The Fight for Women's Rights Essay

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

The gender roles in America have changed tremendously since the end of the American Civil War. Women and men, who once lived in separate spheres are now both contributing to American society. Women have gone from the housewife so playing key roles in the country's development in all areas. Though our society widely accepts women and the idea that our society is gender neutral, the issues that women once faced in the late 1860s are still here.

However, the methods they used to strive to change these ideals differed from those employed by ethnic minorities. Writers, such as Betty Friedan, voiced many of the views of the feminism movement that emerged in this decade. According to Friedan in her book, The Feminine Mystique, women in the 1960s realized the, “delusions of the feminine mystique” were their, “perception[s] of entrapment.” (Doc A) Friedan’s purpose in writing The Feminine Mystique is to convince women that their current status is unsatisfactory, thus sparking a new wave of women attempting to escape the trap they had fallen into and urging her audience to redefine the role of women. Her purpose is significant because it enables her to convey to a large audience that women, in their current state, were unable to achieve social equality with men. Additionally, the National Organization for Women (NOW) emphasized the necessity to redefine the democratic and social role of women from its inception in 1966. In its purpose statement, the NOW stated, “Working women are becoming increasingly—not less—concentrated on the bottom of the job ladder.” (Doc J) The purpose of this statement is to explain what the NOW seeks to accomplish and how it strives to do so. This purpose is significant because the NOW will not falsely represent what it intends to achieve and will employ facts supporting its intentions, even if slightly

Betty Friedan believed that women should feel and be treated equal to men. Friedan fought for women to embody their power and worth. She was an activist for the women’s rights movement and a founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Her book, The Feminine Mystique, connected with her readers by illustrating the standards that women were put under for decades. In the 60’s, women were viewed as nothing but maids and child-bearers. Many women were hesitant to take a stand for this taboo subject; their own rights. Friedan took initiative when everyone else was afraid to. Betty Friedan’s contribution clearly advanced the progression of women’s equality. She accomplished this by writing her famous book, giving a debatable speech, and founding the National Organization for Women.

Lingering inequalities and other social trends from previous decades brought forth the modern feminist movement in the 1960s. These feminists campaigned for gender equality with causes such as equal pay for equal work, abortion rights, and social parity. In 1963, author Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, which contained reports from a study conducted on female college graduates during the 1950s and early 1960s, which uncovered that most women labelled themselves exclusively as mothers and housewives, and were unsatisfied with the roles forced upon them. Friedan argued fervently that women needed to discover their own identities outside the roles of a wife and mother. Many believe that the arguments made in The Feminine Mystique marked the start of the modern feminist movement (Loveday, 1)

The Feminine Mystique is the title of a book written by Betty Friedan who has also founded The National Organization for Women (NOW) to help US women gain equal rights. She describes the "Feminine Mystique" as the heightened awareness of the expectations of women and how each woman has to fit a certain role as a little girl, an uneducated and unemployed teenager, and finally as a wife and mother who is happy to clean the house and cook things all day. After World War II, a lot of women's organizations began to appear with the goal of bringing the issues of equal rights into the limelight. The Feminine Mystique also seems to come

There was a time where women were hardly acknowledged as anything other than a housewife. From the year of 1848 to the year of 1920, dawned the era of the original Women’s rights movement of America. Eventually, the movement was modernized. A very influential woman in particular, named Betty Friedan, took action during this modern movement. Betty Friedan changed how her generation and future generations view women’s rights by advancing the Women’s Rights movement, by advocating for women being involved in politics and by leading women into thinking they were more than society wanted them to be.

However, before they began to labor for activism, there was a time when they decided to devote their lives to feminism. Only one moment was needed to change Anthony’s career and the world. When at a temperance meeting, Anthony rose to speak but was told she was not allowed to, solely because she was a woman. Due to this injustice, she decided to begin petitioning for women’s rights, as well as temperance and abolition, which she also labored for. Similarly, Friedan had a direct cause to begin feminism, but unlike Anthony, it was a period of several years that inspired her. For a long time, Friedan was a housewife, with three children in the suburbs. These years, torturous for Friedan, showed her how women were expected to give up their careers in favor of cleaning house, and worse, were expected to be happy not bored, sewing and vacuuming all day. In fact, Friedan herself had been a journalist, but she was fired for asking for maternal leave- fired for being a woman. Likewise, Anthony was fired from her job as a teacher, in part because she complained about the fact that she made five times less than men in the same position- again, fired for her sex. Another similarity between the paths of these women was that neither was respected at first. Anthony was a laughingstock for wearing the “Bloomer outfit”, pants that rolled at the calves, and after Friedan wrote her bestselling book on

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

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.

The journey in advocating for the equality and justice for women has left a tremendous impact in history. Women demonstrate their endless fight to be at the same level as men. From being allowed to receive an education, suffrage, to earning the same wages in the workplace as men. We recognize and honor one of the leading feminist of the 20 century. Betty Friedan is an inspiring activist whose actions have made equality for women a reality. Without her dedication in the movement, young girls may not have benefited from opportunities offered to them today. We often times neglect to remember important key figures that have strived for the better of our nation.

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