Rhetorical Analysis Of Betty Friedan 's ' The Feminine Mystique '

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.

It seems that women workers have reached a plateau in society. In order for women to be respected (as men are) in the workplace there needs to be a redistribution of domestic and family work. It’s acceptable now for women to work; but this acceptance into the workforce has not drastically changed what they, women, are expected to perform at home. There is no way for women to move forward to equality in pay if they are not recognized as contributers to their job (i.e. women are still expected to perform outside of work in the family setting as well in a way that men are only expected to perform at work and not at home).

I agree that Betty Friedan was right to write that the suburban home was a ‘comfortable concentration camp’ where women ‘suffered a slow death of mind and spirit’ for the following reasons:

In “The End of Men?,” an article featured in The Atlantic in summer 2010, author Hanna Rosin illustrates the drastic, ascending shifts perceived in modern society. Rosin poises the theory of how men were traditionally seen as the superior gender. The author believes there is a contractionary shift in gender roles and that the new era is “[B]etter suited to women” (Rosin 304). Recent studies show that women are becoming prominent in the workforce, education, and family. Accordingly, she explains how women are miraculously able to balance work while nurturing their children. Rosin believes that this occurs because men are not biologically made to tend children. Additionally, Rosin analyses how men lost “8 million jobs” during the Great Recession (Rosin 306). During that time, women were becoming what made a majority of the workforce. There were increases in women’s presence in what used to be male-dominated fields: school, politics, and business. Rosin questions this drastic shift concerning women and men’s roles in society, stating how they are now equally competing for jobs. Moreover, the way women behave now show their commendable abilities in the workforce and how society is changing as they establish their dominance and authority everyday. Once, women were frowned upon, but nowadays, more people favor having girls than boys. Today’s era is commending women with their admirable work ethic and self-worth. Throughout most of history, men dominated the

“The Importance of Work” is an essay from The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan. The whole essay talks about how humans can contribute to the society with their full capacities through work and that women should hold jobs equivalent to men. Friedan insists that men and women need work that satisfies their creativity and contributes to human society. Today, doing paid work is a necessity because it helps us get through the day wether for our needs or our pleasures. The money earned from work supports the whole family. According to Mrs. Olive Schreiner, “if women did not win back their right to a full share of honored and useful work, women’s mind and muscle would weaken in a parasitic state; her offspring, male and female would weaken progressively, and civilization itself would deteriorate.” (Friedan 8) I strongly agree with this statement. I believe that the work ethic of most generations are influenced by parents. It is obvious that we look up to our parents. If the parents do not show any desire to work, their children will copy them and will not contribute to society. If a mother who is a stay-at-home mother or has a different job does not work hard or does not show any work ethic, her children will look up to her and follow her footsteps and eventually “civilization would deteriorate.” (Friedan 8)

Ever heard of Betty Friedan, who wrote a novel called The Feminine Mystique? Well that is a book about the women rights movement. Betty was Responsible for a lot of what the NOW had came up with today about the opinions of women. An important person in history that shows moral courage would be Betty Friedan, is an important role in history because of the book that has been written books plus how many women this figure has helped just by getting the point across of how women don't need to be in the kitchen and used to making children. Betty Friedan is an important role because of all the impacts and things said in The Feminine Mystique. Shows the visionary feminist who launched a social revolution with the book.

The post-war era had shaped society into conforming gender roles, where the normal family consisted of men that worked and women staying at home. It was not until 1963 when Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminist Mystique, started a new wave of feminism and women’s liberation from the suburban housewife role. Friedan was very critical about women and professional work, as she states in her book, “In the late fifties, a sociological phenomenon was suddenly remarked: a third of American women now worked. But most were no longer young and very few were pursuing careers. They were married women who held part-time jobs, selling or secretarial, to put their husbands through school, their sons

