Women’s Role

Women’s Role

In Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan wrote about women’s inequality from men to women’s equality to men. She also wrote about women accepting the inequality to women fighting for equality. Friedan comes across to me as a woman with strong beliefs who puts a lot of effort and information in her book. I wasn’t aware that this book would give such an extreme amount of information. Her writing style proves that she has been in a feminist movement. Her writing style shows she has a passion for every word she put into this book. She also writes in a way that makes a person interested in what her beliefs are. Friedan has a mass amount of information to prove every point she has. I believe that Feminine Mystique is probably her favorite work to write about. Her writing style proves each point she responds to.

I believe that in Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan is attempting to persuade the reader to understand what she is trying to say. She wants people to know exactly what occurred during the feminist movement. How women’s rights came to a reality, how women believed there was only one role to have which is a typical housewife that has a husband to over power her. Not being able to vote, or have any rights as an equal to men.

“For the sake of every member of the family, the family needs a head. This means Father, not Mother….Children of both sexes need to learn, recognize and respect the abilities and functions of each sex….He is not just a substitute mother, even though he’s

Women’s Role PG 2

ready and willing to do his share of bathing, feeding, comforting, playing. He is a link with the outside world he works in. If in that world he is interested, courageous, tolerant, constructive, he will pass on these values to his children.”

No matter what, the men were in charge. They ruled the world. It’s unbelievable to read that the only reason women would attend college was not for education; it was for to find a husband. Men were on top of the good chain for women. They needed to find a husband.. I need understood why women during the feminist movement needed men tremendously until now. Women didn’t have any other choice. Being brought up believing when a woman grows up, they are to marry and have children. Going to college is what you had to do, graduating isn’t. Being well educated is shown to be unfeminine. Men didn’t enjoy women knowing information they knew. Men wanted women uneducated, men were supposed to be the only educated in the household.

“Girls didn’t get excited about things like that anymore. We don’t want careers. Our parents expect us to go to college. Everybody goes. You’re a social outcast at home if you don’t But a girl who got serious about anything she studied- like wanting to go on and do research would be peculiar, unfeminine. I guess everybody wants to graduate with a diamond ring on her finger. That’s the important thing.”

Looking at the book, I had the assumption that it would be uninteresting with all the pages it has. Feminist Mystique has a lot of information that Friedan wanted everyone