Importance of Work

Reading Response to “The Importance of Work”

“The Importance of Work” is an essay from The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan. It states that women should hold jobs equivalent to men, since “women, like men, can only find their identity in work that uses their full capacities (578).”

Friedan wrote this to help inspire women to go into the work force and seek “self-realization, self-fulfillment, and identity (576).” She warns that if women do not put forth the effort to become all they can be, they will forfeit their own humanity (578).” The audience was all women in the 1960’s but it still has significance today.

In “The Importance of Work”, Friedan utilizes several arguments that come across as extremely persuasive. She points out that man no longer finds identity in the work defined as a paycheck job, thereby assuming that identity for man comes through creative work of his own that contributes to the human community (576). She extends this further by mentioning that “the core of the