The Feminist Mystique

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Recommended: the role played by women in the civil rights movement from the 1950s to 1960s

Betty Friedan is either a liberator and creator of the vast second wave of Feminism or she’s an oppressive, opportunistic individual who simply represents a narrow demographic in the loudest possible way. Her book, The Feminine Mystique, has been used to both support and deny these claims. Proponents of her book say it was an important publicization for the idea that women need something beyond children and a husband for happiness and life satisfaction.1 However, opponents, like historian Joanne Meyerowitz, author of the book Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958, state that not only did her book displayed information that was blatantly false, but her overfocus on suburban middle class white women did not impact women as a whole, as the plights of working class women and racially marginalized women were not touched upon.2
Ultimately, like most arguments, the true answer seems to fall in the center. Indeed, The Feminine Mystique may not apply to everyone. Daniel Horowitz, author of the article Rethinking Betty Friedan and the Feminine Mystique: Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in America, and David Reynolds’, author of the book One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945, point out that her movement didn’t affect poor women, specifically those who are not white, which was Betty Friedan’s only focus.3 However, Friedan’s work ultimately impacted people as a whole, mostly because she chose the most opportune time to release it. The Cold War which resulted in America’s fervid belief and promotion of freedom made the call of oppression from middle class women impossible to ignore, similar to the Civil Rights’ Movement. As a result, using the Cold War’s call for freedom and learning from...

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...l articles that called into question the treatment of working women, mostly focused on protecting their jobs and improving working conditions.15 She then moved to UE News, which had a leftist slant and quickly changed her world into one marked with radicalism and a passion for justice for the working class, and women, especially African American women.15 In 1949, The Electrical workers union took advice from communist parties and started to grant equal seniority to women and African American.

Works Cited

1. Friedan, Betty. The Feminist Mystique. New York. W.W. Norton. 1963.
2. Horowitz, Daniel “ Rethinking Betty Friedan and the Feminine Mystique: Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in America”. American Quarterly, 48, No. 1. (1996) http://www.jstor.org/stable/30041520

3. Reynolds, David. One World Divisible: a Global History Since 1945. New York. W.W. Norton.

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