Betty Friedan: A Guiding Light in Society’s Journey to Women’s Equality

Tessa Urbanovich

Saugus High School AP US History and AP English Language Composition Team Term Paper

Thesis: Though publicly dubbed as “the sort of feminist that traditionalists loved to ridicule” (Arthur et al256), second-wave feminism movement leader, Betty Friedan not only helped prop open the doors to women’s modern equality, but she aided in the creation of their framework, changing the course of American history for women (Tobias 62). As a result of a childhood spent observing her mother’s stifled social potential in a time of political unrest, personal discrimination due to globally scattered anti-Semitism, the endurance of an eye-opening unique college experience, and the beginning of a typical, yet family life that was cut short, Betty Friedan molded a new alternative outlook for women on women’s rights, treatment, and their perception of both, which she delivered to the public in several works, including the world-renowned, The Feminine Mystique, in which her then radical idea of women’s equality is revealed through varying tones, compelling statistics, and profound social ideology regarding women’s rights and nature. In addition to her written works and creation of a legacy of women’s equality and sense of empowerment, Friedan aided in shaping the feminist movement in the 1960’s through active protesting and the development the National Organization for Women, all of which contributed to her lasting public perception as the movement’s leading figure.

I. Intro.

II. Biography and shaping

A. Mother’s lack of reaching own life goals, and her attempt to push her daughter to reach them.

B. Political unrest: WWII, anti-Semitism, discrimination against women is very common; women aren’t able or encouraged to go very far career wise. Male-dominated culture.

C. College: All girls school. Studied psychology, had a love affair with communist David Bohm who influenced her beliefs. Saw trends of lack of success women achieved post-grad.

D. Marriage: She and husband Carl had 3 children; Friedan wrote in UE (communist paper), but switched to mainstream journalism after Bohm’s fall-out. Fought with husband, was too busy for regular family life, eventually divorced after publication of The Feminine Mystique.

III. The Feminine Mystique

A. Her argument: Publicize the idea that a woman’s life can obtain fulfillment through careers and involvement in society, rather than merely home-life and biologically set limits.

B. How she argues it.

1. Through defined, varying tones (knowledgeable, sarcastic, ethical)

2. Countless appeals to the readers’ logos and ethos

3. Juxtapositions comparing women’s current status and their potential status.

C. Effect it has on the reader: Convinces them of the ridicule in the ideal American femininity.

IV. Legacies/long-term effects on society.

A. Written works: Feminine Mystique, Beyond Gender, The Fountain of Age

B. Empowerment/ Feminist Movement: more women in the workplace

C. N.O.W: Founded in 1966, created to end sexual discrimination.

D. Public Perspective of Betty: Leader of Fem Movement vs. stereotype of feminist.

V. Conclusion.

VI. Works cited.

VII. Annotated bibliography.

Though publicly dubbed as “the sort of feminist that traditionalists loved to ridicule” (Arthur et al256), second-wave feminism movement leader, Betty Friedan not only helped prop open the doors to women’s modern equality, but she aided in the creation of their framework, changing the course of American history for women (Tobias 62). As a result of a childhood spent observing her mother’s stifled social potential in a time of political unrest, personal discrimination due to globally scattered anti-Semitism, the endurance of an eye-opening unique college experience, and the beginning of a typical, yet family life that was cut short, Betty Friedan molded a new alternative outlook for women on women’s rights, treatment, and their perception of both, which she delivered to the public in several works, including the world-renowned, The Feminine Mystique, in which her then radical idea of women’s equality is revealed through varying tones, compelling statistics, and profound social ideology regarding women’s rights and nature. In addition to her written works and creation of a legacy of women’s equality and sense of empowerment, Friedan aided in shaping the feminist movement in the 1960’s through active protesting and the development the National Organization for Women, all of which contributed to her lasting public perception as the movement’s leading figure.

“ ‘I am nasty, I’m b****y, I get mad, but by God, I’m absorbed in what I’m doing.’ -Betty Friedan” (Arthur et al 274).

Born in 1921 in a Jewish home in Peoria, Illinois, Bettye Naomi Goldstein, “a five foot two asthmatic Jew” (Arthur et al 259) possessed an intense determination to excel in journalism because of her mother’s failure at the same goal due to a disruptive marriage. Friedan did not lose hope, even while enduring her parent’s tumultuous relationship, and after being denied “membership into a high school sorority on account of her religion” (Arthur et al 260). In fact, the hatred that spurred this particularly stifling event in Friedan’s life was molded from the stereotypes and racism that would later be intensified by the second world war, which was “more devastating than the first” (Tobias 60).

