Annotated Bibliography : The Feminine Mystique

Betty Friedan played a significant part in sparking the second-wave of feminism in the United States. Friedan authored The Feminine Mystique, which publicized women’s passive behavior and apathetic livelihood. In her novel, Friedan highlighted society’s partisan treatment against women based on their constrained living condition as a housewife. Friedan argued women’s growth potential had been restricted due to women’s glorification of family, loss of identity, lack of education, and misinterpretation of their gender role. Friedan conducted interviews and detailed women’s actions to support her assertion.

The source I found most interesting this week was "The Feminine Mystique Except" written by Betty Friedan. The article talks about how it was believed that women who were professionals were not feminine. For this reason, women returned to assume the role of housewives were they according to the mystique of femininity "She can not consider herself under any other aspect than the mother of her children or wife of her husband" (Page 439). According to Friedan, some of the feelings that oppressed women who wanted to be professionals were neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy. Many women disagreed with this model of life that many women had and led many of them to strive to achieve and occupy a position in

People do not like to accept fact that women have sexual desires and experience sexual pleasure as men do. In the book, Steven, a high school junior said “his male friends always hang out with the freshman girls known as ‘sluts,’ not because they like those girls, but because they can ‘get some” (p. 77). These boys dehumanize the girls that are experiencing the same sexual feelings they are. Instead of females with natural desires, they are reduced to being called sluts and being used for sex. While the girls and boys had equal sexual desires, only the girls’ desires were considered deviant of expectations of their gender expectations while the boys lived up to theirs. By not living up to the expectations of femininity, girls who are sexually active lose their identity as females and are treated first as sluts- as sexual objects with lesser value than a feminine cisgender female who remains abstinent and a good girl in the eyes of

In 1920, the Ratification of the 19th Amendment granted suffrage for women. Societal roles were restrained for men and women, which women were stereotyped as housewives. However, things have started to change rapidly in the late 40s to early 50s, the conservative movement affirmed that women were capable of acquiring same jobs as men. Statistics have shown that marrital rate and education for women are negatively correlated. Betty Friedan projected their voices by publishing The Feminine Mystique, allowing women to be self-aware. Without sense of existence or happiness, women suffered from the emptiness and dare not to think about what instigated their passion for equality. Friedan’s initial intent of writing her book liberated women from

The Feminine Mystique is the title of a book written by the late Betty Friedan who also founded The National Organization for Women to help US women gain equal rights. I choose this topic because there has been a lot of media on the feminine moment and how it’s being negatively looked upon so I wanted to learn a little of how it started. She describes the "feminine mystique” she talks about the expectations women had and the box they had to fit in even as young girls, how being an uneducated girl wasn’t out of the norm and finally the role of wife/mother well really the housewife that all she does is clean nonstop stay pretty and always have a smile on her face

Before the rise of the feminist movement in the late 19th century, women were denied social power and the ability to self-express which led women to desire a voice of their own. Since then, feminism has been widely perceived and controversial which provoked feminists to emphasize women’s needs by confronting the social oppression of women and analyze how their feeling of self-doubt results in response to the constant power struggle between the two sexes. Not only did women protest for more rights, but men also sought equal rights, thereby strengthening the feminist movement further. In Donald Hall’s book Literary and Cultural Theory, he explores the various lenses of feminism by discussing how patriarchy affects the social, economic, and psychological

This paper will not be able to cover the complexity of feminism as a whole since it has become a very broad subject. In addition, feminism has also been a heavily debated issue that has been around for numerous years. The argument of feminism is that women are, and always have been throughout history, treated differently than men by society. Therefore, women are being stripped down of opportunities to their benefit economically, socially, politically, culturally, and several more ways. This essay will highlight and analyze the cultural aspects of feminism from the texts of Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, Donald Hall’s “Feminist Analysis” from Literary and Cultural Theory, Charlotte Gilman’s short story ”The Yellow Wallpaper”, Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour”, and Tillie Olsen’s short story “Tell Me A Riddle.” Cultural feminism, the ideology of the roles and stereotypical characteristics of women. Therefore, women are unable to express themselves due to being oppressed by patriarchal society. Thus, preserving and nurturing “female culture” will benefit society. As a final point, this paper will point out and identify women being isolated from their culture and personal values.

