The Feminine Mystique Essay

In this chapter of The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan denounces a fundamental notion of the mystique: The role for women in the home is equal to the role of men in society. To further explain this notion, she makes use of several different rhetorical devices such as antithesis, when she establishes a connection between the dreadful physical and mental health of full time housewives plus men working on assembly lines, and she does so in order to accentuate the hidden problems of “alcoholism, obesity

In the “The Feminine Mystique,” by Betty Friedan, the author begins to question “the problem that has no name,” which is, “Why are American housewives so unhappy with their supposedly “perfect’ lives”? Friedan concludes that the reason American housewives are so depressed is that of, “the feminine mystique,” society’s idea that women’s sole purpose in life is to bring pleasure to a man, be a housewife and mother, but nothing more. In the 50’s and 60’s, all American women had been told their whole

did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote.” (History.com Staff). The constitution being amended in 1920 making the 19th Amendment was a huge spark towards the start of equality between men and women. In 1963, The Feminine Mystique was written by Betty Friedan, and it made her a household name. It was often seen as the beginning of the Women’s Liberation Movement. In this book, she seeks to find information about the unhappiness of women in the mid-20th century. She hunts

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan was published February 19, 1963, a book that some have said single-handedly started the feminist movement of the 1960’s through the 1980’s. The book’s core message was that women were letting society take away their identity and in the process, were becoming more and more unhappy with their lives, even as they lived out the “ideal” life. As Friedan said, “Our culture does not permit women to accept or gratify their basic need to grow and fulfill their potentialities

the dark, and to be ashamed of it” (628). In other words, to be feminine is to mother children and to marry a man. Deviating from this neatly structured plan for a woman’s obligation is to become unfeminine. In America, Betty Friedan, a feminist writer, wrote The Feminine Mystique in 1963. In her book, she rebels against the traditional view of femininity. She coined the term which shares the title of her book as, “The feminine mystique says that the highest value and the only commitment for women

In the book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan brings attention to what she calls the feminine mystique, or “the problem that has no name”. Through the use of anecdotal narratives, her own personal experiences as a journalist, editor, mother, and the interviews of many women from different backgrounds in order to unveil the truth about the women of the 1950’s. The problem which sparked the second wave of feminism in the United States is one that focuses on the inequality between men and women and

In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan presents several arguments that dealt with the issues of personal engagement and equality that women of the time faced, calling it, “the problem that has no name.” Friedan describes an ideal that middle-class women of the 1960s were held to. She highlights that women were “chained” to kitchens and their spouses and children, while their dreams of careers and college degrees were suppressed. These women had goals and dreams, and they wanted more, but as Friedan

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan is related to the second wave of feminism. Betty Friedan wrote about “The Problem that has no Name.” Throughout the next few pages the analysis will be on The Feminine Mystique with particular attention on “The Problem that has no Name.” In the 1960s it was uncommon for the women of the time to hold a job and raise a family. Betty Friedan worked until she was pregnant, which she was fired for, and then continued to write freelance for journals and newspapers

Betty Friedan struck an emotional chord that wavered long-standing beliefs regarding the traditional American housewife when she released her book, The Feminine Mystique. The work was historic for two very important reasons. One was that it was written by someone experiencing the aura of the “feminine mystique” personally, who could relate to the plight of the middle-class stay-at-home mother. Another is because while Friedan and others had witnessed the dissatisfaction of many American women individually

An Intersectional Analysis of “The Feminine Mystique” When it was first published in 1963, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was very popular among women in the 1960s, and the ideas presented in the book were extremely influential to second wave, liberal feminism. In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan discusses what she believes to be the myth of the happy, suburban housewife. She also addresses the societal pressure for women to be feminine above all else, and gives examples as to why this pressure