The war uniquely bonded the twelve million men who went, leaving “the American women who came of age in the 1940’s to experience a kind of existential inferiority because they missed [out on] the searing experience of their generation” (Tobias 40). Avoiding the seemingly magnetic effect of this unjust, yet uncontrollable social glitch, Betty Friedan left for a Smith College in Massachusetts, which was a private women’s school that her mother had yearned to attend in her younger days, and pushed Bettye towards (Arthur et al 262). It was there that Friedan’s later popular ideological basis was shaped; not only were her beliefs regarding the existentialist nature of modern society or the subconscious appeal to humanity of being dictated influenced by her readings of Nietzche, Erikson, and Maslow (Cotkin 260), but her support for free speech, labor unions, and women’s rights was fashioned (Arthur et al 260).

Eventually, after she transferred and received a degree in Psychology from Berkeley, Friedan began dating communist David Bohm, whose own traditionally un-American views soon impacted hers (Arthur et al 264). Yet, after he fled the US in fear of his career going into ruin on account of his communist support, Friedan, “vulnerable to getting tarred like Bohm…underwent a transformation” (263). Friedan rebelled against her true nature, and settled down; in 1952, she married Carl Friedan, with whom she beared three children while living in suburban Queens and maintaining a mainstream, yet successful, job as a journalist for “The Federated Press” (265). While beginning to realize and question her own “deep discomfort with her primary role as a wife and mother,” Friedan sent out a questionnaire in 1957 to two hundred women with whom she had graduated from Smith College (101). Upon the return of the surveys, Friedan discovered a “tantalizing pattern” portraying “housewife’s fatigue” (Tobias 63). She found that 97% of the women were married, 89% were housewives, and that a majority wished that “they had done more with their education” (Arthur et al 264).

After scrutinizing the evidence brought upon her, Friedan unearthed and elaborated her idea of a wide-spread American problem among women-- one that “had led middle class women to eschew careers in favor of fulfillment strictly as mothers and homemakers” (264). As the most prominent proof of a new attitude within American women besides the ladies themselves, the questionnaires’ results helped Friedan grasp hold of this ‘feminine mystique,’ and put an end to her own unhappiness and “[a]fter twenty-two years of marriage, in 1969, [Betty and Carl] went through a brutal divorce” (266). Free from her marriage’s binding ties, Friedan set out to lecture about her discoveries and ideas regarding women’s rights.

“Almost every woman of my generation can remember where she was the day she first came across Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique.” (Sheila Tobias/ Cotkin 252).

In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan’s main purpose for the writing the book is to publicly oppose common social thought by presenting the idea that a woman can obtain fulfillment in life through careers and involvement in society, rather than taking care of a home, giving birth, or pleasing a husband, all of which were generally accepted by women themselves and society as ‘careers’ at the time (Tobias 76). Friedan takes her idea that women possess the liberty to face the choice between freedom and constraint (Cotkin 260) and argues it in a fashion that is persuasive to her readers. As a non-fiction, yet revolutionary work, The Feminine Mystique’s argument is generally straightforward, yet Friedan marvelously instills rhetoric into her writing in order to subconsciously convince her readers of her then radical idea that women, in addition to men, can live life successfully outside of the home. The main strategies that Friedan employs to subtly fortify her message are varied yet defined tones throughout the chapters, which are vilified through her appeals to her audience’s ethics and logic via personal and public statistical anecdotes, and vivid juxtapositions comparing women’s general current status to their potential status.

Though the diverse tones are gradually blended from one to another in The Feminine Mystique, the most notable attitudes Friedan utilizes for her narrator can be described as sarcastic, knowledgeable, and a contrasting concessive. By engaging in an acerbic, mocking tone, Friedan opens her readers’ eyes to the ridicule of American women’s predicament, which can now be agreed upon as one deserving a bitter attitude. Regarding life in the suburbs, Friedan writes that the average American woman, a housewife, “was free to choose automobiles, clothes, appliances, supermarkets; she had everything that women ever dreamed of” (Friedan 61). Parodying the limited responsibilities and the petty tasks that women pertained to as a mother and wife aids Friedan to illustrate her perception of the absurdity of the idea of solely being a housewife. Her readers feel the sting of her words towards the issue, and the disdainful mockery, instilling comprehension of her argument. Another distinct narrative tone used in The Feminine Mystique is one that is stiff and informative. By inserting facts and statistics that effectively appeal to the readers’ logic, Friedan weaves in and out of a serious feel that helps establish respect from the reader: “The proportion of women attending college in comparison with men dropped from 47 per cent in 1920 to 35 per cent in 1958” (58). The input of valid evidence and information assures the reading audience of Friedan’s own legitimacy and elicits dependence on her information.

