About this title: Published in 1963, THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE is generally agreed to be the book that launched the women's liberation movement. In her groundbreaking study, Betty Friedan writes of her experiences as a wife and mother in the 1950s, and her growing sense of frustration with the idealized postwar concept of the perfect nuclear family--Dad in a business suit going off to engage the world, Mom in an apron keeping house, and 2.5 perfect children thriving on the situation. Friedan?s nagging feeling that women felt a subversive, unspoken desire for something more fulfilling led her to do research into ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Tenth Anniversary Edition
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Dell, New York
Date Published: 1975
Description: Good. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. xxviii, 420 pp., bib. notes, index; 18 cm. With a New Introduction and Epilogue by the Author. Good+. Tight, clean copy. Browning. Classic feminist book. "First published in 1963, The Feminine Mystique ignited a revolution that profoundly changed our culture, our conciousness, and our lives. Today it newly penetrates to the heart of isuues determining our lives--and sounds a call to arms against the very real dangers of a new feminine mystique in the economic and ... read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell, New York
Date Published: 1970
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. 384 p.; 18 cm. A Dell book 2498.. Includes bibliographical references and index. 9th printing-January 1974. '"Angry and thoroughly documented...it is going to provoke the daylights out of almost everyone. "' read more
Description: Fine New in Fine jacket. PAPERBACK, Fine/Fine, Laurel, 1984, 1.5 in. H x 6.5 in. L x 4.3 in. W, 8.4 oz. This copy has no signs of use, is in Excellent Condition Overall. Note: expect tanning of any paperback more than a few years old, regardless of condition. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell, New York, N. Y
Date Published: 1963
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Highlighting/underlining. softcover; solid binding; highlighting within text; crease in binding; wear & crease in cover; age discoloration of pages; VB63. 384 p.; 19 cm. "A Dell book. " Includes bibliographical references and index. read more
Edition: Reprint.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell, New York, N. Y
Date Published: 1964
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. 384 p.; 19 cm. Mass-market paperback. Great copy considering age. Totally clean & unmarked within. Pages still tight. Quite a bit of wear to covers and spine including scratches, creases, rough edges, and worn corners. Although significantly worn on the..."A Dell book. " Includes bibliographical references and index. read more
Edition: 4th printing
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell Books, New York, N. Y
Date Published: 1964
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. (042009) Mass Market Paperback is in Very Good+ condition with light wear at spine corners and edges, crease at spine edge, crease tip end upper right corner, light overall wear. 384 p.; 18 cm. "A Dell book. " Includes bibliographical references and index. read more
Description: PB, A Dell Book, 1964, first thus. Covers are lightly rubbed, owner's name and date on fep, contents browning, clean and very tight. Good. read more
"This book was an amazing read. Sure, it was written almost 50 years ago, but the look back at how the image of femininity changed over the last century and a half was eye-opening. While the last chapter of the book became a little too preach-y for me, the rest was an interesting look at suburban America, the large families of my parents' generation, and middle-class life. It also made me appreciate the advantages I have today for being able to get both the education I received and the job I currently hold. And while a good number of things have changed in the last 50 years, I was amazed at how much what society deems to be a "good mother" continues to inform how individual families make their decisions and how much guilty this puts on the woman. And I definitely didn't agree with everything Friedan said: her arguments against all-girl schools were uneducated in the book itself. Regardless of my disagreements with her opinions, her research was thorough, and while the personal stories did "prove" her results, they added a human perspective to the numbers that did."
