of 13 and married by the age of 17 or 18. The culture of the nation told women that their ultimate goal was to cheerfully cook, clean, and serve her family. Women that pursued careers rather than family were pitied and feared, described as unfeminine and perhaps even neurotic. The issue of femininity and what it meant by society's standard stretched as far as to affect women politically, socially, economically, and it even went as far as to affect women's healthcare. “In a New York hospital, a woman had a nervous breakdown because she couldn't breastfeed her baby. In other hospitals, women dying of cancer refused a drug which research proved might save their lives: its side effects were said to be unfeminine.” (Friedan 1963, 10) The idea of femininity is a social construct that oppresses women into believing that

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