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The Feminine Mystique Summary

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Betty Friedan was a pioneering feminist leader whose impact on the women's movement of the 20th century cannot be overstated. Her seminal book, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, helped to ignite the second wave of feminism and challenged the prevailing assumptions about women's roles in society. This essay will examine the life and work of Betty Friedan, drawing on three reliable sources to analyze her impact on the feminist movement and her ongoing legacy.

Betty Friedan's life and career as a feminist activist and writer began long before the publication of The Feminine Mystique. According to Chafe (2011), Friedan was deeply influenced by her experiences as a student at Smith College in the 1940s, where she encountered pervasive sexism and was discouraged from pursuing her intellectual interests. After graduation, she worked as a journalist and union organizer, and in 1966, she helped found the National Organization for Women (NOW), a key institution of the feminist movement. Chafe argues that Friedan's early experiences of sexism and her political activism laid the groundwork for her later work as a feminist theorist. …show more content…

According to Horowitz (2013), the book was a groundbreaking analysis of the ways in which women were restricted by the cultural expectations of domesticity and motherhood. Friedan argued that women were being sold a "mystique" of feminine fulfillment that was actually limiting and oppressive. Horowitz notes that the book was controversial and sparked intense debate, but also became a bestseller and a rallying cry for the women's

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Similarly to the likes of Margaret Sanger, Friedan fails to mention any reference to black women and those of different ethnicities, consequently raising concerns over the solutions that Friedan is suggesting; if these middle class women go back out and work on their careers then who will come in to their homes and look after their children and clean their house? Aren’t these women who have already been combining the reality of working and domestic duties? After all, when Friedan wrote ‘The Feminine Mystique’ more than one-third of women were already in the workforce. A notable comparison between the works of Sanger and Friedan is that the liberation of women is not only dependent on their gender but also on their social class, introducing an alternative that bodily autonomy is not forefront in the overlap of first and second wave feminism. The women of the feminine mystique had the choice to become a housewife or obtain a career, although they were pressured by society to adopt the latter, the element of choice was still there for them.

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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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The movement for woman rights appears to have been lost in today’s events because there once was a period in America’s history where woman activisms and pride was on the front pages of America’s newspaper storylines. The struggle and preservation for feminism has not all been fully removed or forgotten by the American public since the Democratic political party maintains women equality as issue as on its national platform. There are a number of feminist, like Bell Hooks, Maya Angelou, and Betty Friedan, who have participated in the carrying women issues to the top of the mountain and placing them within the conscience of the American society. Perhaps one of the most distinguished bearers for women rights and issues, Gloria Steinem helped

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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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Only three years after the book was published, Friedan proved she could do more than write about the problems in society for women – she could also take action. Having attended meetings focused on the status of women within society and seeing little to no planned action being taken, Friedan knew she had to take it into her own hands. In 1966, she co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW), serving as its first president until 1970, proving to all that she was a force for change. She encouraged women to take a bigger stand and have a bigger presence within the political world, and believed this organization would help to achieve that. Its sole purpose was to achieve equal opportunities for women in all aspects of life.

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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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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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Women played a major role in WWII which lead on to one of the greatest social movements in history. Betty Freidan was an important pioneer of feminism and played a critical part to women’s right movements or also know as "the mother of the modern feminist movement.” Freidan was born on February 4, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois. Freidan excelled at Smith college in 1942, graduating with a bachelor’s degree psychology. Friedan became an activist while at Smith College, reeling at injustices through the power of her writing in regard to causes such as labor reform, academic freedom, and political issues leading to World War II(Terry 2).

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She composed a novel that urged women across the country to search for opportunities and discover their individual beliefs as endure everyday life. Throughout the novel, Friedan entwines work and identity by utilizing the methods of

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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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Betty Friedan was a feminist, author, and a mother. She graduated from Smith College in 1942, after experiencing a normal childhood. Friedan published the book The Feminine Mystique in 1963;

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The movement began with Betty Friedan’s book Feminine Mystique, in her book she discusses misogyny in America. She describes a social construct and economic system that affected mostly white middle class women, but resonated with all women(The 1960s in America). Feminist alo believed personal is political, especially when it came to equal pay,childcare, and abortion(The 1960s in America). Congress passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The failure of the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1974( designed to guarantee equal rights for women)was mainly blocked by Phyllis Schlafly.

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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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During the 1930’s, women were expected of nothing more than to lean on a man’s arm and look pretty. Women submitted to their husbands and looked like trophy wives among the public every single day. The evolving world would soon need women to stand up and become the leading voices for many who deemed themselves silent in the gender patriarchy. Therefore, Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most notable feminist writers of the time period. Although Hurston was never the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court nor was she the first woman to fly across the United States solo and nonstop, she made her name by writing literature that everyone else was too afraid to write, the feminist truth.

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She highlights the fears of Americans during World War II and The cold war and the want for a “idealized” home life, farther is the breadwinner while the mother is the stay at home housewife. This was helped along by the fact that many of the women who worked during the war filling jobs previously done by men faced dismissal, discrimination, and hostility when the men returned from the war. Educators thought over-educated, career-focused mothers were responsible for the poor adjustment of men coming home from the war. Friedan shows that Overbearing mothers were, in fact, the ones who raised maladjusted children Germaine Greer, in her first book The Female Eunuch, (1970) theorizes that women are forced to take on submissive roles society so men 's fantasies can be fulfilled. Greer argues that men hate women,

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