"First, there was Englishwoman Mary Wollstonecraft with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. The feminist movement made only slight gains during the 19th century, and the next big treatise was Frenchwoman Simone de Beauvoir's 1946 The Second Sex (also translated sometimes as The Other Sex). But the text that really got the feminist ball rolling--especially in America--was Bette Friedan's 1963 pull-no-punches, take-no-prisoners essay The Feminist Mystique. This wonderfully readable sociological look at women in American society, particularly during the complaisantly domestic years of the Eisenhower administration, stood American sexual politics on its long outmoded head. I love the way Freidan takes the whole mythical rhetoric about the happy housewife and domestic goddess of the 1950s (which is still touted by certain Christian groups), and blows it so full of holes, the reader wants to stand up and cheer. Freidan even goes so far as to quote sociological studies that have concluded that full-time housework and domesticity are best left to "feeble-minded girls," and that intelligent, competent women should be making more of a professional and intellectual contribution to the country. In 1963, it was high time someone had to decry the tragedy of the misuse and non-use of female brain-power in our country and to ask why all--even after the World War II years of Rosie the Riveter and her ilk--had retreated back to the home, leaving America's professional and intellectual output mostly in the hands of only half of the adult population. Some very obvious, but vital, questions are addressed here, and some great advice to domesticized women to get their brains in gear and to get back into the real world already. Bravo, Freidan!"
"This is one of my favorite quotes from the book. She's talking about the first wave of feminism from the 19th century: "There were excesses, of course, as in any revolution, but the excesses of the feminists were in themselves a demonstration of the revolution's necessity." It made me think of the wild swings in China's recent history. Anyway, she was looking back about 50 years, and now we can look back at Friedan's book from 50 years and see the effects of possible excesses. I found this book terribly interesting at times and tedious at others, but it really made me think. So I've been taking notes on my perception of pros and cons.
Pros of the second wave of the feminist movement: Education: The education of girls and women has improved dramatically as a result of the second wave of the feminist movement. By the time I was graduating from college in the mid-1990s, the thought of dropping out because I was getting married never even crossed my mind. When Friedan wrote the book in the 60s, however, dropping out to get married was a very common practice. Of course, more men also go to college now than fifty years ago because the marketplace is more competitive and industrial jobs have declined as a result of global trade. Political clout: The first wave of the feminist movement took a long time because women had no political clout. It's hard to get property rights when you can't even vote. Today, women are visible in all levels of government. Women have made great strides in the political arena in the past fifty years, but there's still work to do. For example, the two respectable women who took part in presidential campaigns last year were frequently dubbed "floozy" and "hag" by the media. But sixty years ago there were no women running for president or vice-president.
Cons: Either/Or Mentality: It seems that there's a common conception that homemakers are "wasting" their talents or don't have much to offer society, and I thought this book would have a heavy slant in that direction. There are several chapters about how women would be much happier if they had a lifelong pursuit outside the home and family, but Friedan doesn't suggest that this has to be a job. She talks about women who pursue interests while they're at home with their families and suggests that these women are more content. Still, there's a militancy about this issue that sidelines women who want to make home and family their sole focus: a woman can be home and bored or she can be away from home and stimulated. There's not much in between.
Abhorrence of housework: Friedan repeatedly says that housework is the absolute lowest work done in a community. The result of this attitude is that everyone thinks housework is beneath them, and people live in unwelcoming houses and eat frozen dinners. It might be a stretch, but I think the obesity epidemic is linked to the fact that cooking qualifies as housework, which is beneath the dignities of many Americans. Everyone has more important things to do.
Unresolved issue: Women as mega-consumers I couldn't believe how much Friedan's description of 1950s and 1960s consumerism sounds like today. When she talked about women buying things to fill emptiness in their lives and marketers honing in on this weakness, I felt like things have definitely not improved in this area. In fact, when I hear ads on the radio for plastic surgery ("I thought my wife looked fine before, but now I can't believe how young she looks!"), I think it's gotten worse.
All in all, I think this book is worth the read (if you skim parts with too many case studies and too many statistics. It's an interesting snapshot of a time and place."
"This book was absolutely astounding to read so many years after it was originally published! I found myself so utterly disgusted by what I was reading on countless occasions that I threw this book across the room and would not be able to continue reading again for days. It was a difficult process for me to finish the book, not because of the writing, but because of the content; so many things I was reading about deeply and profoundly angered me. Feminism has made incredible strides world-wide since the publication of this book, and since the world functioned and behaved in the appalling manner described so often in this work, but it's clear there are still many things that are the same."
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