When she asked the viewers and readers, all they said was, “Going to strip clubs or talking about porn stars was a way of showing themselves and the men around them that they weren't "prissy little women" or "girly-girls." According to Levy, this belief is a problem in society with many people blindly following the ideology of women liberation without understanding what it really means to women. The author carefully chooses to use the phrase, “girly-girls” to assert her belief that one does not need to follow a culture blindly to fit in society. She postulates that feminism should enlighten the women positively rather than influence their culture

In 1963, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was published. Friedan discussed the problem that “lay buried, unspoken” in the minds of the suburban housewife, saying that they were too socially conditioned to recognize their boredom and lack of fulfillment. The book isn’t reliable in that it failed to address the struggle of minority and working-class women who didn 't have the choice to stay at home or easy access to higher

This paper is a presentation on the theory of Feminism from the ideas of a Feminist Philosopher name Marilyn Frye. The different themes that will be explored are how Frye thinks that women can be a victim of oppression. For example, how a man opening a door for a woman is a type of oppression. The oppression can relate to the idea of the double bind and of Frye’s Bird Cage theory. In addition to that, I will present the idea of how heterosexuality can be a way of patriarchy. Furthermore, the argument of the paper is about how society crafted the idea of women having to be a so-called perfect and ideal woman in America. This results for women to look a certain image such as being pure, skinny, and a housewife. An example of this is how women

In the books The Feminine Mystique and Feminist Theory: From Margin to Theory all focus on Feminism. Feminism is a work of movements; theories and ideas all aimed to define, establish equal rights for women. Feminism came in three different waves, 1. The Suffrage, 2) Woman’s liberation movement, and 3) was a continuation of the second wave and its accomplishments and failures. Both of the books focus on the second wave of feminism and take us on a journey on how woman, black and white, survived the ninetieth and twentieth century.

After centuries of criticism and ridicule, the concept of girlhood has been revitalized to symbolize strength and courage. Although expectations for women remain exceptionally grounded into society, Always, a company that produces feminine hygiene products, and generally geared towards girls, created a commercial to attack those very expectations. The essence of what it means to be a girl is questioned within the short video. Judith Butler’s exploration of gender, sex, and sexuality’s fluidity, trapped within the “normal,” binary structure of society, questions the same notions. Butler attacks the comfort of the binary system, and exposes the insubstantial basis of gender.

Feminism generally refers to a multi-disciplinary approach to sexual characteristics and sex parity. This is understood through political activism and social theories. This particular approach consists of beliefs and ideas regarding what customs are like for women, compared to how the world functions for their male counterparts. The main supposition in Feminism is that women are not treated in the same way as men, and that they are at a disadvantage. It is important to keep in mind that feminism does not refer to a belief that one gender deserves to be superior to the other. The definition of this approach is in complete opposition. Therefore, when people criticize feminism, they are actually supporting sexism. In the course of history, feminism has evolved from the serious evaluation of disparity between the sexes to a more nuanced concentration on the performative and social structures of sexuality and gender. Historically, scholars and feminists have categorized the history of this particular approach into three main waves. The initial wave is that of women’s suffrage movements witnessed in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries. The second wave is the actions and notions linked with women’s freedom movement of the 1960s, while the third wave is the continuation of and response to the apparent disappointments of the second wave, beginning in the 1990s.

Reading this book had made me realize a lot in life, well more on being a woman. I just hope I was able to read this during my youth. It just made me think and ask like what if this book was never published? Are women back then would have the courage to even fight for their rights? Or be awakened to what they think the way a women should be living their life should be? Even the title to me is a bit intriguing; “The Feminist Mystique” I literally searched the definition to find if what I think of the definition in fact the definition is that I know of. According to Merriam -Webster dictionary “Feminine means having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with women, especially delicacy and prettiness” and “Mystique is a word that originated in France and it is defined as a special quality that makes a person or thing interesting or exciting. Maybe this is one of the reason women in 50s’ are more “feminine” than now. This title itself made it more interesting for me try to comprehend what the writer Betty Freidan was trying to convey to her audiences. Published and Written by Bettye Naomi Goldstein Born on February 4th 1921 in Peoria, Illinois United States. Her parents were Jewish and were originally from Hungary and Russia. She attended college Smith College where she was the head of their

Thesis: As morals modify to appease to today’s society, it has emerged to sexualization towards young women.