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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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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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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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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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