Feminine Mystique - 12173 Words

Supplemental Reading for US History 2 From Rosie to Lucy Questions students must answer in a 500-word (minimum) essay: 1) Describe the post-WWII frustrations felt by women such as Betty Friedan. 2) During the era of â€Å"Rosie the Riveter†, what gains did women make in the workforce? How did these women feel about themselves and their contributions? What did society as a whole think? 3) What role did mass media play during the 1950s and 1960s in regard to supporting or undermining the â€Å"feminine mystique†? 4) Which television heroine -- Alice, Lucy, or Miss Brooks -- came the closest to TRULY overcoming the feminine mystique, and elaborate on that heroine’s situation and relationship to the men in her life. It was 1957. Betty†¦show more content†¦Those women needed only to become better adjusted to who and what they were. 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. The results of the Smith questionnaire engaged Friedan s reportorial instincts. She sensed she was onto a story bigger than anything she had ever written. But when she circulated an article describing the plight so many women were experiencing, the male editors at the women s magazines turned it down flat. It couldn t be true, they insisted; women could not possibly feel as guilty or discontented as Friedan claimed. The problem must be hers. Betty has gone off her rocker, an editor at ‘Redbook’ told her agent. She has always done a good job for us, but this time only the most neurotic housewife couldShow MoreRelatedThe Feminine Mystique By Betty Friedan2032 Words   |  9 PagesIn the book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan brings attention to what she calls the feminine mystique, or â€Å"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 di fferent 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 andRead MoreThe Feminine Mystique And Shooting An Elephant898 Words   |  4 PagesBoth The Feminine Mystique and â€Å"Shooting an Elephant† discuss the confrontation between the self and society. In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan addresses â€Å"The Problem That Has No Name† referring to the widespread unhappiness of the housewife due to their obligation to uphold their ideal image rather than pursuing their dreams; in â€Å"Shooting an Elephant†, George Orwell comments on the societal expectations of imperialism and its effects on people who have the duty to uphold the law. In both ofRead MorePrimary Source Analysis on The Feminine Mystique1128 Words   |  5 PagesPotter 1 Rebecca Potter Gray Section 4975 12 May 2015 Primary Source Analysis on The Feminine Mystique 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 andRead MoreAnalysis Of Betty Friedan s The Feminine Mystique Essay1946 Words   |  8 PagesBetty 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, an d misinterpretationRead More Comparing Suppression of Women in Feminine Mystique, Radicalesbians, and Trifles638 Words   |  3 Pages Suppression of Women through Isolation in The Feminine Mystique,nbsp;Radicalesbians, and Triflesnbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; It is far easier to break the spirit of one human being than that of a united group of people.nbsp;Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Radicalesbians, and Susan Glaspell’s Trifles come to the same conclusion: isolation and separation caused women to be vulnerable to domination by male society. Social stigmatization by men, an inability to describe the situationRead More Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique and Sue Kaufmans Diary of a Mad Housewife3507 Words   |  15 PagesBetty Friedans The Feminine Mystique and Sue Kaufmans Diary of a Mad Housewife Bettina Balser, the narrator of Sue Kaufman’s Diary of a Mad Housewife, is an attractive, intelligent woman living in an affluent community of New York City with her successful husband and her two charming children. She is also on the verge of insanity. Her various mental disorders, her wavering physical health, and her sexual promiscuity permeate her diary entries, and are interwoven among descriptions of theRead MoreFeminist Analysis : Betty Friedman s The Feminine Mystique And Called Out Television1203 Words   |  5 Pagesfour walls and depended entirely on their spouses for money. Society, basically thought real women’ roles was to be a mother, a housewife. In 1963, Betty Friedman published her famous book The Feminine Mystique and called out Television, educators for constructing women’s roles for them. Feminine Mystique can be understood as the fact that women have been given an idealized image. The main idea of Friedman’s article, in the 50s, women were suffering from a disease that had â€Å"no name† not becauseRead MoreThe Feminine Mystique1107 Words   |  5 Pages1a. Source A is an excerpt of a book written by Betty Friedan in 1963 called â€Å"The Feminine Mystique.† The excerpt is titled â€Å"The Problem That Has No Name,† details how women were expected to be a housewife and how they were unhappy with only having that role. Friedan wrote the book after taking surveys of college students and friends during their 15 year reunion and seeing how unhappy the women were with where their lives had went. She began researching why they were unhappy and saw that they wantedRead MoreThe Feminine Mystique1413 Words   |  6 PagesIn The Feminine Mystique, Friedan embarks on a journey to discover â€Å"the problem [that] lay buried, unspoken for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yea rning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and BrowniesRead MoreFeminine Mystique1075 Words   |  5 PagesThe Feminine Mystique, a novel written in 1963 by Betty Friedan, provided a strong wake up call for women in America about a problem that was negatively impacting them, but not spoken of. After women fought so hard in the 1930s for the right to vote and equality with men in many areas, the author describes how changes in attitude after World War II were convincing women that their most important role is to get married, have kids and take care of the home. However, these women then felt an emptiness