Nonfiction And Reference Codexery

The Feminine Mystique

Book credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States.

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The opening of the book introduces what Friedan termed "the problem that has no name"—the prevalent dissatisfaction among women during the 1950s and early 1960s.[1]

Making and release

In 1957, Friedan was asked to survey her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion, and the results prompted her to begin research for the book.[2][3] Friedan included both the experiences of women she talked with and her own perspectives in the book.[3] Black and LGBTQ feminists were largely absent from the pages of The Feminine Mystique.[3] By the year 2000, The Feminine Mystique had sold over 3 million copies and had been translated into many foreign languages.[4]

Friedan's original plan was to write a magazine article on the subject, but she could not find any periodical willing to publish it.[2] Friedan has faced criticism for harboring prejudice against homosexuals, which is linked to her acceptance of the contemporary notion that "bad mothers" led to non-heteronormative behavior.[5]

What the cited sources add

A copy of The Feminine Mystique was gifted to the National Museum of American History and exhibited in a 2015 exhibition "The Early Sixties: American Culture"[3] Curator Lisa Kathleen Graddy notes that the book is "a very personal series of observations and feelings" rather than a scholarly work.[3] The book's narrow scope focused on the aspirations of certain white college-educated housewives rather than women who were not white nor middle class.[3] Black feminists were compelled to respond to the analysis the book lacked and develop their own theory confronting issues of race, class, and gender.[3]

The chapter in which Friedan critiques Freud was influenced by Simone de Beauvoir's 1949 work The Second Sex.[6]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "The Feminine Mystique" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Feminine Mystique Summary", Enotes.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "The Feminine Mystique" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Muñoz, "The Powerful, Complicated Legacy of Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique'", Smithsonian Magazine; Patricia Sullivan, "Voice of Feminism's 'Second Wave'", Washington Post, February 5, 2006, p. 2 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Muñoz, "The Powerful, Complicated Legacy of Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique'", Smithsonian Magazine. facts only, no text reused. smithsonianmag.com
  4. Wikipedia, "The Feminine Mystique" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Margalit Fox, "Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85", The New York Times, 5 February 2006 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "The Feminine Mystique" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Puncturing Betty Friedan, but Not the Mystique: An Interview with Stephanie Coontz", Stephaniecoontz.com, 2011-01-24; Daniel Horowitz, "Rethinking Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in Cold War America", American Quarterly, Vol. 48, No.; Friedan, "The Feminine Mystique: The Contexts, The Scholarship on the Feminine Mystique", W. W. Norton, 2013, p. xiv (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "The Feminine Mystique" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Webster, Richard, "Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis", The Orwell Press, 2005, p. 22 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article The Feminine Mystique (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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