Also, an ethically appealing tone is created by Friedan through facts and ideals that stun her readers due to their lack of morale. She explains that “American girls began getting married in high school” and that “[m]anufacturers put out brassieres with false bosoms of foam rubber for little girls of ten,” appalling her readers (59). Friedan also creates a trust by ethical means through a concessive tone: “I helped create this image... But I can no longer deny my own knowledge of its terrible implications” (120). By admitting that she as the author has her faults, a strong trust through relation for the author is built up within the readers. Friedan, after establishing the concessive, informative, and sarcastic tones through logic, appeals to morals, and mockery, obtains a bond with the audience through which her argument can reach them.

In addition to tonal strategies, Friedan also takes advantage of her talent as a writer by taking hold of all of her juxtapositions and comparisons regarding women’s current and potential status and lavishing them with vivid imagery and personal anecdotes. Friedan quotes an embellished excerpt to help the women see what they’ve become: “…Once she wrote a paper on the graveyard poets; now she writes notes to the milkman. Once she determined the boiling point of sulfuric acid; now she determines her own boiling point with the overdue repairman” (New York Times, Friedan 67). She also compares physical and spiritual limits caused by this new mystique when she writes that it “is easy to see the concrete details that trap the suburban housewife, the continual demands on her time. But the chains that bind her in her trap are chains in her own mind and spirit” (Friedan 77). By inserting quotes containing eye-opening comparisons, Friedan steadily convinces her readers of the tangibility of the mystique, making it and her opposition appear more realistic. Friedan shapes the same comprehension of the mystique’s embodiment through imagery when she explains how the morals and honesty in women’s magazines have been replaced with “a richness of…realistic domestic detail--the color of wall or lipstick, the exact temperature of the oven” (107). Though it does not pertain to a juxtaposition, the imagery is effective nonetheless, due to its word choice that is easily visualized. All of Friedan’s strategies regarding imagery and comparisons clearly set up a reality and a potential reality for her readers, obviously portraying and impacting her argument upon them.

Friedan also intertwines personal and factual anecdotes within The Feminine Mystique in order to establish an intimate yet professional relationship with her argument that is visible to her readers. Her individual connection with the feminine mystique is spilled throughout the pages of the work, portraying her own personal opinion: “I never knew a woman, when I was growing up, who used her mind, played her part in the world, and also loved, and had children” (Friedan 130). Not only does this get Friedan’s point across regarding the limits to which women have always been bound, but it shows her own individual struggle to reach an ideal balance of being loved and needed, while also not wanting “to marry a man and keep his house for him and be the mother of his children and nothing else” (Arthur et al 259). Friedan even admits to relating a magazine writers’ meeting’s dialogue to a Nazi German phrase, “ ‘Kinder, Kuche, Kirche,’ the slogan by which the Nazis decreed that women must once again be confined to their biological role” (Friedan 85). By revealing her personal feelings about the argument, the readers feel as if they too share an intimacy with her, now that she has publicized her thoughts. In addition, Friedan’s interviews with real-life women affected by the mystique provides reliable insight to her argument as a whole. The women who experienced the enigma all felt that they had “no personality…nothing to look forward to” (65) and that they “just don’t feel alive” (66). Friedan explains that the magazines that were popular at the time were constantly “offering technological advice on finding greater fulfillment through sex” (67) as if it could not be obtained any other way. Her anecdotes prove that not only does she recognize this mystique as a problem requiring attention, but that others as well feel the same way. Friedan does an effective job convincing her readers of the ridiculousness of how women lived solely as housewives in the 1950’s and how it negatively affected them; her argument is exposed through varying tones, appeals to her readers’ logic and morals, and personal and public anecdotes.

Although its rhetoric is especially productive in eliciting comprehension and agreement from the readers, The Feminine Mystique’s argument is controversial in general. The book “effectively brought women to a consciousness of their historical oppression” (Cotkin 265), but it was also thought that the piece deserved a fair share of criticism, as it “did distort reality” (Arthur et al 265). Many non-white critical readers thought that her message was limited only to her own perception of the matter, to the white-middle class women, and to an imaginary “utopian community where the exercise of choice is bountiful and joyous” (Cotkin 274). Others who sought comfort thought that the book “helped women to understand that their existential unease with the narrow lives they were living was not the result of neurosis” (Felder 102), meaning Friedan accomplished her goal for a good amount of her readers. Of course, the work did lead an epic aftermath, having the reading women “see[ing] [them]sel[ves] on every page” (Cotkin 282), and many agreeing that “[n]o written work in the history of feminist thought has sounded the clarion call for change in status with as much reverberating success” (Felder 101) as The Feminine Mystique.

“Beneath the sophisticated trappings, [the mystique] simply makes certain concrete, finite, domestic aspects of feminine existence…into a religion, a pattern by which all women must now live or deny their femininity” (Friedan 92).

