An analysis of the feminine mystique by betty friedan

The magazines reduced the concerns of the average woman to staying slim, finding a man, having a child, and learning how to create a comfortable home for her family.

Through the years, NOW activists have challenged anti-lesbian and gay laws and ballot initiatives in many states.

Just as anxiety could create reproductive dysfunction, it also resulted in other maladies. As they became more preoccupied with their basic animal needs, such as their waning sexualities, they lost their human identities. This is especially important for lesbian women who wish to be church leaders because they have to face those who claim that, not only should they forbid homosexual pastors, but that women should not be allowed to take leadership positions in the church.

Yet overall, women were less happy than in previous years.

This differed from previous generations due to the excessive presence of the mother and her over-reliance on her children for her own sense of validation. Unmarried women sought out activities that they believed attracted men to avoid the stigma of being alone.

The average housewife, it seemed, knew nothing about the world beyond her doorstep. Many of them pursued careers, and found confidence in their identity. Gaining a lot of momentum from the ideas of acceptance and equality sparked by the Civil Rights Movement, the Gay Rights Movement set out to achieve acceptance in the general population.

Convincing them that they had legitimate occupations kept many of them from seeking work outside of the household. The Feminine Mystique supports a thesis that women need meaningful work in order to be healthy adults. This history of the late twentieth century feminist movement incorporates a brief but cogent description of The Feminine Mystique, including its effects and its weaknesses.

In Chapter Twelve, Friedan discusses the impact on children growing up with mothers trapped by the feminine mystique—they are disinterested in emotional growth and therefore they themselves lack identities. Friedan criticizes functionalismwhich attempted to make the social sciences more credible by studying the institutions of society as if they were parts of a social body, as in biology.

Through the years, NOW activists have challenged anti-lesbian and gay laws and ballot initiatives in many states. New York University Press, This event sparked a chain reaction which resulted in the Gay Rights Movement.

The story offered a fantasy that many women seemed to share. - The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan, London, Victor Gollancz LTD,pp., ISBN ‘The Feminine Mystique’, first published in the year ofis widely acknowledged as one of the most influential books in the 20th century as well as in the history of feminism.

The feminine mystique, according to Friedan, “says that the highest value and the only commitment for women is the fulfillment of her own femininity.” It classifies femininity as “mysterious” and “intuitive” and possibly “superior” to the nature of men.

To Friedan, noncommitment and vicarious living were the methods by which women who were trapped in the feminine mystique lived their lives.

Playing roles had left them confused about who they really were; in a few cases, it led to suicide.

The Feminine Mystique is a book written by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. It was published on February 19, by W.

W. Norton. InFriedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy.

- The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan, London, Victor Gollancz LTD,pp., ISBN ‘The Feminine Mystique’, first published in the year ofis widely acknowledged as one of the most influential books in the 20th century as well as in the history of feminism.

Friedan does not accept the notion that American women in the s should have been happier because they had more material advantages than their predecessors. On the contrary, buying more things could only make them feel worse. Women with the problem that has no name spent their lives in pursuit of the feminine mystique.

The older ones, in their forties and fifties, had other dreams, which .

An analysis of the feminine mystique by betty friedan