Although aware of and sharing this dissatisfaction, women in the 1950s misinterpreted it as an individual problem and rarely talked about it with other women.
Ĭhapter 1: Friedan points out that the average age of marriage was dropping, the portion of women attending college was decreasing and the birthrate was increasing for women throughout the 1950s, yet the widespread trend of unhappy women persisted, although American culture insisted that fulfillment for women could be found in marriage and housewifery. The detrimental effects induced by this image were that it cornered women into the domestic sphere, and that it led many women to lose their own identities. Friedan also questions the women's magazine, women's education system, and advertisers for creating this widespread image of women. She discusses the lives of several housewives from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being married with children. The Feminine Mystique begins with an introduction describing what Friedan called "the problem that has no name"-the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. Friedan wanted to prove that women were unsatisfied and could not voice their feelings. The prevailing belief was that women who were truly feminine should not want to work, get an education, or have political opinions. The phrase "feminine mystique" was coined by Friedan to describe the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. She originally intended to create an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish the work. In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising.
Friedan used the book to challenge the widely shared belief that "fulfillment as a woman had only one definition for American women after 1949-the housewife-mother." Norton on February 19, 1963, The Feminine Mystique became a bestseller, initially selling over a million copies. The Feminine Mystique is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States.
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