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The Feminine Mystique By Betty Friedan

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In her book, The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan exposes the “problem that has no name,” which is the sense of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment experienced by many women in the 1950s and 1960s. This problem stems from the societal expectation that women should find fulfillment solely through their roles as wives and mothers. As Friedan writes, “The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It 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 476).
This problem affects so many women because it is deeply ingrained in societal expectations and norms. Women are taught from a young age that their primary role …show more content…

Phyllis Schlafly’s declaration, “Women’s Libbers Do Not Speak for Us,” argues against women’s liberation, claiming that it is unnecessary and harmful to women. Schlafly argues that women have achieved great success and equality in many areas, including education and employment, and that the feminist movement is attempting to destroy the traditional family structure. She writes, “The feminists are after the family, and the family is after the feminists” (Schlafly’s 489). Schlafly believes that women should embrace their traditional roles as wives and mothers, and that any attempt to break free from these roles is a threat to …show more content…

Women are not rebelling against traditional roles because they want to destroy the family or society; they are rebelling because they are unfulfilled and want more from their lives. Schlafly’s argument also ignores the fact that many women do not have the option to embrace traditional roles, either because they are single or because they need to work to support themselves and their families.
The film “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” provides a visual representation of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the issues that women were fighting for. The film highlights the sense of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment that many women experienced due to societal expectations and norms. It also shows how women rebelled against traditional roles and demanded equal rights and opportunities. The film also touches on the opposition to the feminist movement, including Schlafly’s argument against women’s

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It was the difference between what they thought their lives would be and the actual reality which led women to develop discontent, depression and ‘the problem with no name’ . It was this element of choice and the usage of it to the full potential which ties Friedan and Sanger close together, the women of Sanger’s time were limited with their choice for family planning and the lack of knowledge held them back due to child rearing requirements. For the women of the fifties Friedan felt that they were not using their freedom of choice to the full potential and should instead

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Though it was frowned for a woman to act, think, write, and speak like men, that didn’t stop them. In the book, Revolutionary Mothers by Carol Berkin, we learned that women were prohibited to exercise anything out of field and house work, especially politics, this book demonstrates that over the decades, women had altered that perception.

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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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1. The Feminine Mystique In 1963, Betty Friedan, who was a housewife and journalist that graduated from Smith College, spoke and had interviews with other housewives. These housewives revealed that although they seemed to be having a good life (materialistically), they were very unhappy. Each of these women thought that they were dealing with this unhappiness alone.

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1738 Words | 7 Pages

From being Rosie the Riveter, an integral part of the United States victory in World War II to women who should “do their duty” by returning to their homes, where they could serve their husbands and “repopulate the ranks” (Women 's History in the U.S. | National Woman 's Party). This was the social setting for women after the war, one that did not sit well with the feminist movement. The revolutionary women in this discriminatory time fought for their right to express their sexuality without hypocritical judgement from others, the right to choose their own destiny for their own lives, the right to self and to discover who they are as an individual and not as a gender and not how to be a perfect housewife as they were taught but how to be themselves.

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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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The search of identity is an issue familiar to contemporary society as well as to the society of 1963 when Betty Friedan published her feminist manifesto The Feminine Mystique. The main idea of Friedan 's article, "The Importance of Work," is the question of how individuals can recognize their full capacities and achieve identity. She argues that human identity is meaningful purposeful work, and individuals are not identified as women or men, just human based upon their work. Friedan believes work is what an individual does in his or her life; for example, snowboarding, songwriting, hockey, football etc. Friedan was an author, an activist, and the first president of the National Organization for Women.

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Women’s Movement--Phyllis Schlafly Not every woman with six children has the courage and time to fight for the privileges of women, but not every woman is Phyllis Schlafly of course. If we go back in time, we all know that many women have been suffering inequality for decades. For example, the obligations of women were to stay at home as moms or wives, and usually they depended on their husbands for everything. However, “Schlafly, a conservative activist best known for her opposition to modern feminist, and successful campaign against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” believed that American women are the most fortunate people because they can have children and men don’t, but also that women can do anything they make up

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In February of 1963, Friedan, a feminist author, published The Feminine Mystique, a novel that challenged traditional gender norms and inspired women to fight for the eradication of these stereotypical positions (Miller 279). Friedan’s novel became instrumental in the feminist movement. Her novel “helped shape feminism in the 1960s through its discussion of how the domestic sphere of motherhood, for educated women like herself, was akin to a ‘cultural concentration camp’” (Schneider). After the incredible success of her novel in creating conversation about women’s rights, in 1964, Friedan helped form NOW, a group that focused on resolving equity issues such as equal pay and equal work opportunities in male-dominated fields like medicine, higher education, and law (Schneider).

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It may seem that it benefits women but it justifies men’s superiority over women. While in Betty Friedan’s excerpt from her book, Feminine Mystique, she talks about similar reasons to why women are suffering of a problem that has no name. She writes during the 1963, which was post-war and she tells us what women were going through. During the 1960’s society had an ideal of a women.

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This quote is connected to the simplification of women in the 1960s because her main purpose in life is considered being a housewife. During this period, women were often viewed primarily as objects for male pleasure, rather than individuals with desires, wants, and ambitions. This demonstrates how society has placed significant emphasis on a woman's physical appearance and often tied her worth to her ability to serve or support men. Overall, this is a reflection of how women were objectified and reduced to their physical attributes during the 1960s, and how these harmful beauty standards perpetuate a culture of objectification and devaluation of women. Furthermore, this connects to the idea presented by Friedan, an author of many magazines during the 1960s, “The feminine mystique held that women could find fulfillment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love.

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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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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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During the 1890’s until today, the roles of women and their rights have severely changed. They have been inferior, submissive, and trapped by their marriage. Women have slowly evolved into individuals that have rights and can represent “feminine individuality”. The fact that they be intended to be house-caring women has changed.

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Social Isolation and Loneliness Social isolation has become much more common in a society that constantly tries to stereotype us. The poems, “A Supermarket in California,” by Allen Ginsberg and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T.S. Eliot, display the way that loneliness is affecting people. In “A Supermarket in California” imagery is used heavily, while with “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” relies on personification to show the loneliness of isolation. Both poems use objects such as the lonely streets and night time to make the reader feel the isolation.

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