Betty Friedan

The Feminine Mystique

1. IDEA 1

   Many housewives felt unfulfilled

   Friedan describes the quiet unhappiness of many educated American housewives in the 1950s. They had homes, families and comfort, yet felt empty and could not name the reason. She treats this shared feeling as a social problem, not a personal failing.

2. IDEA 2

   A myth shaped women's lives

   Friedan calls the belief that women find complete fulfilment only as wives and mothers the feminine mystique. She argues this idea limited women's lives. In her view, the idea was repeated everywhere, from magazines to schools.

3. IDEA 3

   After the war, women went home

   Friedan describes how, after the Second World War, women were encouraged to leave jobs and focus on family. Women's ambitions narrowed. In her account, messages in the culture presented family life as the proper and happy goal.

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