The Feminine Mystique By Betty Friedan

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In her novel The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan discusses the pressure women face to conform to the romanticized illusion that is femininity. Central to her thesis, Friedan states that the problem women face is not one of sexuality, but one of identity. ”Our culture does not permit women to accept or gratify their basic need to grow and fulfill their potentialities as human beings, a need which is not solely defined by their sexual role (Friedan, 77).” This problem of identity is a stunting of growth, perpetuated by the feminine mystique. It prevents women from achieving the growth and maturity of which they are capable. Friedan successfully and thoughtfully attacks the widespread belief that women can only find fulfillment through marriage,

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Analysis Of Betty Friedan´s The Feminine Mystique

Across the four-year span of my high school career, the most extensive means by which I was academically exposed to feminism was during a 40-minute class period wherein my history instructor discussed Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), a classic publication that has been praised as a feminist landmark. Within this presentation, the struggles of the confined housewife were divulged, the work’s “revolutionary” qualities were commended, and its author was praised for her ability to identify…

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Betty Friedan Women's Liberation Movement

campaigning different feminist goals. The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan, impacted the movement significantly. The feminine mystique, illustrates the unhappiness, depression, and lack of fulfillment 20th century women faced, trying to conform into the housewife lifestyle. Betty Friedan uses the feminine mystique to explain that during the post-war life, women were set to be good wives, mothers, and housewives, and nothing else. By doing so, Friedan furthers explains that by enabling women to…

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Summary: The Feminine Mystique

Zhanna Nagorna 04/28/16 P: 3 US History Report Betty Friedan and Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan’s decision to write the book “The Feminine Mystique” changed the way that women viewed themselves. Women became more outspoken, empowered, and they finally became able to choose what they wanted to do with their lives, go to college, get a job, and or something other than being a housewife. Through the book Betty showed women that there were others that that felt like them by describing the feelings that…

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The Feminate Mystique Essay

Title: The Feminine Mystique Friedan’s arguments are about women in the 1940-60’s, that had to face a problem which cannot be classified in her time by doctors. Friedan called it, “the problem that has no name”. Women in her generation was told by the media to have kids and a husband, and also do meaningful labor like taking care of the household, the kids and satisfied the husband needs. The media wanted to tell the women to be more feminine and enjoyed its benefits. Things changed in Friedens’s…

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The Feminine Mystique Analysis

The Feminine Mystique is a novel written by Betty Freidan analyzing the sadness and depression American women felt during the 1950’s. Friedan’s research describes the subservient conditions women experienced and labels their mutual unfulfillment as “the problem with no name” (Friedan, p9). As a wife and mother living during post-World War II, consumer culture spread the stereotype that lifelong fulfillment would be found within marriage and motherhood. Friedan defines the feminine mystique as women’s…

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Cold War Comparative: Women of the Decades Essay

The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan outlines how women of the 1950s and 60s desired and craved to be more than the housewives and mothers they were taught to be. That feeling of desperation to be something more affected the women of that time, but then it dissipated with the increase in their involvement in the workforce. Women in the 50s and 60s were raised to believe that their goal in life was “finding a husband and bearing children”, but when their family consisted of five children at school…

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Feminist Critique Betty Friedan Analysis

having happy family became most Americans, in particular, American white middle-class women the goal of life. However, under this great scenery, it also had a serious social problem, which stated in "Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan——Problem of Women. As the Primary Reader states, Betty Friedan mentioned her mother, “She was a beautiful woman and she was a very able woman. But she spent a lot of time in bed with colitis, and she dominated her husband and made her children`s life slightly miserable”(Primary…

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The Yellow Wallpaper And The Awakening: A Literary Analysis

are symbols of the inequality women faced during the 1800s and still face today. Through times the problem has shifted, but women are continuing to be thought less than men. Both works shared similar themes with Friedan’s 1960 novel The Feminine Mystique. Friedan wrote from a nonfictional side, but mentioned real life issues the fictional characters dealt with such, as the dissatisfaction they felt in their…

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Betty Friedan Women In The 1950s

In the early 1950s, activists like Betty Friedan or Edith Stern introduced new ways of thinking for a woman in a male dominated society. The first sparks of feminism ignited a flame that would start the huge women’s liberation movement in the 70s. Women joined together, demanding the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. They would no longer be satisfied without full constitutional rights. In the 1950’s and 1960’s American society’s view on the woman’s place reflected a traditional…

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Essay on United States and Equal Pay Act

Roosevelt as chairwoman. 1963 Betty Friedan publishes her highly influential book The Feminine Mystique, which describes the dissatisfaction felt by middle-class American housewives with the narrow role imposed on them by society. Congress passes the Equal Pay Act, making it illegal for employers to pay a woman less than what a man would receive for the same job. 1966 The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded by a group of feminists including Betty Friedan The largest women's rights…

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