Sexuality In The 1960s Essay

Betty Friedan wrote the book based on a survey she did for her former Smith College classmates on the their fifteenth anniversary reunion. The results of the survey showed that many of her former classmates were unhappy, despite being affluent and married with children. The reason her Smith College alumnus were so unhappy was due to the fact that their lives consisted of taking care of her family and children, but not doing anything that held significance to themselves and the nation. Her book The Feminine Mystique, was a major influence of the 1960s and 70s American Feminist Movement, selling 1.4 million copies.The Feminine Mystique, made in 1963 is a nonfiction book that is based on the lives and unhappiness housewives felt during the early 50s and 60s. The reason this book was so popular and influenced the 1960s and 70s American Feminist Movement was due to the books widespread relatability among housewives who were financially stable with children, the book impelled women to fight for a change in salary, the workplace, and laws; during a time where women did not have the same equal rights as men. Another popular writer during the 1960s and 70s American Feminist Movement is Robin Morgan. Robin Morgan is an

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 “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

Unlike sex, the history of sexuality is dependant upon society and limited by its language in order to be defined and understood.

The 1960's was a decade of many changes, revolutions, and experiments including the sexual revolution brought on by the 'sixties generation'. Free love was a popular term coined in the later sixties that meant everyone should love each other, sexually and non sexually. This was the first time in history that sex was not something only men could enjoy but women too. What came from this revolution was birth control, knowledge of the female anatomy, the start to legalizing abortion, and woman’s liberation. These may all sound like common things to have or know about but at the time these were all groundbreaking and changed many lives.

There are various perspective on human sexuality. As seen throughout time, human sexuality has taken several routes and has brought about a different perspective and beliefs on human sexuality. This difference is associated with the consequences man received during the Fall. The definition of authentic sexuality is viewed in several ways through a spectrum that includes theological perspective and contemporary society’s perspective. These perspective have affected one’s current perspective and beliefs that are perverted. It has veered from God’s original intention on authentic human sexuality, which is described in several books of the Bible. Since there is a difference in understanding and view on human sexuality, it has affected one’s daily life, and especially Christian professionals, who are in the psychology and counseling field.

Throughout history, definitions of sexuality within a culture are created and then changed time after time. During these changes, we have seen the impact and power one individual or group can have over others. In the Late Nineteenth Century into the Early Twentieth Century, we see multiple groups of people and or authorities taking control over the idea of sex and how they believe society is being impacted by sex. At this point in time, society had groups of people who believed they had the power to control how society as whole viewed and acted upon sex. Those particular groups and ideas changed many lives and the overall definition of sexuality within that culture.

The sexual revolution first happened in the 1920’s when both women and men moved to cities and began to experience more sexual freedom. Change really happened in the 1940’s and more specifically 1948 when Alfred Kinsey published a book about the study of sexuality. This was such a big deal because before that time, most people never talked, let alone studied, the subject of sex even in private settings. To everyone’s surprise his books became best sellers and they revealed that most Americans were not as conventional as everyone originally thought. In the 60’s the age of “sex, drugs, rock and roll,” helped pushed the movement forward. The baby boom generation grew up thinking that sex was normal and apart of everyday life.

The second section of the documentary will focus on the aspect of gender identity throughout the history of sexuality. As sexual identity and gender identity are entirely different, it is important to include both topics and, for the issue of gender identity, to highlight its own diverse spectrum and the subsequent social stigmas and medical developments that have surfaced around it. Throughout sexual history, whether an individual identified as male, female, or intersex, controversy and societal disapproval often occurred if the individual’s identity did not match the gender they were biologically born as, per their genital structure. By the mid-nineteenth century, corrective surgery for the polysemous gender community had taken root. Particularly

Sex is the force that drives the continuation of humanity, and sexuality is an integral part of human life. Next to survival, the most primitive & primal human instinct is sex. Sexuality is something carnal and pervasive, something that is responsible for and touches the lives of everyone. Understanding its history, its relativity to culture and era, and its fluidity of meaning is vital to gaining and composing a full understanding of the behaviors of humankind.

Throughout the semester, we learned about different aspects of human sexuality. Regardless of the subject, the most important take away is diversity. All the sections discussed in and outside of class demonstrate how sexually diverse people are around the world. In order to truly understand how widespread and diverse sexuality is; we explored cultures, evolution, studies, biology, religion, physiology, and psychology. By delving into these categories, we can comprehend sexuality and apply our knowledge to a greater number of people. One sexual phenomenon covered in class is intersexual people and what factors play role in this condition. Due to the variety of conditions, the world of intersexual people tends to be tremendously diverse. Today, schools across the world provide different forms of sexual education to their students. Overall, students should be educated in order to better protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. When men and women decide to become sexually active, is it vital that they are educated enough to be responsible. Human sexuality is a subject that cannot be avoided, therefore, everyone should have a baseline knowledge of the diverse topics.

In ‘The Feminine Mystique’, Betty Friedan for the first time in history describes ‘the problem that has no name’ for American women in the 1950s to 1960s. It was the time just after World War II and men went back form the war frontier to their working positions, most of the American women went back to the kitchen rather than going out to work as they had during the war. They were identified by Friedan as ‘suburban housewives’ (Friedan, 1963:18), suffered from a common dissatisfaction of their lives, which is called ‘the problem that has no name’ or the ‘nameless aching dissatisfaction’ in the book. By analysing the essence of the problem combined with a quantity of real-life example and previous theories, the author defines the feminine mystique as the convention that women should become an ideal patriarchal woman in the society where men create women as capable housewives as well as gentle mothers. (Friedan, 1963:15-28)

In the eyes of my 17 year old niece, sex is only approved of if you’re in a committed relationship and are at least 16 years of age. However, according to the information that she shared with me, about her encounters with teen pregnancy, it is clear her peers do not have the same opinion. When asked if teen pregnancies were common or scarce, my niece’s response was very common. She stated that 1 out of every 4 teens that she has an encounter with is either pregnant, has a child, or experienced a miscarriage. She further stated that the majority of the teen parents do not stay together. Upon the retrieval of my niece’s responses about teen pregnancy, my curiosity was sparked. Therefore, I had to follow up with how do your peers treat the teen moms? In turn, her response was they’re glorified.

Birds do it, bees do it, and men do it any old time. But women will only do it if the candles are scented just right -- and their partner has done the dishes first. A stereotype, sure, but is it true? Do men really have stronger sex drives than women?Yes, they do.

Our society has socially excepted explicit language as well as sexual undertones as a way of introducing sex and pornography to our young people and mature adults alike.There are hidden secret sexual desires simply because we are taught that if our sexual thoughts or desires are different from others we are strange. Women were taught that they are damaged if they are to engage in watching pornography or engage in altered sexual desires that are outside of the vanilla spectrum. According to Concepcion, C. M. (1999) “ To deny any women any form of sexual expression, including the enjoyment and production of pornography can stunt sexual development and thereby, stunt the development of our sexuality, forces women to question our intuition and police our desires”.