Feminine Mystique Analysis

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, chronic fatigue, and lack of interest in sex” due to preconceived ideas about gender roles. Moreover, she makes use of logos, when she provides her readers with statistics about how “Women constituted nearly half of the professional workforce;

In her essay “The Importance of Work,” from The Feminine Mystique published in 1963, Betty Friedan confronts American women’s search for identity. Throughout the novel, Betty Friedan broke new ground by seeking the idea of women discovering personal fulfillment away from their original roles. She ponders on the idea of the Feminine Mystique as the cause for the majority of women during that time period to feel confined by their occupations around the house, restricting them from discovering who they are as women. Friedan’s novel is well known for creating a different kind of feminism and rousing various women across the nation.

In her Feminine Mystique essay, “The Importance of Work”, writer Betty Friedan talks about how the identity crisis of American women beginning about a century ago. More and more of the work that was used by human abilities in which they could find self-realization that was taken from women. The identity crisis for women did not begin in America until the fire, strength, and ability of the pioneer women were no longer needed. Women today whom feel that they have no goal, purpose, or future will commit suicide. Betty Friedan attempts to explain the causes of women’s unhappiness as she tags it, “the problem that has no name”. (Friedan, pg.790, 1963) Friedan’s rhetoric in the essay is constructed and based upon three persuasive techniques, which are known as ethos, pathos, and logos. In her essay, her main goal was to bring about how successful her approach in determining the role of women in society. She did an excellent job at defending her argument with facts from history to back it up.

In “From Books As Bombs” by Louis Menand, the author talks about “The Feminine Mystique” that was published by Betty Friedan and her argumentative points on the true meaning behind being a housewife. Betty Friedan was the first president of the National Organization for Women and sought to gain rights for working women. She began documenting and recording facts from her classmates. “Friedman campaigned on behalf of the rights of working women when she was still a student at Smith.” One of her major points in the book is that “women were worse of in 1963, then they had been in 1963”. Reason being is because most jobs were taken by men and the amount of women accepted to college decreased due to gender. Friedman wants to further propose that

Friedan paints the feminine woman of this time as having feelings of emptiness, non-existence and nothingness. She illustrates these problems that women face by telling the reader that the experts blame their feelings on the higher education they have received before becoming a housewife. All women are searching for is a human identity, a place where they belong without feeling empty. But the women before this generation fought for all the rights they have in the present, but they are not using them. But how can one change this dehumanizing aspect of the culture?

Friedan, however, was no ordinary housewife. Before starting her family, she had worked as a newspaper reporter; even after her children came, she wrote regularly for the major women 's magazines. By 1957 she was fed up with the endless stories about breast-feeding, the preparation of gourmet chip dips, and similar domestic fare that was the staple of ‘Redbook‘, ‘McCall 's‘, and ‘Ladies ' Home Journal‘. She had noticed many women like herself who worked outside the home and felt guilty because their jobs threatened their husbands ' roles as providers or took time away from their children. Thus Friedan began to wonder not only about herself as a woman, a wife, and a mother, but also about the role society had shaped women to play.

Some counterarguments that could be made against The Feminine Mystique are that it focuses on what was not a universal female problem but rather a problem endured only by white, upper- and middle-class mothers and wives. Friedan's phrase, "the problem that has no name,”(15) could actually refer to the plight of a select group of college-educated, middle- and upper-class, married white women or housewives bored with leisure, with the home, with children, with buying products, who want more out of life. Friedan concludes her first chapter by stating: "We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my house.’”(32) That "more"

Betty Friedan advanced the Women’s Rights Movement in many ways. One of them being the publishing of the Feminine Mystique. The Feminine Mystique vented

After conducting a survey of her Smith classmates at a 15-year reunion, Friedan found that most of them were, like she was, dissatisfied suburban housewives. After five more years of researching history, psychology, sociology and economics, and conducting interviews with women across the country, Friedan charted American middle-class women’s metamorphosis from the independent,

The Feminine Mystique is a first person narrative about the struggles of feminism. It highlights the problems of women in the 1950s to the 1960s and challenges gender roles. The book includes several first person interviews and discusses the Second Wave of feminism. It introduces the idea of the sexulization of women being used in consumerism and the lack of sexual education in school during the time. The Feminine Mystique is a useful resource because it is considered the groundbreaking book about feminism and lists issues that women have had to deal with from the 1960s until now. The book could be used to argue the struggles that women have faced and continue to face.

These societal pressures undoubtedly illustrated inequality between men and women. Women didn’t feel happy, they felt empty but couldn’t seem to understand and know the reason why that is. If were doing what they were suppose to be doing in their house, and for their families such as cleaning, cooking, and making their husbands happy, why are they so unhappy, it doesn’t make any sense to why they would feel unhappy. Friedan realizes that there are numerous housewives with the same problem, which brought her to the title of the chapter. “The problem that has no name” she presents this, in this certain way so readers can easily see the inequality between women and men.

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 the undervaluing of women in both the social and private spheres. The women of the time gave up pursuing their passions, such as getting an education or careers in science or business in order to fit the image of the stereotypical stay-at-home mom whose main goal in life is to raise her children while providing a safe and comforting home for her husband. The Feminine Mystique, as she called it, was the idea of widespread unhappiness of women, despite the preconceived notion that women were happiest when they have a family. Throughout her work, she dives into many of the problems associated with the feminine mystique and builds a powerful concept of what would eventually be labeled feminism.

Betty Friedan wrote that "the only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own." The message here is that women need more than just a husband, children, and a home to feel fulfilled; women need independence and creative outlets, unrestrained by the pressures of society. Throughout much of history, women have struggled with the limited roles society imposed on them. The belief that women were intellectually inferior, physically weaker, and overemotional has reinforced stereotypes throughout history. In the 1960s, however, women challenged their roles as "the happy little homemakers." Their story is the story of the Women's Liberation

In Betty Friedan’s novel, The Feminine Mystique, she addresses a problem deeply buried within women up until the beginning of the twenty-first century. A problem with no name, that makes women feel desolate and purposeless, forcing them to ask themselves “is this all?” Norma Jean toils with this very same question in Shiloh, a realistic fiction short story by Bobbie Ann Mason. The marriage of Norma Jean and her devoted, yet inactive husband Leroy falls to shambles when he is injured from work and has to stay home. They wander aimlessly around each other, much like ghosts, withholding their need to confide in one another, which inevitably leads to the end of their marriage. As Norma Jean redefines gender roles in her household, she feels omitted

"She has no identity except as a wife and mother. She does not know who she is herself. She waits all day for her husband to come home at night to make her feel alive." This sentiment "lay buried, unspoken, for many years, in the minds of American women", until "In 1960, the problem that has no name bust like a boil through the image of the happy American housewife." Betty Friedan coined the phrase `the problem that has no name' during the second wave of feminism in the 1960's. By the time Judith Butler began articulating her views on