Betty Friedan’s literary works and actions in the feminist movement, including the creation of National Organization for Women, affected history to become what it is today and helped shaped her into the celebrated figure of feminine freedom for which she is known. In addition to The Feminine Mystique, Friedan’s other works following her first success, including The Second Stage and The Fountain of Age, became a knit seam of her contentious, yet impressively impacting legacy. The Second Stage was published in 1981 in order to heighten women’s understanding and change inspired by The Feminine Mystique (Cotkin 252) by sharing a less controversial “reformist view on feminism based on acceptance of men and the family in women’s quest for equality” (Felder 102), yet was considered very hypocritical from “critics who felt that the author had strayed from the basic goals of the movement“ (103). In comparison, The Fountain of Age, which was less read, presented the unfair treatment towards people over sixty-five, and was arguably a continuation of The Feminine Mystique (Cotkin 271).

Friedan’s actual impacts on society were vastly acknowledged by women and feminists across the nation; not only did she “create a social movement, [but she] publicized it at a crucial time” (Arthur et al 265). The movement inspired by The Feminine Mystique, which was seen as a “unifying force in the second wave of twentieth-century feminism” (Felder 102), changed pop culture (Tobias 69) and had an immediate effect on society; “[b]y 1970, 50% of all women were working” (Tobias 87) and the percentage of children in the U.S. with mothers in the work force soared from 39% in 1970 to 61% in 1990 (Arthur et al 281). Many would agree her book was the start of the feminist movement (Felder 101), but Friedan’s example of enthusiasm and stability as a woman in addition to her “consciousness-raising” (Tobias 86), helped housewives become “readier than they might have been to consider themselves ‘oppressed’…and not simply ‘discriminated against’” (72).

.

A concrete example of Friedan’s legacy is the National Organization for Women, which she founded and served president as in 1970, for six years (Felder 100). What started out as a small collection of feminists and their supporting colleagues, ended up having twelve hundred members and several widespread chapters across the U.S. (Tobias 85). Fighting for equality-endorsing movements, N.O.W pushed for the Equal Rights Amendments and the Repeal Abortion Laws to pass (Arthur et al 276); all the while, Betty Friedan still toured across the country with her book to lecture on her yearning urge for equal treatment for women.

Yet, all of Friedan’s successes did not ultimately end with the elimination of gender-induced discrimination from her country; she also became a widely recognized feminist movement icon, emerging as a “leading figure in the women’s liberation movement” (Felder 102). Her impact and novel not only shaped modern America, but gave her a reputation being known as “easily the most famous living American at the height of her gusto” (Arthur et al 270). Friedan is set into a collection of treasured women who have helped the nation obtain women’s equal rights, such as Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger, and in fact, is credited for instigating the Second Wave of the feminist movement.

Without the feminist movement, equality and freedom among women in America would not exist as it is known today, if any existed at all. Yet without Betty Friedan, the movement itself would arguably not have come to pass either. Due to her formative years as a child and student in an era of political chaos and a cut-short family life, Friedan’s beliefs were molded for the ultimate spark of the feminist movement-- The Feminine Mystique. Her argument regarding unfulfilled housewives’ indignation and how to change their status was argued through varying tones of the narrator, factual and personal evidence, and elaborately weaved comparisons to open women’s eyes to their oppression and potentials. Not only did her novel ignite the feminist movement, but also it aided in the creation of the National Women’s Organization as well as Betty Friedan’s influential fame.

Works Cited

Anthony, Arthur et al. Twelve Great Clashes That Shaped Modern America. USA: Long Man, 2006.

Cotkin, George. Existential America. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Felder, Deborah G. The 100 Most Influential Women of all Time. Seaucus, N.J: Carol, 1996.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. NYC: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Tobias, Sheila. Faces of Feminism. Boulder, Westview Press, 1997.

Annotated Bibiography

Anthony, Arthur et al. Twelve Great Clashes That Shaped Modern America. USA: Long Man, 2006.

A collection of significant oppositions that helped shape America today.

Cotkin, George. Existential America. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003.

A book on how several historic American issues linked to Existentialism.

Felder, Deborah G. The 100 Most Influential Women of all Time. Seaucus, N.J: Carol, 1996.

Biographies and brief overviews of historically famous American women.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. NYC: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Friedan’s most influential and read novel.

---. Beyond Gender. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997.

Friedan’s continuation of her feminist beliefs.

---. Life So Far. NY: Simon and Schuster, 2000.

An autobiography by Friedan.

---. It Changed My Life. NY: Random House, 1976.

A collection of responses to the feminist movement from Friedan’s perspective.

Heffner, Richard. As They Saw It. NY: Avalon Publishing, 2003.

A compilation of Heffner’s conversations with influential Americans.

Rountree, Cathleen. On Women Turning 70. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.

Description of several famous women’s life, loves, and relationships.

Tobias, Sheila. Faces of Feminism. Boulder, Westview Press, 1997.

A book on the feminist movements and the women who affect/initiated them.