Beginning with the college front Dorment brings to light that “nearly 60 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in this country today go to women. Same number for graduate degrees.” (Dorment, 698). Then transitioning into the corporate workplace Dorment claims that, “women earn only seventy-seven pennies for every dollar made by the average man” (Dorment 698). Dorment later states in the article that “60 percent of two-parent homes with kids under the age of eighteen are made up of dual-earning couples.”(Dorment, 702). Dorment then comments on Anne-Marie Slaughters’ article (Why Women Can’t Have It All). “Men have oppressed their wives and sisters and daughters for pretty much all of recorded history, and now women are supposed to trust us to share everything

Even though it was hard for women to receive good paying jobs, in the book The American Promise is stated that “1/3 of all American Women held jobs by the end of the 1950s. However, full-time women workers earned only 60% of what the average male worker made.” (Roark 725) Generally people preferred traditional gender roles and the family life. Not many women challenged this preference society

The Feminine Mystique is the title of a book written by the late Betty Friedan

Gender roles is a very controversial topic in today’s society, especially when it comes to working. 100 years ago, in Europe, women were working long hours in factories. Women also worked as nurses, cleaned wealthy people 's homes, and were craftswomen. Meanwhile, 100 years ago in the United States women were expected to stay home and take care of the family/home, while the men went out and worked an average of ten hours a day for six days a week, compared to the traditional five day weeks and 8 hour days.

According to New York Time article “Why Gender Equality Stalled” in 1963 most Americans did not yet believe that gender equality was possible. Conventional knowledge believed that a woman could not pursue a career and still be a successful wife or effective mother. It was in the next 30 years that the emphasis on equalizing gender role started to make a huge transformation. In 1997 and 2007 the number of fully working females who said they would prefer to work part time increased approximately 60 percent from 48 percent. Additionally in 2007, 16 percent of stay-at-home

The generation now has made it easier to equalize men and women but there is still a substantial amount of places where gender inequality is still happening in the workplace and where females still face discrimination. Women are often discriminated in the workplace and are usually not promoted as quickly as men are and they also receive less pay. History shows that women have not always been defined as property and thought of as second class citizens. But in the 21st century many have seen a drastic change in the so called “traditional” family ways where women are suppose to stay home and take care of the household chores, food, and children and men are suppose to work to support their family and provide financial stability. Many assume that in the workplace women are more vulnerable and less competent than men because women 's instincts are to put their family before work or anything else. Whereas men are the ones who will usually stay the late hours to work. People on both sides of the political spectrum and everywhere in between seem to be fearful of what is to come and more fearful of others than they are often willing to admit.

Conventionally, females played a very insignificant role in the paid work force of a society as many times they were expected to be home taking care of their family. Their roles at home can often include grocery shopping, meeting all the needs of her children and husband. As time moved on, our society became more accepted of sharing housework between the couples, but even so, the traditionally more feminine housework such as cooking, caring for sick children, and shopping for the entire family are mostly done by the females of the house. It is argued in a research journal Work and Occupations (Witkowski & Leicht, 1995) that in an average North American family, females take on roughly three-quarters of the housework. Even though we are in a democratic society, parenting roles in the household are assigned based on gender rather than in a democratic fashion (Winslow-Bowe, 2009). Because of the many responsibilities and obligations that are associated with the female gender, their career paths are eventually affected for the worse. According to Statistics Canada (2001), for every dollar a man earns, a single woman earns 93 cents and a married woman earns 69 cents. These statistics

Since the beginning of time, there has been a clear-cut distinction between the two sexes, male and female. It wasn’t until the mid-40s that this all started to change for the better. World War II, which closely followed the Depression, marked a turning point in the distribution of economic roles between women and men, although it did not necessarily cause the massive changes that were to follow. Women were attracted to war-related industries and they were given access to the more skilled, higher-paying jobs usually held by men. However, after the war was won in 1945, the labor force did not quickly “return to normal.” Instead, a new sense of what is normal emerged. (Powell & Graves, 2003). During this time, it was not unheard of for women to do housework and take on men’s duties. Women were known to be versatile and adapted well to changing roles. Women were taking hold and embracing the change that was to come.